Life Will Be the Death of Me Read online

  He would always tell me I looked too skinny, which was silly because I’ve never been too skinny no matter which eating disorder I was testing out.

  One night when we were all out to dinner, I whispered to the server that I wanted a double vodka on the rocks, and my dad chimed in.

  “If you’re going to order a double, you should do it loudly and with confidence. You like your vodka, Chels. That’s your ameliorant. I’m your dad. I know my own child. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

  It was moments like that with my father that filled me with warm affection. Once I got older, I never really had to hide anything from him, because I felt how much he adored me again. His moods were not personal. They weren’t about me, at least not anymore. I always knew when my father looked at me that he thought I was smart, that I was capable, and that anyone who was in my way better get out of the way because I was filled with conviction. That was his word for me: conviction. My word for him was the prefix of that word: con.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Then he had quintuple-bypass surgery when he was in his late sixties, or seventy, maybe…anyway, and then it was all downhill after that.”

  “In what way?” Dan asked.

  I came home early for Christmas one year in my mid-twenties because my dad had been rushed to the hospital the night before with chest pain, and they discovered that he had ninety percent blockage in all five of his main arteries. He would need surgery the next morning.

  “My mom woke me up early the next morning. ‘Chelsea, your father just called and said he wants to wait until the spring for his bypass surgery, so I’m going to go pick him up from the hospital.’ ”

  I could have hit my mother right then and there. That was so my mother. So passive and so easily pushed around. It drove me mad. Only my father would think he could wait and schedule bypass surgery during a more pleasant time of year—as if he were scheduling a garden party. That’s the kind of asshole I was dealing with.

  I got out of bed and went into my mother’s bathroom to brush my teeth. I used my parents’ bathroom when I came home to visit, which was odd because their bathroom was a complete shitshow, a representation of my mother’s “European-style” hygiene.

  My mission was to get him into the operating room, and there was no other possible outcome. When I was running out the front door into the snow in our driveway—I was in some version of pajamas or sleepwear, and for some reason, I had thrown on my dad’s Ugg boots—my mother asked if she should come, and I remember looking at her and thinking, Definitely not.

  At the hospital I screamed and yelled and threw one of the biggest tantrums of all time, until he agreed to go into surgery. I fought so hard just to get a father I couldn’t stand to stick around. My brothers and sisters were shocked that I had gotten him into surgery, because he could be so stubborn. They couldn’t believe I had convinced him to do it. No one could convince my father of anything.

  I had proven myself to be responsible. I had become someone you could rely on to get the job done. I liked that feeling a lot. My family knew I meant business that day, that I was dependable. The biggest fuckup in the family could do something none of them had even tried to do—guide a rhinoceros into an operating room. The surprise in Simone’s voice filled me with pride.

  “Okay, they just took him in.”

  “Took him in where?”

  “To the OR.”

  “You’re kidding me. How did you get him to do it?”

  “I threatened him, mostly,” I said, like a businesswoman. “He’ll be in the OR for four to six hours. I need you to bring me some shoes—preferably my own.” I looked down at my footwear. “Or some breath mints for Dad’s Uggs. They smell like hard-boiled eggs.”

  I had become a fixer. A true number eight. I didn’t think about how scared my father must have felt, or try to understand where he was coming from. I just needed to fix the situation for the family, and for myself. I thought about the choice between life and death, and there wasn’t a chance that was going to happen to us again. Not on my watch.

  I can’t believe I convinced him to go through with a quintuple bypass just so he could go on to sexually harass the entire African American and Cuban communities of the tristate area. My brothers and sisters were kind enough to remind me of this every time he had another “incident.”

  * * *

  • • •

  My relationship with my father had always been about my version of things; I never contemplated what might have happened in his life to make him act the way he did. I never considered his story. I was a child, yes, but then I was an adult. It’s hard for me to have sympathy for my father because a lot of his behavior I find inexcusable, but it’s important for me to look at his story as independent from my own, and try to have a little empathy. I had never thought about being his child. I thought about him being my father, but never the other way around. Empathy. We both had none.

  I didn’t know he lost his gas station after working six nights a week, that he was held up at gunpoint, that he came home early every Wednesday night, with corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, because he wanted time with his family—that he worked fourteen-hour days. This was all before I was born. It was all before Chet died.

  When Chet died, he was torn apart with grief, but he never gave up, never threw in the towel. He could have gone off and left us, or he could have just killed himself. He didn’t do either of those things. I don’t know if it was the best he could do, but I also don’t know that it wasn’t.

  No person is just one thing. People can be filled with light and affection and also be tortured and conniving and dishonest. Happiness can coincide with great pain. One can lead while also following, the same way one can follow while also leading.

  Dan asked me how all of this made me feel.

  I told him that I now understood my father’s limitations along with my own. I thought our relationship was about me showing him how great I was, when truly he was most likely trying to prove to me how great he was. He was wondrously obsessed with himself, as I was with his affection for me. Today I’m able to say with confidence that I do love my father. I don’t know how much I like his behavior, but in the end, isn’t love more valuable than like?

  * * *

  • • •

  I had a boyfriend when I was eighteen years old. He was twenty-eight. He had a house in Belmar, New Jersey, and we would go there every weekend with my fake ID. He thought I was twenty because that’s what I told him. Every Sunday, when we would drive home from the shore back to our respective suburban dwellings, I knew I wouldn’t see him for a few days because we both lived with our parents, and sleepovers were a no-no—for his parents. I doubt mine would have noticed.

  Every car ride, I fell silent, refusing to speak to him the whole way home because I hated that we would be separating. He would ask me every weekend what was wrong, but I didn’t have the tools to express to him that I hated having to separate. That would have made me vulnerable, and vulnerability wasn’t allowed. Eventually, he broke up with me because it was too hard for a twenty-eight-year-old to date a nine-year-old.

  “I’ve been nine for a really long time,” I finally said to Dan.

  “Probably only with men.”

  “This is why I test them. If things are going well for a couple of weeks, I raise the stakes and force the person I’m dating to prove to me he loves me and that he is willing to do anything to demonstrate that. I create drama so that he can mollify the situation in the name of protecting me. I just really want someone to ask me where I’ve been all day.”

  “Of course you do. That’s called a relationship.”

  Now that I had a better understanding of why I was so pissed off, I could finally do something about it. Not knowing where your anger is coming from is basically the same as walking through life with a broken leg. �
�It’s fine,” you tell people who are constantly looking at you with concern. “Nothing to see here.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It wasn’t until I met Dan that I realized Chet was my very first breakup. That my nine-year-old brain had no ability to distinguish between death and rejection. That my nine-year-old brain didn’t understand that my brother didn’t choose to die. That Chet didn’t find another family with a little sister he liked more. That was simply the way my nine-year-old brain had digested it. I was reacting to the death of my brother like a spurned lover.

  Subconsciously I was waiting for my brother to come home because that’s what he said he was going to do, and I waited every single day for that to happen, even when I had ostensibly accepted his death. To my nine-year-old brain, it was rejection.

  I didn’t know then that my brother’s death was defining me. I didn’t know that I had the ability to say no to being defined by death. Now I was with a person who could help me process what happened and turn the parts of me that acted like a nine-year-old into a self-actualized adult who had come to a better understanding of what it means to dig deep and admit your pain—thereby beginning the process of relinquishing it. I was in a place where my brother dying no longer had to define my existence. It’s part of who I am—perhaps the biggest part—and it may have helped steer me in a certain direction, but it is not all of me.

  I define me. No event or person does this. I define me. I decide who I am and how I’m going to behave, and I choose to be better. To look more carefully, to trudge deeper. To think about other people’s pasts and not judge someone for doing or handling something differently than I would. To understand my limitations, my shortcomings—that is my growth edge.

  Be careful of the people you make fun of because you will most likely turn into one of them.

  After Tammy died, Chunk had a new spring in his step, as if five years had been added to his life. He was suddenly the picture of vitality. Chunk couldn’t stand Tammy, and I didn’t blame him. Tammy was a cunt to Chunk, and Chunk was too much of an existentialist to be bothered by Tammy’s sophomoric chicanery. He stayed out of her way because he didn’t want to rock the boat. I like to believe that when Tammy came home with me, Chunk thought, Here we go, another one of these dime-store whore rescues. This floozy won’t last a fortnight. I don’t know why I believe Chunk was British, but there’s really no other explanation for his regality. Chunk was a prince.

  If Tammy was my family mascot, Chunk was my husband. Everybody loved Chunk. His smooth soft hair, his well-mannered disposition. He didn’t have the body type I’m normally drawn to, but any parent will tell you none of that matters when it’s your own flesh and blood. He gave our family some much-needed dignity. He was described by many as aloof, but that was also part of his charm. He had the disposition of a butler—he was congenial but kept his distance. Without a kerchief around his neck, he was just another well-groomed dog from Bel-Air. With the kerchief, he was cooler than Fonzie. He amassed a large social media presence during his time with us and never once used it for ill. He didn’t troll people online or spread fake news. He was pure goodness. He loved me categorically, but that’s not the only reason I loved him. It was most of the reason—but he also had qualities I didn’t jibe with. When I came home drunk or stoned, he laid some heavy judgment on me. When I had friends over, he’d give me a look that said, Lights out in five. I tolerated it because he never said it out loud. He never diminished the meaning of his judgment with lectures. The stares stayed fresh. It made me feel I had a sort of spiritual guide—albeit a sober one. That is, until I got him his own marijuana pills. That’s when the judger became the user.

  * * *

  • • •

  Soon after I got Chunk, Molly and I took him on what we presumed was his first trip to the beach, but once we got there, it was clear he had been to a beach before—possibly even as a lifeguard. He sat in front of the water, listening to the waves crash with his eyes closed, while he let the wind blow through his hair—like Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway would probably have been blacked out, but for some reason that’s who I always thought of when I watched Chunk on the beach. Molly said he reminded her more of Stevie Wonder at the beach, but Molly can be a contrarian. Whenever Chunk was in this state of tranquility, I wished he could drink and smoke cigarettes, but after many failed attempts, I had to accept that neither vices held any interest for him.

  “Can you believe he loves the beach as much as I do?” I asked Molly.

  “Yeah, because he lives in a fucking icebox. He’s probably never felt the sun on his back.”

  I like my house cold, and if I’ve been drinking, I like it even colder. I’ve always held the false assumption that things with fur could easily withstand freezing temps. “I’m just kidding—his fur keeps him warm,” Molly said to assuage my fear that I was torturing my own dog. “Poor thing thought he was going to become the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and instead he lives in the Arctic. He’s like a modern-day Shackleton.”

  * * *

  • • •

  While on a self-imposed sabbatical between my shows at E! and Netflix, I decided it was time for Chunk to see Europe. My family and I were meeting in Spain for a week, and I believed that after years of North American travel and good plane etiquette, Chunk had earned himself the right to a trip overseas. I have an affinity for Spain because the food is delicious and the Spanish take lots of siestas. That is when I get my best work done—when whole towns are asleep.

  Someone from Chunk’s multipronged medical team had given him a prescription for sleeping pills. I was advised to give him as little water as possible on the day of our “journey,” which seemed like sound advice for a fourteen-hour voyage—a ten-hour flight to Germany, a two-hour layover, and then a two-hour flight to Formentera. The German layover added a nice ancestral touch, since Chunk was half German Shepherd and half Chow. It would be his very own episode of Who Do You Think You Are? When we reached the Spanish island, Chunk would be reminded of my cleaning ladies and feel right at home.

  The first leg to Germany was uneventful. Chunk sat at my feet during takeoff and I used him as a footstool. Once we were airborne and I was able to recline my seat into a bed, he hopped up, and I positioned him as a headrest. This configuration worked well in that he wouldn’t be able to get up without waking me—and his breath would help keep me knocked out. (From this vantage point, I realized the two connected seats in the middle aisle of the first-class cabin would be an even better configuration, so I texted Brandon to purchase those two seats for our return flight, so that Chunk and I could return to our homeland like a real husband and wife.)

  Chunk’s breath got trickier as he got older. I had received multiple complaints from some of my closest friends, who pointed out that it was hot and strong—but to me it smelled like home. It also smelled like littleneck clams, but I’m a fan of littleneck clams. Chunk is also a fan of littleneck clams, which explained his breath—but I digress. The important part of this story is that I was able to tolerate Chunk’s breath, which means I am capable of accepting people’s shortcomings—but usually only if that person never speaks. Chunk had the only terrible breath I’ve ever loved. That’s how I knew I was capable of unconditional love—his breath and his slender body. Neither was my first choice.

  My vet warned me that the sleeping pill could make Chunk very thirsty—which, as usual, didn’t add up. Why would I give him a pill that would make him thirsty during the only window of time when I wasn’t allowed to give him water?

  I decided to abstain from giving Chunk or myself a sleeping pill on the flight. That’s what good parents do; they make sacrifices for their children. Chunk was a complete champ the entire way to Spain. We got up a couple times to do a lap or two, and when I had to use the restroom, I just tied his leash to my cup holder. People kept coming over and commenting on how well-behaved Chunk was—an
d on his looks, of course. People were always searching for the right word to describe him. Regal, debonair, rakish. Chunk was always polite with strangers, but never effusive. He would entertain a stranger with a smile and perhaps a paw shake, but he wouldn’t be caught dead licking someone. He had too much dignity for that.

  Once we got to Formentera, my sister Simone took him for his first long walk. When she came back she described it as a “disembowelment”—another reason I loved Chunk: saving his excrement for someone in my family. My brothers and sisters know I am not equipped to deal with any of the responsibilities that come with parenting, so they immediately take charge of my dependents. Likewise, Chunk knows it’s better to go for a walk with anyone other than me.

  * * *

  • • •

  Halfway through the trip, predictably, I became irritated with my family. I came home from a sailing excursion and took a closer look at Chunk’s “meds.” It’s not often I come across a sleeping agent I’m unfamiliar with, but it does happen. I googled “alprazolam” and discovered that Chunk’s medicine was just a generic form of Xanax. I could have high-fived myself if I had gotten more air. “It’s doggy Xanax!” I exclaimed to my aunt Gaby, who was in the kitchen making everyone lunch. “This is a game changer.”

  My brother is married to a Russian woman with whom he bickers about almost anything—it could be a bicycle helmet. It is of my opinion that their three sons—my three nephews—are prisoners in their home, but that may be because I grew up in my home and can’t relate to any kind of hands-on parenting. My sister-in-law is more than just hands-on—I believe she would actually live inside one of her sons’ ears if she could. She is supremely overprotective and consumed with everything from their grades to the temperature of all foods and liquids that enter their bloodstream—everything has to be room temperature. Much to my dismay, I’ve seen this woman heat up orange juice. She is an enemy of ice, and therefore—in my opinion—an enemy of the state.