Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19 Read Free

reflux + clamminess + room spinning equals. I totally would have made it, but Rita pulls on my arm. The dam breaks. Unspeakably gross. I actually hear a splash. Joan springs like a panther and propels me to the bathroom like mothers do. It is de finitely one of my top ten disgusting moments – in fact, next to when the hamster exploded, the most disgusting moment of my life – partly as a gastrointestinal event, partly as female bonding ritual. Every female in the building is now in this bathroom. Between rounds two and three I lock my door to keep them out of the cubicle.
    â€˜Is she all right?’
    â€˜We’re sure going to miss him.’
    â€˜It’s her birthday – ’
    â€˜Joan told me –’
    â€˜Well, he tried – ’
    â€˜Oh, honey, we’re so sorry,’ someone says to Paige.
    â€˜She had too many pancakes,’ Paige says.
    â€˜She looks so much like him.’
    I try to say, Could you leave please? It comes out like
Kwoodlepees
.
    The door swings yet again and clickety click, the sound of Rita shoes. ‘Joan, what can I do, I feel
terrible
.’
    â€˜Nothing, Rita. There is nothing you can do.’ Joan’s voice is flatter than my hair.

    â€˜George can give you a ride to the house.’
    â€˜We won’t be going to the house, Rita.’
    â€˜I will,’ I try to shout. It’s like someone cut the power. Silence.
    â€˜Dree, this is awkward?’ Paige whispers through the crack of the door.
    Joan’s right there too. ‘Honey, your –’
    â€˜Do not say birthday,’ I say.
    *
    Okay, so, hopefully, I’ll have no memory of the memorial, but you’d think it would feel significant to have your father’s ashes on your lap while sitting in the chair you helped him choose at Sears. But no. Life is totally banal and, surprise, so is death.
    Upstairs at Rita’s house, weirdly alone because Joan and Paige refused to come, I go through everything, including the computer. My backpack’s full of his magazines and office supplies, mostly paper clips which he loved and so had multiple boxes of and also his favourite pens, the Bic R 3 Fineline. I have his overdue library books and a bunch of little things and I don’t want anything uncontained so, yes, the little plaid suitcase comes with me too. It has lived on the bottom shelf of his bookcase forever, home to the most hideous art on the planet. He’d put up the clown painting every few months or the creepy sketch of death and always Joan would say, ‘For god’s sake, Leonard, take that damn thing off the wall.’ I get the worst jolt of all when I unsnap the case because now I’ll never know why he liked these pictures and also, there’s the box of teeny white envelopes he used for treasure hunt clues. Blank. I check the side pockets. I check them again. And again. I rifle through the envelopes. He was all excited when he found them at a garage sale. ‘Will you look atthese, girls? We’re in business.’ Not anymore, Dad. I take the pictures out despite deep empathy for their ugliness and leave them on the shelf for Rita.
    Another low rumbly laugh comes from the living room where George and the other Grill guys tell stories and drink George’s secret scotch out of coffee mugs. But the AA and yoga people provide the main soundtrack. They’ve merged to chant around the house with Rita. When they finish, they’ll scatter ashes. They’re almost done. I can feel them closing in.
    I pretend to be Paige and sit still, pretend he’s still here and try to absorb. There’s the tragic plaid wallpaper border I tried to talk him out of. Here’s the table he made out of a big door he found somewhere,
my most glorious find
, he called it. I scrape off the ladybug sticker on the doorknob. By tomorrow, everything that’s him will disappear. That makes me so tired. I lay my head on the keyboard. It smells