The Mo(u)rning Letters - Chapter Three: Home Away from Home

BOOK CLUB, July 2010, by Jenny McWha

LAST TIME… In Chapter 2 (Going, Going, Gone), Eleanor went to school but couldn’t find the heart to care. She thought about Susannah’s friendship, and then got worried when she realized how worried Benjamin was about her. Worried about their daughter, Eleanor’s parents decided to send her to a live-in grief therapy program, which Eleanor agreed to. Benjamin tells Susannah about Eleanor leaving, and Susannah noticed how rough he looked without his sister.

The Mo(u)rning Letters

Chapter Three:
Home Away from Home

December 12th
Shannon Mayfair Home for the Grieving

Dear Benjamin,

How are you?

I wonder why we feel that we have to start letters that way. Is it to make up for all the time we spend talking about ourselves through the rest of the letter? It must be. I hope everything is fine at home because it’s not so good with me. Just writing this letter I’m already close to bawling. But don’t worry- it hasn’t happened yet. All I’ve done so far is have tears streaming down my face. I am a true watering pot, as a regency lady would write. I’m sure you can see the stains all over this letter.

I don’t know why I feel I have to tell you these things, when I know perfectly well that I’ll just worry you. You’re that kind of person, even if you don’t know it. But I can always tell, because it looks like your eyebrows desperately want to become one whenever you worry. So stop. I know you’re doing it right now.

I’m not really ready to tell you what goes on here, Benjamin. Just know that every day things seem to get a little better. Don’t expect any big changes though. I have a lot to get over. Maybe I’ll tell you one thing, though. My therapist’s name is Hannah. I don’t know what to think of her yet.

Give Suse a hug for me and tell Cornelia I love her. Tell me about everything that’s happened. I feel like life should just stand still when I’m not there, but I know that’s now how things work.

Love,
Eleanor

AS ELEANOR walks through the cheery yellow hallway of her ‘home away from home’—as the pamphlet says—she regrets her decision to come here. The walls are blinding, the staff are so chipper and welcoming that she avoids them at every turn, and everyone is as sad and pitiful as she is. Her roommate is a seventeen year old girl who tried to commit suicide after her boyfriend was killed in a car accident last year. Eleanor tries to talk to her (Georgia), but she just turns her back and begins crying. That’s when Eleanor doesn’t know what to do. Everyone here walks around in dazes, some crying at the smallest mention of anything. Eleanor realizes that it could be worse for her. At least she knew that Beth was dying. There’s even a university student in here whose girlfriend was raped and murdered. Eleanor gets more depressed just being around them all. But knowing this doesn’t help, doesn’t make the pain less or the hole in her heart any smaller. She glues it up every year but it never fails to rip open again.

She opens a door to her left and enters. She’s in a room with bright murals painted on all four walls; pictures of people hugging, sunsets, rainbows, and names written in large print. When she was going on the tour, the tour guide told her when some patients left, they liked to write the name of the person who died on the wall. Eleanor doesn’t know if she wants every person who walks in here to see Beth’s name written in hot pink paint.

“Eleanor, you’re here!”

Eleanor looks to the source of the voice. It’s Hannah, her group counselor. She’ll also meet Eleanor in private about 3 times a week. Eleanor can’t wait. Why in the world did she agree to come here?

She sits down, glancing at the other faces in the circle. There’s Georgia, and some other people she recognizes from her orientation. Some look like they’re really lost, while others look like they’re about ready to go home. Eleanor hopes that she’ll be like that soon. She wants to be so badly. She tries to remind herself that coming here was good, it was the right thing to do.

“Everyone, let’s say hello to our newest friend, Eleanor.”

“Hello, Eleanor.”

Eleanor feels uncomfortable. “Um, you can just call me Nora, if you’d like.” Why did she say that? Only her close friends and family call her that. Even her parents usually call her Eleanor. Beth was the one who started calling her that. Eleanor thought she wouldn’t want to share that with the rest of the world.

“Well, shall we begin then?”

Hannah looks towards the boy to her right, probably around twelve years old. “Carl, would you like to share your story for Eleanor?”

“Well, my mother died in a shooting at the school she worked at in the States a year and a half a go. After, my dad moved us up here.”

Everyone went around the circle, sharing their stories. It was depressing. Finally, the girl beside Eleanor finished.

“Would, you like to share your story, Eleanor?” Hannah asks.

Eleanor nearly jumps out of her skin. She wasn’t expecting this, not at all. Her thoughts start to swirl and she can hardly speak. “Um, well….”

“You don’t have to share yet if you don’t want to. But we’d like you to try by the end of the week.”

It hardly reaches Eleanor’s muddled brain, but she finally understands. “Thank you.” She wants to run back to her room and cry and cry and cry. Add some more moisture to that letter she was writing for Benjamin.

“No worries. We’re here to help, Eleanor. We want you to feel better.”

Eleanor nods. She wonders if she’ll ever feel better.

Everyday for the next six days she can’t get the words out that she knows she has to say. All she can do is listen to others work their way to getting over things, while she just stands stationary. But standing still means I don’t have to face it, she thinks. She knows that Hannah would tell her that this is not the way to think of things, but Eleanor doesn’t care.

It’s on the sixth day that she gets the courage.

“Would you like to share why you’re here, Eleanor?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead. We’re all listening. Remember, Eleanor, we’re not here to judge.”

“Well, I’m here because of… Beth.” She pauses and looks around. None of the faces looking at her have judgment in their eyes. “Beth and I became best friends in kindergarten, and stayed that way forever.” She smiles, thinking of that day. “When we were in seventh grade, though, Beth got—” She can’t say it. She hasn’t said this word since Beth. Hannah smiles at her, a comforting smile. She looks around the circle again. “Brain cancer. She was pretty good that year; she stayed in school and even went into remission that summer. We thought everything would be fine. Then, in eighth grade, the cancer came back. It was worse that time, much worse. By the end of the year, Beth was in the hospital all the time, and then…” Face it, Eleanor. “She went brain dead that summer. She was pretty much gone, but I remember believing that she’d come back. She didn’t. That December Beth—died. I don’t know why, but it was just so hard for me. I got depression and went to a bunch of counselors. They said they would have put me on medication if I were older. One day, all my good friends just stopped talking to me. I’d try to talk to them, but they’d never look me in the eyes. Life got pretty bad then.”

The next day, she tells them about Susannah, about how great a friend she is. She’s startled when Hannah asks her if she thinks Susannah isn’t a good enough friend as Beth. Eleanor’s never thought of that before. She has to think for a minute before she hesitantly answers.

“No, I don’t think that, not at all. It’s like when you’re little, and you seem to have a new best frind every few years. No one is better than the others, but they’re different, and you love them each in their own ways. I don’t know how bad I would have gotten if Susannah wasn’t there for me—isn’t there for me now. Right, Susannah is still around. “I think—no, I know—that I would be… like this… all year if it wasn’t for Susannah… and my brother.”

Before Eleanor leaves the group session, Hannah stops her.

“I just want you to know, Eleanor, that what you realized today is a very wonderful step in the healing process. It is so important when we realize that we may have lost someone, but we still have so many great and caring people surrounding us. You should be proud of yourself.”

A smile comes to Eleanor’s face just as she begins to cry. Hannah gathers her up in a hug, and Eleanor is glad for the human contact that she’s been longing for the last couple of weeks. It can be lonely in a place where everyone is stuck in grief. Mourning. People used to wear black for whole year after someone died. Some widows never took their widows weeds off, Hannah told her when they were playing cards one day. Is that what Eleanor is doing? Wrapping her mind in black instead of her body? Would Beth even have wanted that?

Eleanor tells the group something every day. She’s astonished of what comes out of her mouth, the things that she just lets go. Every day it feels like ten pound weights are being lifted, sometimes gone forever, sometimes only to return that night when she hears Georgia saying the name of her dead boyfriend in her sleep. She talks about Cornelia, how she wishes that her sister hadn’t been betrayed by her supposed soul mate. She talks about Benjamin, her hero, and all the girlfriends that he brings home. She talks about her parents, how they’re there, but not, and how she’s always been closer to her siblings. It feels nice to have it out. She didn’t realize all that she’s been keeping bottled up, not letting out to anyone, even Susannah or Cornelia. Eventually, she talks about those two horrible years, all the pain and hope and joy and loss she felt. She talks about how Beth looked after she went brain dead. Finally, Eleanor talks about how she wished her best frind had just died the first time around, so she hadn’t had to live as half a person. Eleanor felt guilty because of that, still feels guilty talking about Beth with these strangers, who have somehow become her family, replacing the one she could never talk to .

She realizes that talking is good. The pressure she has felt in her head for the last months begins lifting, and she finds herself laughing outrageously at something an old man named Toby says. The people around her laugh nervously along, but she doesn’t care, because it feels so good.

“NORA, I know I’m going to die.”

Eleanor looks up, horror warring with sadness on her face. “Don’t say that, Beth! Just don’t! You’re going to get better, the doctors are wrong! Remember last summer, how much fun we had? We had the rest of our lives ahead of us… we still do, Beth! You just can’t talk like that, like, like, you only have a little while. There’s no reason. We’re probably going to laugh about this years from now.”

“Nora, Nora! I’m not scared. Look at me, Nora. Maybe there is a God, like my stupid parents keep telling me, and he just wants me back earlier. Something’s wrong with my packaging, right? Maybe he just wants to fix me up and send me off again. Oh Nora, don’t cry!”

“You can’t say that, Beth! You just can’t! There’s nothing wrong with you, nothing at all! You’ll get though this, you have to!”

Eleanor’s weeping now, great wracking sobs, fists clenched, banging Beth’s hospital bed. It has an ugly pink blanket on it with a strange brown stain on the bottom right corner, near the worn tag.

Eleanor lets out a great sob and runs from the room.

Beth watches her leave, her eyes tired. She seems to have aged a hundred years in only a few months. Her bouncy blonde hair that never saw a hairbrush is gone, and her skin is grey and practically translucent. That same sparkle is still in her eyes though; that same mischievous twinkle that marks this stranger as Beth.

Benjamin comes out of the corner of the room, ready to leave. Eleanor asked him to walk her to the hospital after school, and he was glad to oblige. He doesn’t know how it happened, but sometime in the last eight years Beth has become his friend, too. He turns toward the door and glances one more time at Beth. What he sees in her eyes makes him turn back.

“Beth, are you okay?”

She turns her eyes on him, green with a touch of gray. Her voice shakes. “I’m just a little scared, Benjamin.”

And that’s when that expression in her eyes travels towards her whole face. Benjamin can see it—carefully repressed fear. Hidden from her parents, from her younger sisters, from Eleanor. He knows she has to be strong for them, knows that she wants to lift that one little burden off their shoulders. This is the only time she can let her guard down, show that she’s not the brave, loud, independent girl Benjamin thought she always was.

Benjamin doesn’t know what to say. Instead of talking, he sits on the edge of her bed, taking her cold hand. She makes a bad attempt at a smile.

“Can I ask you something, Benjamin?”

“Anything.”

She pauses a long time, apparently trying to find words. “You know, this whole death thing,” She laughs nervously, but quickly becomes serious again. I just… well… I’ve, umm… never been…well…kissed… and I was maybe wondering…”

Before she can finish, before Benjamin even as time to think, he has lowered his head and placed his mouth on hers. Her lips are soft but firm, tender and a little hungry. After a moment, he softly pulls away, looking at the girl before him. Nothing like Cassidy, his current girlfriend. But she has some beauty that he never noticed before, even with her bald head and translucent skin. Before him sits the strongest girl he knows, one ready to look death in the face and dare it to do its worst.

“Thank you,” she whispers, a small smile playing on those beautiful lips.

He leaves after that, goes on a search for Eleanor. The next week, Beth goes brain dead.

Benjamin wakes in a cold sweat, tears dripping down his face.

“Oh, Beth.”

…

Home

Dear Eleanor,

Remember how much you loved Grandpa’s old typewriter in the basement when you were little? You would spend hours down here, just typing away. Usually, you’d only have a paragraph, but you were so proud! So I decided to write this letter to you on the typewriter. It still works, isn’t that amazing? I guess they just don’t make things how they used to.

I’m fine, and you know I’m fine. I don’t know why you start letters that way, because I certainly don’t. Ha. Ha. I guess all I can write is the news from home.

Dad just got promoted. I know that doesn’t sound at all exciting, but it’s there. Mom was so happy she nearly had a heart attack, but we’re going out to a nice dinner tonight to celebrate. Cornelia’s doing well, and the fetuses (is that how you say it?) are fine too. She’s only broken down a couple of times: once when dad accidentally mentioned Billy, and another time when mom asked how in the world Cornelia was going to support two babies on her own. That woman can be absolutely horrible sometimes. I guess I should stop on this subject, or I may commit a murder. I’m sorry, but I still haven’t really forgiven them for sending you away. The house just feels so empty without you. Cornelia sends her love and tells me to tell you not to worry about her. All that she’s really dealing with is her weird food cravings, which requires me to rush her over to the Baskin Robins to fill her craving for double fudge chocolate peanut butter raspberry ice cream.

Oops, I guess I forgot to tell you. Cornelia’s come back home, at least until she’s off maternity leave. Billy’s support payments as well as her maternity leave cannot possibly support her and two babies. Mom and dad think it’s for the best, and it’s been nice having Cornelia here to talk to sometimes. I’ve also been talking to Susannah a lot. She can be a good friend, I see now why you hang out with her. She really misses you, you know. Maybe you could scrounge your pennies and send her a letter. She’d really like that, you know.

I can’t believe you’ll be back in three days. I’ve really missed you, Nora. And even though I know you’ll have to go back once Christmas is over, you’ll be back here, and I’ll be able to look after you. I know that you don’t need looking after, but I need to do it anyways. I love you, Nora.

Love,
Benjamin

ps: I need to tell you. I dreamt of Beth the other night. It was… from the week before she went away. I want to tell you all about it, but I don’t know if you can take it. Love ya.

Stay tuned for chapter 4 next month!!

~ Jenny