Four Weekends and a Funeral

by Ellie Palmer

My departure would have been self-explanatory when he showed up with a new girlfriend at the next big event. It just so happens that event is today, and he can’t be here for it.

I always thought Sam was living precisely the right life. He was effervescent and spontaneous, always wanting to try a new spot, always leaving for an exciting trip. He was zero to one hundred in every facet of life. He was impulsive and did things that scared him “for the story.” If anyone was really living, it was Sam.

I miss Sam as my friend, as the guy who burned hot and bright like the sun, everyone helpless against his gravitational pull.

If I casually mentioned wanting something, it became a message. They were written from the point of view of my future self, saying things like, “You started training for the marathon today, and now you’re killing it!” or “I’m so grateful you bought a ticket to Croatia today, because you’re there right now and it’s breathtaking.”

You could never daydream with Sam. Everything was achievable. Everything was within reach. Money, time, and prior commitments were never an excuse for not living your best life.

To him, each message from the future was a statement of potential. To me, they were a reminder...

Sam always felt less like a boyfriend and more like a higher plane to aspire to, someone who could transform me through proximity—and the occasional motivational calendar notification—into someone worthy of having escaped a likely, eventually death sentence.

Winter comes quickly in Minnesota. One day, you’re enjoying a beautiful fall morning in a light denim jacket. The next, you’re hunting through the bottom of your closet for a parka so you can dig your car out of the snow.

The day after Sam’s funeral, it’s in the high forties and warm enough to force my two best friends on the hike my dead ex-boyfriend proposed between his eulogy and communion.

“I don’t have a type,” I argue, but my voice is shrill and defensive. “So, like…a beardy Indiana Jones?”

“It’s more of an energy than a look you go for, like a grumpy intellectual who just emerged disheveled from a cave and has no time for your funny business.”

“Like a scruffy guy who’ll argue with you while mounting your TV.” “That’s not my type. Sam wasn’t like that.”

Chelsea’s the kind of drunk who has profound conversations in women’s bathrooms. Even when she’s sober, lost souls tend to find Chelsea wherever she goes.

We’re not the only ones burned by the fickle Minnesota weather. Adam commiserates with at least a dozen other unlucky souls. “But it didn’t even snow!” they exchange over and over in the cold echo chamber of the temporary impound lot.

I round on him gleefully. “I didn’t think Nordic furniture makers existed outside of Hallmark Christmas movies.

Are you responsible for teaching a workaholic woman the true meaning of Christmas or is that a different grumpy carpenter? Do you guys work in shifts?”

“Skydiving is ridiculous. Why would I voluntarily participate in a flight’s worst-case scenario? If you’re not exiting a plane on the ground, something’s gone horribly wrong.”

“Whoa,” he says, like I’m livestock.

But I can’t help but stare. Adam Berg has a phenomenal walk.

She’s slower than when I saw her last, like her grief is a weighted vest.

“They don’t tell you…the worry doesn’t go anywhere when they’re gone, you know. I don’t think it’s supposed to. Your children hand it to you when they’re born and you carry it with you until the end.

The most likely answer is that my mom is both the perfect and most disastrous recruit. She’s outgoing, she’s trusting, and she wants to please people, but unlike the ideal recruit, she loves herself precisely as she is and has no desire to reach nirvana at your expensive weekend retreat. Also, she detests a sign-up sheet.

We used to have light conversations about celebrity makeups and breakups. Now when my mom calls, it’s always the same. We’ve been trapped in a cancer loop for years. I worry sometimes that once my ovaries are gone, we’ll have forgotten how to discuss anything else.

Adam grabs my hand to lead me through the chaos. It’s one of those dreadfully lovely gestures that’s both deeply intimate and horrifically platonic all at once. His hand is warm and rough in all the best ways and when he finally lets go halfway through the parking lot, I know I’ll be unpacking the significance of the gesture for hours tonight.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Adam sounded the slightest bit excited. It’s infectious, even though this creamer sounds utterly repulsive.

I offer to buy my ticket, and he shakes his head at me, maintaining he’d never make his nephew pay for a big day out.

“So why trains?” he asks. “Umm, they were faster than horses and could bear weight—” “Not ‘why do trains exist?’ ” he interrupts, vexed. “You’re clearly enthralled by this place in a way that puts all of the ‘visiting nephews’ we’ve passed today to shame. Why do you love trains, Alison?”

“That’s why you got into your line of work?” He looks at me with irrepressible interest—like my dorkiest source of enthusiasm is somehow the most enchanting thing about me.

His lips quirk. I want to make him laugh—an honest, uninhibited, down-to-his-belly laugh. I think it would be something worth seeing.

“I like it here, and I like my job, even if it feels a bit Sisyphean at times.”

“You shouldn’t do anything you don’t want to do.” “Is that how you live your life? Doing only what you want?” “No.” He shifts in his seat. “But I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

I’ve been trying out different techniques and styles. I want a collection that showcases what I can do before starting a business in a slightly larger market like Minneapolis.

It’s adorned with trinkets that have never made it to his social media feed: faded Polaroids, seashells, a cracked gas station key chain, a stack of handwritten journals, and a receipt for auto-body repair written in Spanish.

Sorting these mementos isn’t the issue—it’s all “Keep”—but I don’t know how long these things will sit in a box when I’m done. Will Sam’s family immediately take out every item, discussing their memories with each small token? Or will the box sit in a basement for years until someone opens it in search of something in particular, only to slam it shut to hold the painful ghost of grief at bay? I feel like I owe it to Sam to witness it all—one last time—before it gets packed away.

I focus on the wall behind her, my attention drifting between an aggressively inoffensive watercolor and a mammogram infographic.

So it’s not like I can be angry or sad about cheating death.” “I’m not sure it works like that. You feel what you feel.”

“After my recovery, I wanted someone who would push me to live life. I wanted to be more adventurous, outdoorsy, and extroverted. Sam’s lazy Sunday was mountain biking in the morning and a raucous barbecue at the lake in the afternoon. He was the human embodiment of exposure therapy.”

“Near-death experiences should change people. Workaholic stockbrokers survive plane crashes and quit to start nonprofits. Cancer survivors become triathletes.

“A life-altering diagnosis should alter you. I shouldn’t go ‘back to normal’ after this. I have to make my life mean something.”

We’re both quiet for a moment, like we only have so many words left and the wrong ones in the wrong combination could cost us.

“At the funeral, Mrs. Lewis kept calling me Sam’s best friend. I kept thinking, That can’t be true. He deserved someone better than me. That’s why I’ve wanted to take care of everything. I think I thought this condo thing could be some sort of messed-up penance for being a horrible friend.”

“You’re kind of my favorite new person, if that’s not too weird a thing to say.”

Actually kicked my feet this line made me so happy! 🥰

“I don’t care about my truck right now.” He presses our foreheads together as we both catch our breath. “I can’t care about anything but this.”

I replay his words like they’re a broken cassette tape. You’re kind of my favorite new person.

He waves but doesn’t drive away. He lets the car behind him honk to watch me get into my building safely. It’s so effortlessly tender, and I wonder if he would’ve done it for any friend, or if maybe I’m special.

Adam’s jaw ticks, and I know it’s taking everything in him not to swat Russell’s hand with his paw like the disgruntled bear he is.

I didn’t know a kiss could feel like this, like devouring while ravenous. Like lifesaving breath while drowning.

His hug unties me like a bow, every knotted-up muscle in my body releasing at once. I bury my face into his shoulder and allow his chin to find its place on my head.

Adam looks at me. He just looks. The chill is biting, but I don’t make a move. It feels too heavenly to be looked at like this. By him. If I collapse on this sidewalk of hypothermia, I’ll accept it. I’ll have died how I lived: happy, aroused, and with poor circulation in my little toe.

“I imagine your every detail. Constantly. God, imagine the things I could accomplish if I could think about anything other than you: my favorite person.”