Imagine Me Gone

by Adam Haslett

She looks not at me but at herself in the mirror. “If your father were here, he’d know what to say. I’m sure I should be saying something to you—on a day like this. I should have said all sorts of things, over the years.” She glances at me, then back to the glass. “There are probably things you could have said,” she allows. Though she never wears makeup, today she’s decided to apply a pale lipstick, which she does slowly and exactly, before dabbing her lips with a tissue. “You know what I used to hate?” she says. “The stockings at Christmas. I didn’t hate them. But they aggravated me. And the Advent calendar. All those little rituals, no matter how old we got. It seemed like you were avoiding reality, just being naive.” “I’m sure I was, I—” “Mom—listen: I don’t think that anymore. I see these women and their partners or husbands, people with kids. They’re falling apart—money, or mental health, or whatever it is—and they don’t know what to do. They’re desperate. You were trying to keep our world together. To keep things the same. I get that now.” “It’s incredible how you take care of all those people. I don’t know how you do it.” “You took care of us,” she says. “You did your best.” I hug her, so as not to cry. “Well, Paul’s very fortunate. I do know that.” She lets herself be hugged. “I envy you sometimes,” she says over my shoulder, “with the weather and all those dates you remember, enjoying all of that, those little things. I thought that was naive, too. But you’re luck...