two stories

CAITLIN UPSHALL

“Title: This is a grief I do not understand”

It’s no use trying to focus on work after about an hour, so instead, I play solitaire. I’ve changed the screen brightness, opting for the nightlight setting to be on all day. Bright lights hurt the headache I’ve carried for a month. But when I lose the game, a brightly colored notice pops up onto the screen: YOU’VE RUN OUT OF MOVES. It feels eerily applicable.

ii.

I flinch at every phone call. When the landline rings and it’s another telemarketer, I disconnect the phone. I ask the hospital not to call me when she dies. My family tells me that someone else will get the call when she dies. Everyone turns on their ringer.

I try to eat something. I try to sleep. I turn my ringer off.

When she dies, I get the call.

iii.

I share a piece of writing a month before she dies, resolving to be kind in the moments where she cannot. When I visit her in the hospital, I try to be kind. It does not fix anything.

iv.

People keep saying ‘sorry for your loss.’ I want to tell them that it’s not my loss. That I never knew her in a way that makes this feel like a loss. The eulogy praises the relationship she had with all of us. Neighbors cry. Friends tell stories. A lamp that I was told was broken is turned on and I realize the house has never been so bright and warm.

I wonder why I could not turn on that light in her.

I wonder what switch I missed, what outlet I couldn’t find.

Weeks later out of sheer exhaustion, my body decides I need to cry, even in moments when it doesn’t make sense. The moments include: washing my hands; putting on jeans; a picture of David Bowie; being touched; red busses; not being touched; eating anything other than fruit; texting my mom; turning the pages of paperbacks; church hymns; and thinking about bats.

vi.

After I tell my family that she has died, I wait, though I’m not sure what for. I brace myself for a hug or for everyone to gather together at the kitchen table and talk. Instead, everyone distracts themselves and no one talks. Everyone separates and no one touches. I curl up behind the living room door and wait for someone to come inside and find me in their way. No one comes. No one finds me.

vii.

A friend tells me “I’m sorry for your loss” and I say “I’m not.” It’s not a lie. But it doesn’t sound like the truth, either.

viii.

I’m given first choice of her clothes. My aunt leaves them on my bed and I try on each pair of jeans, even when I can tell after unfolding them that they will not fit. Some of them have extra buttons sewn in to accommodate an anorexic body. The belts wrap around half of my waist. Some have been cut in half, with the new ends mended to look like they were always meant to be that small. I step into a pair of jeans that hardly come to my hips. I wonder if she could not love me because I could not be that small.

ix.

I change the difficulty in Solitaire. I stop wearing jeans. I burrow into my boyfriend’s arms whenever he is close. I keep my phone off when I can, let notifications pass away, crawl into isolation and cover myself with silence.

A friend tells me, “I’m sorry for your loss. I still don’t know what to say.

“Title: My Grandfather Calls Me ‘Friend’”

My grandfather calls me ‘friend’. On the car ride home, I pout, my awkward pre-teen body squishing against the seat and pressing baby fat into caveats between seat cushion and back rest.

“Papa says everyone else’s name,” I say. “Why doesn’t he say mine?”

Mom smiles at the road, quietly. When she sees that I’m still waiting for an answer one freeway exit later, she offers a less than satisfying one.

“You’re his friend.”

If I were to offer a warning before my stories it would read like a sign placed in front of a staircase:

This will take you somewhere and I cannot say you will enjoy the climb. The trees and the people will look different from the top of the stairs and when you come back down, you might still see them differently. But they are still trees. They are still people. They have not changed, not really.

You can stay up there as long as you need but, if you don’t like the view, you can come back down just as quickly and we never have to talk about it again.

I once wrote a novella. When I gave it to my grandparents, I watched their brows furrow as I explained that it took place in a sanitorium. The print was too small to read without a magnifying glass and during dinner, Grandma prayed for me to overcome my depression. Papa, though he never read it, kept it displayed prominently on the bookshelf next to his bible.

At twenty-four, I say hello and goodbye to Papa for the last time, though neither of us know it. I push my mother to the dining table first, foolishly optimistic that he will see her and make the connection that I’m her daughter. It seems to work, though she introduces herself as usual, and I slink closer. Once I come into in full view, Papa looks at me and sees me and says,

“Hello, my beautiful friend.”

And everything’s okay.

Before the open mic, I organize my poems by least to most ambiguous. The most ambiguous poems, reeking of overused metaphors and safely blurred recollections come to the front of my binder. I check—again—if the event will be broadcasted or recorded and then place sticky notes over my writing, hiding names and places and specificities.

Beneath the sticky notes are glimpses into an art gallery, and for every one messy abstract that should be left in a back room, there are five beautiful pictures that make me smile.

1. My parents divorced when I was a child.

2. My mother used to blow in my socks before I put them on so my feet would be warm.

3. My father spent hours helping me make paper dolls, using a glue gun and popsicle sticks.

4. My mother made regular pancakes on weekdays, zucchini pancakes on the weekends, and pancakes in the shape of a cartoon mice on days with bad news.

5. My father let me set up a graveyard in the garden for all the bugs killed inside of the house. He attended numerous memorials and always gave short speeches when prompted.

6. My parents once put down a blue blanket on the living room floor and laid beside me while I pointed at the ceiling and pretended we could see the stars. We could always see the stars.

The nurses bus from table to table, mimicking stimulating conversation with the most lucid residents, while my mother spoon-feeds a blind man nearby. She’s not a nurse and he’s not family, but it makes sense. There are few formalities here.

I keep one hand on Papa’s arm as I recite the familiar list of facts: where I work, where I go to school, where I live, who I’m dating, whether or not I’m happy. His skin is paper beneath my fingers and I worry that I might tear him open. When we leave, we ask if he knows who we are and he says yes. And he means it.

They are still trees. They are still people. They have not changed, not really.

I climb the stairs that day and look down at Papa as he walks through the trees into a clearing. He wears a plaid shirt and his clerical collar and, together, it looks stupid, but perfect. My grandfather kept my writing even when he didn’t understand it. He thought plaid shirts went with everything and made the best scrambled eggs in the world. He always asked if I was happy and actually waited, with intention, for an answer. My grandfather sees me and waves, and I sit at the top of the stairs until I’m ready to come down.

Caitlin Upshall (she/her/hers) holds a B.A. in English from Western Washington University and is currently based in the United Kingdom. When she's not writing, she enjoys most things dinosaur-related and trivia nights. You can find her on Instagram at @CaitlinUpshall or at www.caitlinupshall.com.

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