Finding Mr. Brightside Read Online Free Page A

years’ worth of mint-condition Women’s Health magazines. I’m not sure who’s doing a less adequate job of taking care of themselves, this family or mine. Too close to call.
    I wonder if Suzy read any of her husband’s texting exchanges with my mom. That’s exactly what I did while waiting around the hospital, went through my mother’s personal things, starting with her cell phone. Wish I’d stopped reading after the first sext.
    I force my eyes to swallow the hot tears welling up inside them—they don’t taste nearly as good cold—and struggle with the urge to throw something at myself. That Yankee Candle on the nightstand, perhaps. I step into the walk-in closet before temptation strikes me down.
    The hanging space and cubbyholes have been unevenly divided between husband and wife, Ian’s tailored suits and shiny wing tips taking up the majority, too many of Suzy’s garments getting the second-class Tupperware bin treatment. A year after her husband’s death, Suzy’s still afraid to claim what’s rightfully hers. Not acceptable. I start removing blazer after blazer from the hanging rod and flinging them to the floor. Do the same with the wing tips. Then a bunch of shiny leather belts that look identical. I can smell Ian Morgan’s woodsy cologne wafting up from the growing pile. If I were a garbage bag, where would I be?
    Abram’s still fast asleep in the living room when I grab a box of Heftys from underneath the kitchen sink. I go back to finish the job I probably shouldn’t have started in the first place, before his mom gets home.
    *   *   *
    An hour later, I’m turning the key in my front door. I didn’t come away from Abram’s house empty-handed; took a roll of garbage bags (we’re out) and my Doritos Locos Supreme, which I took a few bites of on the way home, but I’ll deny that to the grave. I find my father passed out on the couch in his office. What is with everybody falling asleep today? I place a blanket over him, too, careful not to wake him.
    I take my garbage bags to his bedroom, the place in the house he most avoids. I will myself into my parents’ walk-in closet, which hasn’t been touched since that night. I think about asking my father if it’s okay that I do this, but I know his answer will be hidden underneath a mask that makes it impossible to tell if he really does care. I know that mask well, wear it every day, so I must be equally annoying to deal with.
    My mother might have been selfish with her time, but she was very generous with her things. Shoes, lipsticks, perfumes—if it wasn’t already on her person, I had carte blanche. Oh, that smells so good on you, Juliette. Don’t be a stinge—spray a little more. And definitely wear my Gucci belt with those jeans, yes? My mother climbed the corporate ladder, made her own money, so there was really nothing wrong with her always having more of everything … except that everything was never enough.
    Sharon Flynn lived in a world of scarcity, probably because her parents themselves died before she graduated high school; in response, she accumulated things, promotions, lovers. And who better to keep around as a backup than a man like my father with a large trust fund and zero desire to spend it? In other news, I need to quit googling “grief coping mechanisms.”
    I pick up a slinky black dress. The Chanel label I was once so enamored of seems so silly and pointless now. Just a word on a thing. Why are we keeping this? In case she needs a sexy cocktail frock in the afterlife? For me? I can’t even bring myself to wear my favorite pair of her least-overpriced jeans. My dad certainly isn’t going to jump up from the couch, grab an empty box and start organizing away, so I’m the default family member who has to place each item, once so essential to my mom’s persona, into a stolen garbage bag. And rather than completely lose my mind to the sadness of what I’m doing, it’s much easier to blame her for putting me