What A Kiss Is

Chapter Five

Five

I’ve gotten calls or texts from almost all my close friends in New York. Everyone from the Today Show has sent me an email or left a message on my phone. The president of NBC called me to give his condolences. I don’t want any of it. I just want my mom. All of it fades into the minutes and hours, and seconds, and little bits of time that don’t mean anything anymore.

I’m living half in the real world, just enough to function, and half in a world where I’m heading to New York to find Mom and to know that this is all a big mistake.          

We’re on the plane. The air smells like we’re being canned. Dad’s asleep in the seat next to me. I drink the whiskey he left on the tray in front of him. He cut his hair and even had his beard trimmed. He still looks eccentric, but in a good way. In a way that makes him look like a writer of something other than cheap mystery novels.

My chest is scraped, hollowed. My brain can’t focus. The pain makes it all so much more real. I don’t want real.

How will I stay with Dad in Mom’s apartment? Where will he sleep? The couch? Even the guestroom feels like an odd place for him to be, but I guess that’s where he’ll end up. What am I going to do with myself in New York?

I scroll through the texts on my phone, even though I’m not supposed to while flying. What are they going to do? Kick me off the plane?

I stop at the one from Amber. The girl I barely know, but who also has this weird inside track on me because I can’t keep my mouth shut around her.

I KNOW I DON’T KNOW YOU THAT WELL. BUT YOU CAN CALL ME OR TEXT ME ANYTIME K? I CAN’T IMAGINE NOT HAVING MY MOM.

I blink back tears at the simplicity of her words. Yeah. That makes two of us.

- - -

Dad’s eyes widen as we step out of the cab in front of my building. Mom and I live in a great place, right on Madison. And now, with the first sympathetic look from a random person walking from the building, the problem is clear. Everyone knows Mom. Everyone knows who she is. Everyone knows what happened. I get a sympathetic look from Carl, who gets the door for us. I get two sideways glances from an older lady in the elevator. Pictures of Mom and I together have been all over the TV. I caught a glimpse of our last trip to Eastern Europe while I was in the airport.

I hate twenty-four hour news networks. I wonder how many times they’ve played the story about my mom, and I wonder how many more times they’ll play it. Guess it all depends on ratings.

When I unlock the door to the apartment, its like the place already knows its unused—it feels too still inside. Dad’s silent. I would be too. What the hell do you say to your stranger son after your ex-wife dies?

There are pictures of Mom and I everywhere in here. I can’t look.

“Don’t use Mom’s room. Take the one at the end of the hall. I’m going to bed.” I don’t slow. Don’t take off my shoes. Just go to my room.

I open the door to my freshly vacuumed floor, and newly made bed. Rachel, the housekeeper, probably came, knowing I’d need to come home. I wonder if she stocked the fridge with coffee grounds and milk while she was here.

I flop on my back, stick in my headphones and crank the music as loud as I can.

- - -

The next few days go by in a haze. I take all the pictures down and put them on Mom’s bed. Then I take them off her bed and put them under her bed. If she comes home in the middle of the night, she won’t want to have to move them. I don’t touch anything on her dresser, or open her closet or bathroom door. She always gives me a hard time when I mess with her stuff.