Remembering Biddy

My mom slept until noon today, and—considering how unusual that is—I got worried. She was still. I thought she had taken the wrong cocktail of pills and would never wake.

She was breathing.

My best friend’s mother died last week, two days after Christmas. We called her Biddy. She worked third shift as a nurse. She wore turtlenecks and smoked Marlboro Menthols. She cut Marlboro Miles from the packs and stuffed trash bags full of tickets. My best friend had a Marlboro jacket and was reprimanded for wearing it to school. Biddy cashed in for a Marlboro tent and a Marlboro sleeping bag. I never slept in them. When Biddy left for work, we’d slip into her king-sized bed because the mattress molded to our bodies. We’d fall asleep from the whirr of the white noise machine she kept on the nightstand.

I’d smoke with Biddy at the table while she glued feathers to Styrofoam cones. She’d feed us brownies and pumpkin rolls, and she wouldn’t eat a thing. We’d talk about people and roll our eyes. We’d pour more coffee. We’d discuss paint swatches for the bathroom. She would cut peonies from her garden and arrange them at the table. I could smell them through the smoke.

I saw Biddy embalmed yesterday. I still watched for breathing.

I dreamt last night that all the words I wanted to say to my best friend were written on a page. I woke up and could not remember.  I drove down his road and felt dizzy to think we are 24. How we had hiked that road and poked dead skunks with sticks before we grew pubes— before we had bills in our names— when we would imagine how a man might taste.

When we were 15, we would sit in his brother’s bedroom, listen to Korn, and shoot vodka Biddy bought under black light. We’d sneak out the window. We would walk to the pond across the street and summon the woman who drowned there.

We graduated high school and took whiskey shots in honor of every year from kindergarten. Biddy crocheted at the table and laughed, ashed, listened.

I have been thinking about how a room contains space, not the people in it.

At Biddy’s funeral, the minister sang a song about a comet being pulled toward the sun. I imagined Biddy’s eyes rolling beneath her eyelids. A stray mutt surfaced from the pine trees and barked at everyone. The wind sharpened during the chorus. The minister’s voice cracked.