someone is dead

Somebody has died. Of this, I'm sure. I know it because I've always known it. As I lay alone on this big, empty bed listening to the rain, I remember it coming back to me, this feeling, this fear, thousands of little feet rolling up and down my throat. It settled in my stomach like a giant boulder, a solid, sick weight. It is barren in its heaviness and vague in its familiarity. Somebody has died. I don't know who I wake up, and I take a deep breath, popping my feet out from under the covers so they hang over the hardwood—where I stub my feet. Remnants of chipped red polish give color to my fingers. I thought about painting them this week, but I couldn't choose the color. I have been told that I am bad at making decisions and I am very afraid of making the wrong decisions. But I don't think it is true. There's always someone else to make them by my side. But I'll do one now. I'll call my daughter, I guess. I go to the end table to remove my glasses. They're sitting crookedly on my nose, and when I look at my cellphone, I push them back, plugged into the wall there. I wait for the ring. I stare. I hope so but it doesn't happen. I once told my husband that we should have landlines for hurricanes or power outages, one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom. But no matter what, he decided, no matter when we had family plans, which were expensive. But sitting here now, maybe there was a point, I guess, and maybe I didn't push hard enough. No one can silence a landline phone, after all, it's not really like they do mobile phones at night. Maybe someone has already called me, someone told me the most terrible news and I didn't listen. Connie doesn't even have a landline; She won't even answer now. Or worse, she may not be able to after this. Trembling, I picked up the device. No missed calls. I turn up the volume and start flipping through my contacts as I stare into the darkness. Connie will answer, I guess. And she would be upset that I woke her up without doing anything. She used to say that the kids were sleeping and she just checked on them. Howard is cold next to her, and yes, she is positive, sure, one hundred percent sure she can see the rhythm of her chest up and down, up and down. He's breathing. He is breathing, and he has to work in the morning. And therefore, I should not bother them so soon. Nothing to worry about and she will see me soon. And we'll be tapping our toes together, our pair. It will be a storm, she will say, the storm is troubling me. Connie has always thought I care too much. And maybe I will. I put the phone back down. I wouldn't call him, I guess. I have nothing to worry about. The phone didn't ring. Nobody called. And they always do it in a shrewd, calm voice, as if the most terrifying part of the announcement is waking up, oh, ma'am, sorry to bother you. I look at the phone again. I wait until the bell doesn't ring I wave my hand at it. But I do not pick up to call. I shouldn't bother him. But someone has died. Of this, I'm sure. When I was six years old my father died. For the first time, I felt this strangely nauseous feeling of knowing, when I lay on a very small bed—a delicate white metal headboard, carved in the shape of flowers. I stood up and looked to the ceiling, took a long, hard breath, and pulled the heavy comforter up to my chin, as I always did in the winter months to fight the air that filled that room. It rattled the windows, and it rattled me, my bones shook as I gazed at the little toy chest across the room. My distant cousin had met me when I was too young, too young to miss the party, but she sat there until I remembered that she had always been with me. Now it was properly closed for the night. But then came the excitement for the first time, this unmistakable, frightening rock right up my alley. Gently, not to disturb my parents, I pulled myself up to sit on the mattress, and crawling across the floor, I crawled inch-by-inch across the room, my hair hanging over my face. I stopped over the toybox, and I looked at it. And for some reason now not even daring to say, I opened the lid. I don't know how my father got in. But I saw her swollen, bloodied eye, staring at me in the dark, the rest of her swollen features blurred and suppressed—a little doll with her own sore eyes open, forever open; a spinning top; Velvet Teddy Bear; aggregation of blocks. My father's eyes were watching me from beneath them all. Eyes blink. And finally, he called my name, his voice hoarse, a hollow, cracked voice, coming out of the unseen lips from the depths of his sore throat: the worst voice I had ever heard. "How." I ran and from the railing above, with my face flush between the wooden beams, I saw my mother standing in her checkered nightgown, in the front hallway. Then she put her hair in curlers and, pressed against a dark, wavy wall, looked at the telephone in an alcove near the door. She kept looking and I kept watching. And I know now that she knows as I know. But most people can tell, I guess, even if they don't realize it. They pick up on the chill of the wind, the delay of the hour, the unnatural pulsation of a piece of cloth, these little signs that something is wrong, that the universe has changed. They create an eerie, sinking, overwhelming feeling in a person. And finally, the phone rang. After some time my mother found me trapped in her bedroom door. I did not dare to go back in, but after listening for a few minutes, I retreated there. She used to smoke cigarettes, she told me, a worrying habit that people still practice around their children. But I already knew that, of course. I knew my father was dead. I learned later, not from my mother, that a large, industrial shelf in her warehouse had collapsed and was buried by its contents. And that's where I found him buried in my toy box, catching some strange phantom vision, like a hazy, hazy snapshot of the moment of his death. But when my mother closed her chest again that night, she was not there. And he didn't come back. However, there was emotion, this dreadful feeling of knowing, the feeling of death. I felt it then and still feel it now. I think I really should call Connie. I pick up the phone, and as I look down, my finger is on the lock. But I don't press. I shouldn't bother him. Instead, I put the machine back on and got out of bed. I get up, and as forced, I go into the closet, a mighty wooden shell placed right next to the window, where the rain is still roaring. I stare and hold my hand. But I hesitate. I hesitate because I think if I open it, someone will stare at me - a rotten ghost comes to visit because maybe he didn't know where to go. I don't think I know the motives for destroying the demons. And I still don't know why I saw my father that night, only that I cried at his funeral as he once again placed him in the coffin. And perhaps it was, after all, a search for a soul that contained him, now that his fleshy covering had left him. With a sharp breath, I grab the golden knob. I must go back to sleep. I should not open it. I shouldn't have opened it because if I did I might regret it. But if I don't open it, I'll have to sit here and wait until the phone rings, which I know for sure. And so, closing my eyes and tilting my head back so that I don't have to look, I grab the handle and pull. I pull and open the turmoil and I don't dare to peek. I count to three in my head. And in the back of my mind, I can now see Connie, remember her as a kid, in the red dress we bought her for Christmas. I must remember him as, I guess, not how I remember my father - not as a faceless, black-eyed man in a box. I turn my head back. I take another breath. And I opened my eyes. I see clothes, and only dresses, full of patterned blouses and dresses I have very few opportunities to wear. But I have to choose something in the black for services now I guess I should join. Although it is not one. But maybe it was, I decided, my fingers running down my back on the edge of a dark, collared dress with silver buttons. No, probably not. Coming back to the wardrobe, I pulled out a low waist dress and stitched a black rose at the hip. I can wear it with a long silver chain that my husband bought me, I think, with a silver charm. But maybe it was so fierce, too bold for such a solemn occasion. No, I think I can wear it with my mother's beads; They are underestimated. I found out that she too died. But she was not gone suddenly, no, not suddenly like the light before the darkness. His own end had come slowly, like the fading light of a sunset, slowly, until the night could only be his natural, expected conclusion. That afternoon I was doing laundry, when the phone rang, I felt a heaviness in my stomach. The hospital told us that morning to go home and rest and they would call if anything changed. But something had changed before they decided to tell us. As I walked into the kitchen that day, Connie found the phone wire stuck in her elbow. And I knew for sure. I guess I should call Connie now. I should check him on Howard and the boys. No, no, it will wake them up. He was troubled. And really, it's likely to be a colleague or someone in the church. These thoughts are not comforting. But still, wrapped in them, like a dreadful, frayed quilt, I once again reached into the closet, through rows of heavy fabrics, looking for a long-sleeved dress with a belt. I'd wear it to a funeral, I guess. It might be the right choice as I wore it to my husband's funeral. I was alone in bed the night Richard died. But he was working late, as he often did. And I fell asleep early with television commercials and the sound of rain playing. I woke up from a bad dream to find the countertop grill loop started. This feeling overcame me when I turned to check the alarm clock flashing red. And I lay there for a long time, staring at my phone, curled into a ball under the cover like a sports star praising the sleek design, grease trap, and easy-cleaning qualities. At 2:27 a.m. the phone rang and as it was three o'clock, I felt a sudden change in the bed next to me. A crackling, heavy breath hit my ear, hot and distorted, the way one suffocates, and the familiar weight of a hand reaches to wrap it around my shoulder. Exhaling, again, a steady, hoarse sound, a phantom rattle in the throat. He did not dare to turn back. I wish I had now, but I didn't. I looked ahead. I didn't blink. And I picked up my cellphone and put it on the wall over there. "Greetings?" "There's water in the car, Cass. Oh my god, there's so much water in the car." I took a deep breath at Richard's voice, still distorted, and all at once, the bed was empty again and there was only silence in my ears. A few days later a police officer told me that his little silver Ford suddenly got caught in a storm and turned around on the road. He had said that he died after the vehicle was hit by water. And the decline was clearly too much for any other possibility. So at least he didn't frown, saying something like that as a real relief. And when he saw his car filling with water, he fainted. His phone was not found. Oh my god, I should call Connie. I can't take it anymore. Turning from the cupboard, I slide into the bed once more, as my telephone is still on the wall, on the end table. I stare and ring the bell. And I scream. All I remember from where I was now was a whole, terrifying sound, thrown from the depths of my stomach as if I was finally letting go of the terrible stone that was sitting there. , It resonates with my core. But I don't answer the phone. My neighbor, in the neighboring apartment, is a nice young man. His hair is disheveled and studded, and he looks at me from time to time. I lull him out of sleep with my moan and from now on he will knock on my door. I do not answer as I am picking up the telephone to see if I have missed Connie's call. And when he knocks in my dark bedroom, I decide to dial him again. My neighbor will call the police. He will tell them that after 3 o'clock in the morning they heard my scream. And that same story will still be told, for years to come, in whispers around dark tables and the occasional campfire. The police used to call Connie and she would tell them that she had been lying there all night, drooling and carrying a heavy load on her stomach. She used to tell them she called me when she couldn't stand it, but I didn't answer - even though her own phone would ring a few seconds later. She would respond only to hear his name, she would say, speaking frantically through a flurry of peace. But there would be no record of those calls and they would not believe it, citing technical glitches or intimidating tricks. And when they break my door, they will think that I have slept with my door open and my glasses on the floor. I had not but they would find me just as I found myself—blue face, gasping for breath, covered in a pile of blankets on my empty bed, where I had slept for hours until then. Somebody has died. Of this, I'm sure. Somebody is dead, and oh my god, oh my god, it's me.