Disposable

By Vickie Wippel

          I shaved my legs. I kept the water on-- a luxury, of course, but that morning, I tolerated little, drought, or otherwise. Let Eliot measure his life in coffee spoons. I measured mine in pink, disposable razors. Twenty-four. Two per month since Mom died. Not quite heirloom quality, but neither was the gold. Mostly old dental fillings. I grabbed the bonus pack just before the realtor and stagers dismantled her memories with every rented pillow they poofed up on the couch. They would have just thrown the razors away. “No personal touches,” they kept reminding me. But to me, it was all personal.
          I shut the water off. The bathroom air hung hot and heavy from running the shower too long. It felt like Florida; we spent a week there when I was ten, and I always remembered the wet, suffocating air. One year ago today, Mom died. And, just like that humid coastal air that clung to me like a soaked shirt, the act of breathing-- in, out, in, out-- provided no relief. Mom! Please don’t go! Please don’t leave me! I love you! Please don’t go! A puddle of tears left on a cold hospital floor. If she heard me, Mom would have been embarrassed by my wet, wailed goodbyes. 
          A year ago today, everyone held me too long, clutching too tightly to something that might break. The hot shower water drowned—no, it burned—it burned through memories of throw-away words delivered to the grieving like funeral wreathes. Life is so fragile everyone said. And, of course, people were just so sorry.
          A year ago today, I kissed my mother’s cooling lips while a patient one room over scrapped the last bites of apple cobbler that came with his lunch. A janitor tiptoed in to change the trash but didn’t bother to knock. Just yesterday, stopped at a red light, I watched Animal Control shovel a raccoon off a busy street. The officer flipped it into the back of the truck like a burger on a grill. How many cars drove over the body? Somebody should have stopped. Tire tracks, indifference, made the lifeless body look like a rigid piece of particle board-- not fragile at all. There was no ceremony-- the worker didn’t even wear gloves.
          And today. Today, those same people who hugged me too tightly will go to Starbucks, check the weather, walk the dog. Maybe they will garden or match a basket of socks. Somebody should stop. Things should stop. Spheres off their axis should not spin. The cat I adopted in my fever of grief slept on top of clothes I had laid out on the bed; her white paws, comically big, looked like snow mittens covering her face. Work clothes now covered in fur. Indeed, there would be no ceremony.
          The cat woke and went to my lap as I put on shoes, checking the time, hurrying. When I was a little girl, Mom was always last to pick up at preschool. Her banker’s heels made a distinct click-clack on the commercial-grade linoleum as she raced in before closing. Her walk sounded like a cook chopping carrots, with each step echoing through the quiet that filled an otherwise empty classroom. Sometimes, I was fooled by teachers’ aides slamming kid-sized chairs onto the tops of tiny tables. But not often. And, each time she walked through the doorway, stopping at the clipboard to sign her name in a squiggle while I fumbled with backpack straps, relief would flow through me. I was not forgotten, and we could go home. Like a church ritual, she’d grab my hand, take my backpack, and say, smiling, “There’s my girl!” I’d skip ahead to our beat-up, wood-paneled station wagon, and, if I was lucky, we’d have spaghetti for dinner. Mom died wearing hospital socks. Soft, slouchy, slip proof. The clack of her heels a shuffle across the sheets.
          Still sitting on the bed, I cried with the memory; the cat lazed away. Mom should still be here using her own goddamn razors, I thought, using the back of my hand to dry my face. But I was late for work. The world had moved on. Grabbing my things, I put fresh water in the cat bowl and closed and locked the door. The click of my heels echoed down the hall to the elevator.
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