Without Her

PART 1

It was March 26, a Wednesday. I was at work and it was the sixteenth birthday of one of my students: she brought in a cake covered in white frosting, pink sugar, and black stars, and I gave her a hug and a dollar, which—as is custom in New Orleans—she added to the other bills pinned to her school uniform hoodie. She left my classroom shortly before the lunch period ended; my cell phone rang. I glanced at the screen, rolled my eyes. It was my sister Emily’s college friend Z. The last time she’d reached out to me was to ask if I’d heard from Emily, but that was two months before, a few days after my sister was admitted to an inpatient program at a psychiatric hospital.

“This can’t be good,” I said quietly to my co-teacher. I stepped out into the hallway, dragged my fingers across dips in painted cinderblocks, took the call.

“Hello?”

“Have you heard from Emily at all? I can’t get hold of her.” That same question—she was panicked.

“No—not for the past couple days. I sent her a G Chat message on Monday, but she never answered.”

I wasn’t alarmed. This wasn’t new. My sister was a bit slippery, hard to keep track of. Especially lately.

“People are saying a body was found in a car on cam- pus, and I keep trying to call Emily, but her phone keeps going to voicemail and I’m freaking out.”

“Okay. Okay. Hang on. Let me try to figure out what’s going on. I’ll call you back,” I said.

I was calm and direct, but I could feel my thinking begin to cant. I’d graduated from the same college in Colorado two years earlier, and I still had the school chaplain’s number saved in my phone. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to try to call Emily.

The chaplain picked up, said, “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Becca Spiegel.”

Before I could say another word, he said, “Becca, I’m

so sorry . . .” I heard words like “dead” and “family” and “legally, can’t initiate contact.” Flooded by hot disbelief and cold certainty, I asked him if I could tell my parents to call so he could tell them what he’d just told me. Asked him to tell Emily’s friend Z.

I hung up, walked straight down the hall, through two doors, outside, sat down at a perforated picnic table, sur- rounded by concrete and aluminum, chain-link fence and rubber track, high school bleachers, 1.32 acres of artificial grass.

I sent two identical text messages: one to my stepfather, one to my dad. “I need you to call the college chaplain here is his number xxx-xxx-xxxx.” The aim was neutral urgency. The shock split through my body, my mind was almost blank. Time hovered over earth like a fog.

I called J. We’d begun dating during our senior year of college, then shared a home in New Orleans until he’d moved back to Colorado with his band two months ago, to finish writing an album and grow a vegetable garden. When I hung up, I had a missed call and new text message from Z: “The chaplains couldn’t tell me anything and she’s still not picking up. They said the parents might know though. I’m really sorry for calling like this.”

I wrote back: “No it’s OK. Thank you for calling me. I asked the chaplain to tell you. It was her in the car. I’m so sorry.”

My next thought was the flight to South Carolina I had scheduled for the next day, to run a 200-mile race from Columbia to Charleston as a member of a twelve-person relay team. I had been looking forward to the trip.

I called the captain of the team. Tried to leave a voice- mail, but erased it accidentally. Sent a text instead: “I do not think I can get on a plane tomorrow. I will explain more, but I just found out my sister died. Please tell the team I am so sorry to pull out.”

I went back inside the school building, straight to the windowless office of a school social worker with whom I worked closely, Ms. A—big heart, quick wit, no-bullshit attitude. She called everyone baby in the way many Louisianans do. My discussions with her were usually about how to best support the students we shared, but sometimes we talked about her own sister’s mental health history, and Emily’s.

I knocked. Ms. A called for me to enter and I opened the door. She was wrapped in a cheetah-print Snuggie. (The school building was air-conditioned far too effectively.) Between us was a wide mess of desk: stacks of IEPs, framed photos of her two kids, potted plants. Tall, light gray file cabinets where all the paperwork would end up eventually. A lamp instead of the harsh, fluorescent lights. I couldn’t speak. I began to heave.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s my sister . . . She’s dead.”

She let out a breath and hugged me. She directed me to take a seat; her office became a concrete block–and-tile sanctuary. My stepfather called. He found a way to perform calm and steady. I asked if my mother knew yet, and he said yes. I asked if I should look at flights that would get me home that night. He said to find one that worked best for me and not to think about the price.

Ms. A let me use her computer, then left to tell our principal. She returned with a gentle, well-mannered colleague and friend of mine named KC, who volunteered to take me to the airport even though it was her birthday. I accepted the offer but would not let either one of them drive me home. Insisted I was okay. Returned to my classroom, tried to shield my face from my co-teachers and the students they were helping, grabbed my bags and left.

At the intersection of North Claiborne and Franklin, the light was red. To the left was a station that sold fresh meat, fried chicken, and discount gas. To the right, thin rectangles of fencing and wood siding in old, tired shades of yellow, white, or red. The lid of one black garbage can was propped open by too much trash. On another was written “Thou Shall Not Steal.” The weather was cloudy, 55 degrees, mild wind. Bland. The ring of my phone startled me. I didn’t want to answer, but I had to. It was my dad.

His voice was low and flat. He sounded tired. “What’s up? I assume it’s Em?”

“Did you call the chaplain?”

“No, not yet . . . What’s going on? Did she try to kill herself again?”

I said, “No, Dad. She’s dead.”

He said, “Seriously?”

I said yes and that’s all I know. Please, please call the chaplain.

I made it home. I don’t know how. I can’t believe I convinced anyone I could drive. And yet I was lucid. Absent-minded but thinking in tasks, in lists, in practical matters. I walked up three steps, turned a key, flipped a light switch.

It would be a few hours still before I could crumble, and even then, that’s not the right word or metaphor. It’s not a falling apart, either. Closer to disintegration or the chair you’re sitting in breaking, giving way to the floor, but the floor’s not there either, and then you’re not even falling, because that’s too predictable, logical—you’re just existing. It’s not pressing pause, but nothing is playing. It’s not blank, but there is nothing there. It’s knowing you’re boarding a plane to go home in a few hours but having no idea for how long—knowing you’ll have to dress for a funeral, but what could you possibly wear?

I stuffed a bag: a black dress, boots and bras, leggings. Sneakers and headphones for the runs I assumed I’d need. A blue shirt with white embroidery that I first wore in a fitting room shared with Emily, bodies bumping in a full- length mirror as arms moved in and out of sleeves. I put on a necklace she’d gifted me and packed a pair of earrings she’d made. Toothbrush, sweatshirt, socks. All so obvious and normal, so practical and not at all.