God Inflicts Anger

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I walk out of the closet, my arms full of Erik’s shirts, all still on hang­ers. My 8-month-pregnant belly acts as a shelf, enabling me to carry more.

“I hope you’re alright with this,” I say to my brother, Troy. “That you don’t think it’s weird I’m giv­ing you Erik’s stuff.”

I pile the shirts on top of my bed, the white plas­tic hang­ers clink­ing together like falling domi­noes.

“No, I don’t think it’s weird, as long as you’re fine, as long as you feel ready,” Troy holds up a navy blue button-down. “This one will def­i­nitely fit.”

“Erik would be really happy you had these, I’m sure of it.”

It hasn’t even been three weeks since the blood trick­led down the side of my husband’s mouth on Easter Sun­day, but I have to give some of his things away.

His clothes keep call­ing to me. The sooth­ing vanilla scent of Erik draws me into the closet again and again. I embrace his sweaters, his white t-shirts, inhal­ing the last rem­nants of his phys­i­cal body. I imag­ine Erik fol­low­ing me into the walk-in to grab my ass, to tickle me, to tell me that none of this really hap­pened, but I have to stop pre­tend­ing he will reappear.

“I’ll be hon­ored to wear them,” Troy says.

We have not spo­ken much about that night that my brother worked to resus­ci­tate Erik, but I hope that Troy has let go of his guilt. There was noth­ing he could have done. Noth­ing any of us could have done to save him.

“I kept the things I know I will wear … or that his fam­ily may want.” It felt right to keep his underwear—all 23 pairs—for what­ever rea­son, and I put Erik’s shoes in a box until I can fig­ure out who will fit into them.

His mom, Jeanette, wants Erik’s silver-framed eye­glasses because she said he got on her case all of the time about hers not being cool enough. How ironic that she also lost her first hus­band when she was 29. Then her sec­ond hus­band when Erik was 11. And now Erik, her youngest and most beloved child. The pain she has endured in one life­time is unfathomable.

Jeanette is prob­a­bly the only per­son I know who can under­stand what I am feeling—what it’s like to be a young widow with babies.

Later that day, after Troy has left with sev­eral bags of Erik’s clothes, Jean­nette calls to say she will be fly­ing out next month for Keira’s birth. “I’ll stay as long as you need me, or until you kick me out. I want to be there for you, to take care of Tatiana, to help you with Keira.”

Our phone call is filled with rec­ol­lec­tions of Erik and tears.

“I miss him so much,” I tell her.

“Me too, sweet­heart. I know exactly what you mean. But, you know, every time I think about how much I miss him, it occurs to me that, maybe, I am being self­ish. I know he’s in a much bet­ter place. I know he’s with his daddy and I know he’s with God. It was his time. God brought him to a bet­ter place.”

What did she just say?

Her words infu­ri­ate me. I grip the portable black phone tighter, doing my best not to chuck it against the wall.

I restrain myself from scream­ing, “What a crock of shit!”

What a major crock of shit!

My face burns as if it had been shoved into a lit fireplace.

I take a breath, slowly, inten­tion­ally, and say, “I know every­one has their dif­fer­ent opin­ions on this, on God, on an after­life, and, well, right now I am just too upset with what I once thought was a higher power—call it God, call it what­ever you want—for tak­ing him from me, from us. Why would a higher power do that? Why would God do that? Quite hon­estly, I know there was no bet­ter place for Erik. This was it. He was hap­pi­est here. So, for­give me for say­ing this, but I’m hav­ing a hard time believ­ing that this God wouldn’t have known how happy Erik was, that this God would have ripped him away from every­thing he loved.”