1994 1

There were thirty-two people at the celebration of my mothers life.

At first I thought I wouldnt be able to count them because I had to sit on the front row
with my Dad and the Step-Wife and my great aunt, who looked extra grey that morning. But I
kept hearing them shuffle in behind me. It was driving me crazy, hearing the whispers and not
seeing the faces. So I hiked up my khaki slacks and did a full turn in my seat, tucked my legs up
against the back of the once-plush, maroon and unfamiliar church pew, and I counted themall
sitting upright in ancient rows identical to mine, as stiff as dried out dish towels. Faces as neutral
and monotonous as the sound of their feet shuffling into the church moments before.
What are you doing? my dad whispered out of the corner of his mouth. He continued to
look straight ahead at the casket, which was situated next to an old lady playing an out-of-tune
organ. It seemed clich even then. My dads aftershave was stinging my nose. On the way here,
the Step-Wife had mentioned how nice he smelled. I told him I was counting.
Counting what? Still not looking at me, but leaning slightly.
The people, Dad.
Ok, he said. Can it wait? he said.
No.
I counted thirty-two mostly strangers. Outside of my Aunt Dolores and her children, the
relatives there were the kind you only see when people die or get married; Mom was an onlychild, and my grandparents were dead before I got to sit on Grandpas lap and watch the Bears
play on outdated TV sets or decorate sugar cookies with Grandma. The things I did with Dads
parents before I moved to trashy Chicago with Mom. The rest of the people scattered
throughout Gardner United Methodist with its scrappy pews and hopeless organ were strangers

1994 2

to me. They were not at my birthday parties as a child. They didnt come drink apple cider on
Christmas Eve with Mom, Aunt Dolores, and me. They definitely didnt make appearances at the
hospital when Mom got Critical. The thirty-two faces staring at me, whispering, were nameless.
Separate.
That was two months ago. The moon is waning gibbous tonight, but no one is here to see
it except me. Most of the suburbs in Edison Park are nice and neat with little playgrounds
positioned among the perfect houses with perfect porches that give perfect views of the moon.
The stoop of my house in Lyons was leaning and the door was cracked, and instead of fixing it,
Mom and I stuffed notes in the cracks. We called it interoffice mail. You cant really see the
cosmos from that stoop, not without a load of smog between you and them. But, if you time it
right, you can catch the principal of my high school leaving the convenient store across the street
with a Chicago tribune and a black bag with a cork sticking out the top. The convenient stores
here dont use black bags.
When the moon was full a few days ago, people would come out onto their porches
surrounding the park to look at it briefly. They also came out when it was a new moon a little
while back. They dont come out for the in-between phases. People dont come out to see the
moon when its losing parts of itself. They only come when its full. Or when its gone.

Im in Teds office. Hes the psychiatrist the Step-Wife insisted I see after my mom died.
Shes afraid Im having trouble connecting with people here. She probably thinks that because
Im having trouble connecting with people here.
Ted has orange hair and glasses that look like the ones people wear when they dont
actually need glasses. He has four beige chairs and a beige couch in his beige office. He sits

1994 3

somewhere different each time we meet. Today, hes on the couch. I take the chair closest to the
door. Ted watches me sit and writes something in his notebook. He asks me what I want to talk
about. I dont want to talk about anything.
I dont know, I say.
He takes off his glasses suddenly like he just remembered that taking them off would
make me want to speak. You like science, huh? Lets talk about science.
What about it?
Teach me something. Hes relaxed now, glasses off, heel propped up on one knee, arms
resting in his lap.
Ok. I think about it. Ted is flicking his glasses with his thumb.
It can be anything, he says, the frames in his hand clicking with each flick of his
thumb. I nod. Im thinking.
He opens his mouth, but before he can assure me of the anythingness that my brief
science lesson can be, I decide on what to say.
You arent touching your glasses.
Hmm, Ted says. Explain.
Its atoms, I begin. They dont have hard surfaces. I remember the lesson from the
last week of biology I had at my old school. The week Mom got Critical. Ted is squinting and
kind of nodding slowly. I keep going. Atoms arent solid. Theyre like electron-filled clouds.
And the electrons in your hand, I point to his hand, where his thumb has stopped flicking the
glasses, are repelling the electrons in your specs.
Ted has finally understood. So, essentially, no one is ever touching anything.

1994 4

Then I remember the Critical week, sitting in the blueish room with her under the thin
blankets. She had looked up at me once, over a thick, dark green bowl of untouched chicken
noodle soup and an enormous cup of ice. I noticed her collar bones. Id never noticed them
before, but there they were, little empty shelves in the middle of yellowing wallpaper. Her eyes
were dark. Her dark hair looked even darker, and wet, but she hadnt washed it in days. There
were tubes and wires and needles and a relentless drip drip. She lifted her arm off the tray
slightly. I grabbed it. She was solemn, about to tell me something. I shut the TV off.
Nick, she started with her newly hoarse voice. I held myself still. Nick, you look like
shit. Then she smiled. It wasnt a big smile, but it was a smile. My hair had probably been
unwashed as long as hers, and I was wearing a white t-shirt, the one that usually goes under my
clothes. There was a grease stain on it from where I had wiped my hand after eating a Pecan
Spinwheel from the vending machine earlier. I was marked by Lil Debbie. I did look like shit.
We laughed, then. Short and hard. We held onto the laughter as tightly as we could. It was
not going to stay. We knew that. Afterward, we sat there. Holding hands, her blueish fingers
under mine. She died the following evening.
Ted is waiting on my reply. I shrug, and we dont talk about it for the rest of the session.

That last week of my biology class at my old school when we talked about atoms, a girl
named Kennedy started crying. She sat behind me. We talked once when she asked what page we
were on in the textbook. She wore her hair in a braid every day, and I was extremely aware of the
cowlick at the crown of my head with her sitting behind me.
When Kennedy started crying, Mr. Young was showing a video of two science professors
arguing about the ability of atoms to touch. She sniffled softly a few times and followed-up with

1994 5

a loud sob. A soap-opera sob. Mr. Young was at his desk. He looked up, eyes wide, scanning the
room for the source of that horrible wail. The entire class stared straight at Kennedy.
This is awful, she said in between hiccups.
Mr. Young opened and closed his mouth twice. Then: Kennedy, are you okay?
No, she said. Hiccup. No, we have to touch. We have to be able to touch. Her tears
were spreading around the horses on the front of her faded blue t-shirt. Suddenly, she was a
child.
Mr. Young was still wide-eyed. Still opening and closing his mouth. Still trying and
failing to say anything that would mean anything to her. Theyre just theories, Kennedy. You
can side with either professor.
Kennedy looked at the table while she wiped her eyes with some tissues a girl passed
down from the end. This is awful, she saidkept saying. This is awful.
Later, I sat with my friend Jack at lunch. He ate a square slice of pizza while telling me
that he had heard that Kennedy was adopted, grew up abused by her biological father. Rescued
by her new family. I dont know if it was true or not. I looked up and found her across the
cafeteria sitting with other girls who wore their hair in braids and ate lunchables from pink lunch
boxes.
If it was true, I understand. It's nice to think that some sort of contact can fix the bad, that
a touch can undo another touch. That we arent separate.

There is a new moon tonight, and everyone is out to see it. Dad and the Step-Wife are
sitting on the porch in chairs that never get used. Im on the steps. Ive been getting used to the

1994 6

way they feel beneath me, flat, not bumpy and cracked like the stoop in Lyons I probably wont
sit on again. Im coming to terms with that.
Its Friday, so there is no curfew, no rush to sink into unconsciousness. It smells like
burning things, like a barbecue. We are here to see an empty sky.
Its cool out and orange. The leaves are different than they were last week, changing
quickly, rushing into a winter they aren't ready for. The sun is almost completely sunk. I wonder
if I can keep from blinking until its gone. I have on my khaki shorts, which are starting to get
less loose on me, and a long-sleeve t-shirt from the track team at my old school. A neighbor
waves, says hi Bill and Jen. Hi Nick. My dad and the Step-Wife, Jen as I'm beginning to call her,
take turns saying hello back. Im trying to learn the names of all these people, trying to stop
looking at them as one collective Neighbor.
When the sun has finished setting, Jen runs inside to get mugs and hot chocolate that
shes been heating in her crock-pot. There are stars in the sky but, as expected, no moon. Im
looking for it, though. Looking for the outline, remembering the phases from sixth-grade science,
willing it to wax crescent as quickly as the leaves in the trees around these perfect houses turned
from green to orange to brown.
Jen hands me a mug, folding a blonde wisp of hair behind her ear as she warns me that
it's hot. She offers me marshmallows that I do not take. Mom and I only ever used the Swiss Miss
packets that came with their own marshmallows. We heated up plastic cups of water in the
microwave and stirred our packets in, watching the little marshmallows dissolve. There were
never enough, and we never cared. We dove right in, never remembering that the first sip always
scalded our tongues.

1994 7

Im searching the sky, and I think I can see it. The outline of the moon. When I squint, its
there.
Do you guys see that?
See what? asks Jen.
The moon, I say.
Jen laughs, decidedly. My dad makes some sort of grunting noise, but hes squinting
when I look up at him. Hes looking for it. The moon is up there still. I can see the outline.
Everyone is here because its gone, because the sky is empty. But its not. Not really.