1000 words from
Bricks and Bones
Dear Matthew,
I’m still so mad you’re dead.
People are so weird about that word. Dead. They say “passed” or “gone” or weak things like that—why? Why not call it what it is: final, over, zero.
Dead. You’re dead, Matthew, and I’m incandescently, fervently, enormously mad. At you.
On my better days, I say I’m mad at the world or mad at the circumstances, or mad at cancer. To just a few people (certainly not the kids), I’ll admit I’m mad at God.
But you’re the only one who would understand, would really get it, when I say I am still raging that you left me behind. How could you give in like that? You finished all kinds of stuff: marathons, multi-season TV shows, refinishing the back deck. (Remember that summer? Give me strength.) You were never a quitter…until you were.
Why am I telling you this now, seven months after I watched your coffin get covered with dirt on that too-sunny hillside at Forest Lawn?
Dr. Fetterman told me to. She said it might help me deal with my “complex” feelings. At first she suggested just one letter, but when I laughed and said I’d need to write a whole book, she told me to get one. A pretty one, she suggested, one that would be nice to write in. Maybe get some new pens, too, for a “soothing sensory experience.”
Not a chance, buddy.
You know how you used to bring home a fresh yellow legal pad and those blue Pilot pens from the office and then only use the first ten pages or so? Then you’d be done with whatever brief or church talk or whatever thing you were outlining. You’d leave the pad somewhere random with the pen clipped to it—on the porch swing, in between the den couch cushions, whatever. I wonder if you wondered what happened to them or whether you just never gave them another thought.
Well, I put them in an empty drawer in the laundry room. At first, I didn’t know if you’d want those notes later, so I didn’t just toss them out when I was tidying up. But once I realized you didn’t need them, I still couldn’t stand to throw away all that good paper and ink. So I just saved them. After the first four or five, it turned into a bit of a secret tradition.
I opened that drawer accidentally the other day and started bawling all over again. Then I tore off all the pages you’d scribbled on in your objectively horrible handwriting, and I shredded them, which was actually pretty satisfying. I’m still furious, but it helped a little.
So in our session last week, when Dr. F suggested writing to you—and making a ceremony of it with a nice notebook—I said not a chance am I going to Vroman’s and spending money on one of those fancy embossed diaries, just to make it hideous with all my anger and grief. Nope. I’ve now got a huge stack of perfectly good paper along with a big mug full of blue Pilot pens right here next to our bed—our huge, empty, lonely bed. And I’m going to write to you until you either show me a sign that you’re reading this, or until I’ve used up every yellow legal-sized sheet.
I hate blue pens; did you ever know that? Black is the proper color for ink. I never understood why blue was your pen color of choice. I guess I should have asked you.
Matthew, my dearest love, my best friend, my only hope. I suppose I’ll have to forgive you at some point. It won’t be soon, though, not even when I run out of this stack of pads. Maybe in 30 years, when I’ve been without you as long as we were together.
Maybe by then it won’t be so raw and ugly, that hole in the middle of me where you belong.
Where you fit so perfectly.
Where the absence of you stabs me like a dull old steak knife about every time I take a breath.
All my love,
Robin
Dear Matthew,
I knew the minute the man died. I knelt on the filthy concrete on the shoulder of the 210, squeezing his gloved hand in mine.
“Penny,” he gasped. I could barely hear him over the noise of the freeway traffic. His blue eyes gradually lost their shine. Just like yours did. His weak grip had relaxed in exactly the same way. That final breath like the softest sigh.
Death. So much death.
I had to shake away your memory and concentrate, because I wanted to give the police an accurate report.
A big red pickup had roared past, barely clipping the guy’s Harley—but that was enough for disaster. The cycle bucked, its rider’s leather-clad body shooting sideways before tumbling to rest against the concrete barrier at the far edge of the shoulder. The Harley careened the other direction across five lanes, cars narrowly dodging it…or not.
I braked hard, wrenched the steering wheel to the right, and screeched to a stop just in front of the fallen man and out of the way of traffic. After leaping out of the car, I rushed toward the man. I dialed 911, took his hand, flipped up the visor of his helmet, and shouted the details of the accident to the dispatcher on the other end of the line.
All at once, someone else was at my side, wrestling the rider’s enormous hard-shell backpack off. He finally ripped it free and shoved it aside. A French horn case, maybe? Whatever. Now the rider could lie flat. The person tore down the zipper of the rider’s leather jacket and started chest compressions. But it was too late for this young man, I was sure of it.
Sirens wailed their way toward us. The paramedics were there in moments that felt like a year. CPR man and I scrambled out of their way. I leaned my head against the embankment wall, already hot in the fierce August morning sunlight. I breathed in and out through my nose, hoping to calm my racing heart. One paramedic had taken over chest compressions, while others put a foam collar around the rider’s neck and removed his helmet. Their teamwork was impressive, heroic. Likely futile.
So much death.
I love reading murder mysteries, but until a few years ago, I’d never tried writing one. But in early 2021, when the Mormon Lit Lab put out a call for submissions for their new book-writing mentorship program, I applied on a whim and pitched them on an idea I’d been toying with for a mystery series set in Pasadena, California, where I live.
Here’s an excerpt from my application:
The first book is called Bricks and Bones. Months after her youngest child’s departure for college and the sudden death of her husband, 54-year-old Robin Van Doren sets out to figure out who she is beyond an LDS wife and mother. She adopts a dog and downsizes to a cozy cottage. Matthew left her financially comfortable, and she’s active in her new ward, but Robin must find something to fill her lonely days.
Robert Scott is selling the thriving business he started decades ago writing house biographies for real-estate agents. When he offers to mentor Robin as she takes over the work, she’s charmed by the witty, worldly octogenarian widower and his stunning mid-century landmark home high in the Altadena hills. But as the two grow closer, Robin begins to wonder if the long-ago loss of his wife wasn’t as shattering and unexpected as Robert claims.
Comparable to Mette Ivie Harrison’s “Linda Wallheim” series, the adventures of my protagonist offer the mainstream reader a look into the life of a middle-aged, faithful LDS woman. Her faith and culture are not center stage, but fully inform her perspective and approach to tragedy, isolation, and problem-solving. To solve the murder and get herself out of peril, Robin draws on experience and skills she gained while a full-time missionary and in her many subsequent years of church service.
When I got the great news I’d won the mentorship grant, I was delighted…but then I felt like the dog who’d caught the car. Suddenly, I had to write more than the 8000 words I’d pumped out when the idea was shiny and new.
And it was the pandemic,
and the cookbook I’d committed to finishing first took far longer than I’d anticipated.
And then there’s the depression I wrestle with periodically.
And then my husband lost his job,
and for more than a year now, he’s been looking for work.
And…and…and…
Yada yada yada, I’m still not done with the book.
I’ve plotted and prayed and cried and outlined and written and revised and rewritten.
In my very messy process (maybe my messiest ever—I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve actually finished books before), the cozy mystery has morphed into more of a gothic ghost story.
Maybe I’m not a mystery writer! Dark fantasy (or “spiritual realism,” as Gideon Burton once termed my fiction) seems to be my wheelhouse, so maybe I’ll just keep going where this ghost is leading. And where I once envisioned a series, I’d now be content with one stand-alone novel that I could put out in the world. Wish me luck! 🕮