The One Where It All Fell Apart

Do you remember that episode of Friends where Phoebe was obsessed with performing a completely selfless good deed because Joey told her it wasn’t actually possible? She spent that entire episode working with charities and giving to others, but it was all for naught because she wasn’t doing it out of a need to help the less fortunate. She was doing it to prove a point. No matter how wonderful and philanthropic the act seemed, there was still that infinitesimal, indisputable root of selfishness to it.
I thought it was a decent episode. I laughed while we watched it, but I’m sure I would have forgotten all about it by the next week if you hadn’t been so adamant about being offended by it. I didn’t notice that night, but hindsight tells me that you were probably glaring disgustedly at the screen the entire time. You were certainly bitter enough about it afterward. I tried so hard to stay serious and sombre through all of your angry rants about firefighters and police officers and everyday acts of selfless heroism because you were genuinely upset about the implications of a thirty-minute sitcom, but I thought the whole situation was sort of ridiculous. You saw through it surprisingly quickly. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so shocked. You always were the more observant of the two of us and I flunked out of every acting class I ever tried to take. I really did think I was doing a fair job of pretending, though. At least at first. You doubled your huffiness when my façade of solemnity shattered and I had to struggle to stifle laughter; you tripled it when I called your indignation cute.
I’ve been thinking about that Friends episode a lot recently. People that I’ve met only in passing file into your room with flowers and cards and tears they don’t have any right to shed. The lady from the apartment two doors down, with the permanently sunburnt face and the jutting chin, stopped by to check up on you a few days ago. I don’t even know her name. I’m sure she’s mentioned it, it’s just, I’d never imagined that one day I’d actually need it.
The Crimson Chin. Do you remember the first time your niece heard us call her that? She’d erupted into gleeful giggles and tried to chastise us for mocking that poor little lady, but she was grinning too wide for it be effective. She was still in that childhood phase where she was just thrilled to get the reference, to be a part of a conversation not consciously tailored to accommodate her young age. Even if the reference was from one of her favourite cartoons and we’d only adopted the phrase because of her. You’d laughed along with her, looking so goddamned overjoyed to see her smiling again, and I was happy because you were happy, and it was all so ineffably wonderful and warm, and I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t give to go back to that day, to that uncomplicated simplicity.
She brought you cupcakes, The Crimson Chin. She burst in, all bubbly and beaming, and said that she figured we could really do with some cheering up right about now, and cupcakes always make her feel better. They were bright pink with neon orange icing and they were the most obnoxiously hideous gift that anyone has brought you all month, not to mention tactless. You’re lying in a hospital bed with a million different wires and tubes snaking out from beneath your blankets, and that bitch brought cupcakes like this is all some sort of twisted, screwed up celebration.
You thanked her, and then as soon as she was gone, I chucked them into the wastebasket. You gaped and scolded me for my rudeness. And then you continued to whine about those stupid pink cupcakes for the rest of the night. I drove to Wal-Mart after you were asleep to buy you a new batch of distastefully bright confectionaries. They had green icing instead of orange, but it didn’t matter anyway because when you woke up in the morning, you’d forgotten that The Crimson Chin had even visited you, let alone that she’d baked you cupcakes and I had thrown them away.
I wonder if she made them for you or for herself. I’ve been watching co-workers, neighbours, and distant relatives trudge through your door as if they’re going to war—their shoulders weighed down by grief they don’t know you well enough to feel. They get to show up, drop off whatever cheery, clichéd gifts they picked up on their way here, and leave looking as light and rejuvenated as if they’d just finished up a nice day at the spa.
They don’t visit for you; they visit for themselves. They disguise their selfishness as selflessness, so they can go home and tell their families about how their dear friend is wasting away in a room the colour of fresh snow and they stopped by to instil hope in him with their flowers and teddy bears and prayers. Everyone will tell them how wonderful and brave they are to stand beside you through this and they’ll get to fall asleep feeling like they’ve really made a difference. That’s all they want when they come here—to be able to walk away feeling like they’re good people. I envy them for that..
I’ve been watching the weight melt from your cheeks and the light bleed from your eyes. There are these little moments in the mornings, where you look at me and your expression is just blank. It’s like you aren’t quite sure who I am or why I’m hovering around you. I know it’s wrong to hate you for dying, but a part of me does anyway. You aren’t the one who’s haunted by that emptiness in your eyes or the gauntness of your face. You aren’t the one who’s going to be left behind.
Last night, after the hospital staff had sort of suggested, but mostly demanded that I go home, I flipped on the tv. And while I was waiting for the sleep I’d stopped expecting to come, I found that one Friends episode again. I still laughed at the same places as I did the first time I’d watched it, but it was different now—hollow and fake. I thought of that vacant, confused look in your eyes and the relieved expressions your visitors bear as they slink away. I thought of how you probably wouldn’t even notice if I just stopped showing up beside your bed, of how you wouldn’t even remember to miss me, but of how desperately I’d miss you (of how desperately I already do), and in that moment, I knew that I’d leave you if I weren’t so afraid of the guilt.