Signs of Life Read Free Page B

it.” After reading the book, it is obvious that the epigraph speaks to the larger themes of self-discovery. The main character, Celie, is a poor black woman living in rural Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century. She is physically, sexually, emotionally, and psychologically abused. But she “finds herself” and she has a sexual, emotional, and religious reawakening owing to the help of some tremendous friends. People show her how to do things. I think of Celie all the time. I think of that epigraph every day.
Will someone please just show me how to do this?
I want to go around asking people who have gone through this, “Okay, what is the second month like? What is the third month like? How about six months? What happens after a year? What did you do to make yourself feel better? What did you eat? What did you drink? How often did you pee? How do I make myself feel like I’m not going to throw up all the time? What movies did you watch? What books did you read? Who did you talk to? Can I have their numbers? Just tell me how you did it, and then I can do it.”
    Susie Daniels, one of my fellow teachers, lost her brother in a car accident when she was sixteen. She called and asked if she could take me to breakfast.
Thank God!
Maybe she can give me some answers. Or I want to call Dennis, another co-worker. He lost his sister in a plane crash.
He’ll
tell me how this works. But nobody does. They just shake their heads quietly and try not to cry.
    I sit at a table at Caribou Coffee with Battersby and Jen. Battersby lost her mom in a car accident three years ago. She’s been giving me practical advice in all of these very strange situations.Right before the first viewing, she told me that she was giving me an invisible stack of STFU cards, which stands for “shut the fuck up.” So when people come up to me and say, “How
are
you doing?” or “This was God’s plan” or “Why wasn’t he wearing a helmet?” I could politely smile and hand them an STFU card.
    We sit and drink Caribou Coolers. We used to come here all the time in high school. During college when we would come home for breaks, we’d meet here and gossip and catch up on one another’s lives. Now they ask me questions about how I’m doing, but in a way that doesn’t merit an STFU card. Finally I ask Battersby, “What is this like? How long does this take?” She shrugs.
    “Nat. It’s going to be different for you. You know I can’t tell you any of that.”
    “How long was it before you started to feel okay again?” I ask her. I can tell she is hesitant to give me an answer.
    “It took three years until the first thing I
didn’t
think about when I opened my eyes in the morning was, ‘My mom died.’ ”
    Fuck
, I think to myself. Three years. Three years.
    I sit on a very nice leather couch in Dr. Guriza’s office. She is a slender woman with short black hair. She sits in a big chair across from me.
    “Okay, Natalie. Why don’t you start by just telling me what happened.”
    I start to talk. I get through the first three words, and then my voice cracks and I start to cry.
    “My husband, Josh.” I put my head in my hands and cry for a while, maybe a few minutes. I try to talk again, but my voice is very high. I tell her the story. Again, tears and snot everywhere.
    •  •  •
    It has been three weeks since Josh’s accident. I go see Dr. G. again.
    “Tell me about Josh. What kind of person was he?”
    “He was amazing. He was a real man. You know how there are not a lot of real men these days? He was a real man.” I go babbling on through my tears, telling her about how he would do everything—garden, cook, clean, play sports with me, read, joke, bike. He didn’t want anything more out of life than to be a dad. He was the best at everything.
    “I know you think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. Ask anyone who knew him. He was the
best
at
every
thing.” I go on to tell her about his bike trip across the country to raise