1000 Paper Cranes

Chapter 33 - 289

Sunday and Monday passed against my will. The sun rose and I was there to watch it from my perch on the second-floor landing. The sun sat and I was there to watch it from my perch on the second-floor landing. The world continued to turn. The clock continued to tick. Robin continued to be dead.

I lived on the couch that smelled of Robin during those days. I sat there all day and I slept there all night. I would have eaten there, had I felt the need to eat.

Apparently I was supposed to feel the need to eat, judging by the amount of food that had appeared at my house. Since the news had broken of Robin's death, visitors had shown up at our door in droves, each dropping off casseroles or pies or puddings or homemade bread. The kitchen was overflowing with aluminum pans full of unidentifiable substances covered with cheese. That was how grieving worked in the South. When someone was sad, they were fed. And by the amounts of food that had been delivered, everyone I knew had suspected just how sad I was.

My parents spent hours with me on the landing, saying nothing. They didn't know what to say. Nobody knew what to say. Marguerite rarely left my side. My parents fed her and bathed her as I sat catatonic, smelling in the last traces of Robin left in my house.

My cranes sat in a discarded rainbow pile on the floor beside the couch. Once my dad tried to pick them up for me, but Mom just cleared her throat and shook her head. She didn't know what they were, but she knew they were sacred.

When Tuesday rolled around, Mom gently shook me awake.

"Sweetie, why don't you go bathe. I'm not sure the last time you did that." She laid a pile of clothes beside me on the couch.

To be fair, I wasn't sure when I had last showered, either. Friday morning, maybe? Maybe. Definitely not Saturday or Sunday or Monday. I was starting to smell stale, like sweat and tears and general filth. The pig had bathed more recently than I had. I nodded, scratched Marguerite's head, and stood. And then I thought about going into my room again and froze.

"I don't want to use my bathroom," I said sheepishly. I knew it was irrational. I knew that at some point I was going to have to face the pictures of Robin and the books of Robin's and the fading existence of Robin. But I wasn't ready, yet.

"I know, baby," Mom kissed my forehead in that magical healing way that mothers do. "I've already run you a bath in ours. I know you don't usually take bubble baths, but I thought soaking in the hot water might do you some good."

When I entered my parents' enormous bathroom, I was enveloped by the smell of vanilla and lavender. Almost immediately, I felt the tension in my neck and back and legs and shoulders release. When I slipped into the hot water, at last, I felt the all of my muscles unspool. I hadn't realized just how tense I had become. For a long time I just sat in the sudsy water, my head leaned back against the edge of the tub. I thought about nothing; I just focused on the hot water and the quiet room and the steam and the suds and the vanilla and lavender.

I breathed in deep and plunged myself under the water. I thought I could stay there forever. I thought if I just stayed there, suspended in water, suspended in time, nothing else could ever happen. I wouldn't have to face Robin's visitation that night. I wouldn't have to endure her funeral the next day. I could just stay there, under the hot water and let the world pass me by. But eventually my lungs couldn't last any longer and I slowly pushed myself back above the water.

At some point the water turned cold and the suds dissipated and I was forced to accept that there was life outside of the bathtub. I slunk out of the tub and got dressed. My mom was on her bed when I entered their room. I don't know why, but I found myself curling up in the bed next to her. I rolled onto my shoulder and looked at her for a minute. She looked sad. She looked tired. She looked all the things I felt.