in memoriam
When I was nineteen years old, I arrived at this woman’s doorstep with a black garbage bag in my hand. I had decided, in a fit of fury, to move out of my parents’ house. This was before everyone had cell phones; she had no idea I was coming. She pulled me in the door of her 600-square-foot studio apartment, mixed me a drink, and told me to unpack.
I won’t go into why I left my parents. I was nineteen, the most insensitive, pig-headed, selfish, asshole version of myself. Everything was my fault that year.
I moved into Brandice’s tiny apartment with my few possessions: unlaundered clothing, some hairspray, a few floppy disks. A book or two; CDs without cases. I had spent the last of my money on the cab over. My life, then, consisted entirely of skipping class, working for one hour a day, and letting people buy me drinks. I call it, benignly, my “Skittles and Cigarettes” phase.
Brandice lent me her car to go to my job every day. I was a lunchtime teacher’s aide at a nearby school. She worked as that year’s Sports Editor for our student newspaper, The Gateway, earning a pittance. I wrote for the paper too, as a volunteer. On the press nights that I decided not to stick around for, I would wait at her place, cleaning up, trying to earn my keep.
At the beginning of every month, rent laid aside, she would come home, flapping her tiny cheque in the air and crying, “We’ve been paid!” I let her pay for everything.
That summer we found a house to move into. I slowly shuttled the rest of my things from my parents’ and we signed a lease on a very old house that was truly hideous to behold. Two bedrooms, a kitchen tap that didn’t work, a bathroom door that didn’t close, ominous stains on the walls, and a basement that looked like a dirt pit. But it was cheap, and it was ours.
We spent the summer fixing it up. Cleaning, sanding down the baseboards and floorboards, spackling, priming, painting (the colour we chose for the walls was Cedar Blush, beautiful terracotta). We ran around in bras and cutoffs, listening to music – I can see clearly now, the rain is gone – and dancing around with different strengths of sandpaper. We scrubbed and scrubbed.
By the fall the house was beautiful; it was our home. We talked late into every night; we planned assaults on everyone who wore yellow shell-coats. (If we’d succeeded, it would have been a high body count.) We went through what roommates go through: we fought, we made up, we crossed wires, we made up again. We were on a constant quest for action. When I was too depressed to leave the house she would drag me out bodily for a pint – Big Rock Traditional Ale was what we drank. I drank it because she liked it; we both liked the idea that we drank the same beer. I never liked it, but I loved her.
She threw me my best birthday parties, my nineteenth and twentieth. I never had birthday parties after I was twelve or thirteen because the dark side of me that only sees the tarnish was convinced that no one would show up. Brandice planned them, and brought the booze and the music, and got the lights just so, and everyone came, for her, for me.
What I did for her I don’t know. She stuck by me when I was at my least likeable and least giving. I did something, I know that, but I can’t remember what.
It ended badly. We exchanged cash for our last bills; we got places of our own, and didn’t talk for years. I tried to put it out of my head as a bad job.
And then I heard that she’d gotten married; so had I. We started writing to each other, token messages, remembering only good things. I was surprised at how good it was to talk to her again after all that time. I felt like I had more to offer. I congratulated her on her pregnancy: I saw photos that showed her happy, glowing, growing.
And now she’s gone; she died giving birth to a baby girl. A stranger wrote to tell me. At first I thought it was a joke. I couldn’t see the symmetry of it; I couldn’t compose it in my head. It is out of all reason and it isn’t natural. A healthy young woman, becoming a mother. I tried to stay angry about it and found that I couldn’t. I’m filled with maudlin gratitude that we shared so much, that I was ever able to give her anything at all. Her husband now has a beautiful daughter, a living engine of Brandice’s exuberance, energy, and strength.
Brandice Joy. She used to complain that she’d been named after a character in a soap opera, but Joy is what she was.
This hasn’t said nearly all I want to say, but I am not so worthy a wordsmith that I expected any of this to come out properly. Brandice, I miss you now, I’ll miss you tomorrow. May joy and light guide your husband and your daughter. From where I am to where you are, I send my love and gratitude.
Till next time, if God wills it, &c &c.
No related posts.
