The Scientist

This is the end.

I can’t look at him, can’t watch him put on his shoes or collect his phone, his wallet, his keys, so I look down at the floor. The lighting is all wrong for this, it’s soft and warm and romantic. It’s lighting for a bottle of wine, for long and deep conversation, for a comforting embrace, a shared laugh, a slow kiss, an urgent touch, a magnetic pull. But instead, it’s casting softly over a goodbye, as tears slide down my cheeks while Chris Martin cruelly serenades us from my Bluetooth speaker.

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry

You don't know how lovely you are

I had to find you, tell you I need you

Tell you I set you apart

Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions

Oh, let's go back to the start

Our second August. I’m wearing a red t-shirt, the one he loves to remind me that I once wore inside out. We’ve opened a second bottle of wine as we weave in and out of one conversation and another, off on a tangent, circling back again, the hours effortlessly falling away until we suddenly stumble into a place of grief. He asks me to play songs that make him sad. I understand this, this need to sit in the pain, to let it ebb and flow, to stoke it at certain times and extinguish it at others. I play his songs. I caress his hand, rub his back. And when the wave knocks him over, I sit on his lap, facing him, and wrap my arms around him as tightly as I can.

“I’m in it with you,” I say silently with my body.

“I know,” I say softly with my mouth.

My head pounds, from wine, from tears, from reality as they all wrap around my temples and squeeze like a vice. He’s standing before me. I look at his shoulder, I look at his arm, I look anywhere but his eyes. I have nothing left to say, nothing that won’t slice me with its finality. Not I’ll miss you. Not I’ll be thinking of you. Not I love you. Certainly not goodbye.

Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me

Oh, and I rush to the start

Running in circles, chasing our tails

Coming back as we are

It’s February at home, but it feels like a mid-June night in Florida. We sit at an outdoor bar along the beach, the warm air swirling sweetly around us, white twinkle lights strung above our heads. I turn to look at him and he’s smiling, his eyes bright, the black of the ocean indistinguishable from the black of the night sky behind him. He leans towards me, grinning, staring intently at me for a moment, my stomach flip-flopping from the warmth he’s giving off as he says, “This is the best night of my life.” My brain reminds me that he’s drunk, but my heart whispers, “You know…he might be in love with you.” I order another drink to wash away the panic I feel as I realize I might love him, too. A few hours later, when that drink comes back up and he holds my hair and rubs my back and calls me sweetie, I know. He does love me. And I love him right back.

I wrap my arms around him one last time. He holds me tightly as I bury my face into his neck and breathe him in, his skin ever intoxicating. I feel his body pressed against me, and my own responds like the strike of a match, blissfully unaware of what is happening. My skin aches for the feel of his, as it always does, my desire for him a constant. My tears fall faster, my breath catching in my throat.

Nobody said it was easy

It's such a shame for us to part

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be so hard

Oh, take me back to the start

It’s cold for early April. I scan the bar, hoping I’ll recognize him from his pictures. He stands and gives me a hug. He’s attractive, he’s charming, and he knows it. He wants to be sure I do, too. And so I think, dismissively, “I’ve met this guy a hundred times before.” But I’m wrong. He talks about his sons, he talks about losing his parents, we talk in generalities about the deterioration of our respective marriages.  He talks about things the way I do, he cares about things that I do, he feels things like I do. And when he touches my arm, and then, later, my knee, the electricity radiates off of us. We linger in the parking lot, under the soft glow of the streetlamp. We can’t stop kissing.

I pull away, brushing aside tears only to have more fall, eyes cast downward.

“I can’t watch you go,“ I say, and with that I turn away from him, leaving him by the door. I walk down the hall to my bedroom, embarrassed by the sound of my own crying. I stretch across the foot of the bed, curling into a ball, tears streaming sideways into my ear, into my hair.

Nobody said it was easy

Oh it's such a shame for us to part

He's telling me to look at him, his face just inches above mine, his breath warm and sweet, and when I do I know nothing in the world could ever be better than being naked with him in my bed when he is looking through me and I am looking back; it’s after midnight and we are singing, loudly: Thunder Road, In Your Eyes, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant; he is taking my face in his hands and telling me, his voice thick with emotion, “DO NOT give up on us"; he’s sitting beside me at a crowded bar, suddenly leaning in to kiss me; he is slipping his hand into mine as we make our way through the crowd; we are sitting in the window watching a thunderstorm; we are drinking coffee on my couch; we are clearing dinner from the table; we are waiting for the check; we are talking; we are kissing; we are yelling; we are laughing; we are fucking; we are crying; we are falling...

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be so hard

I'm going back to the start

I hear the door close.

And that is the end.

Goodbye, My Friend

What the fuck? 

I think I'm still breathing. I know I'm still sitting in my chair. At my desk. Before my computer screen.

But my chest is tight. My heart is racing. My hands begin to tremble and shake. 

What the fuck? I look at the screen again. WhatthefuckwhatthefuckWHATTHEFUCK?

There in the middle of my Facebook newsfeed, after a picture of someone's holiday card but before an old coworker's elf meme, is an obituary.

And that is how I learn that my friend is gone. 

*     *     *     *     *

That night I pray as I google and search Facebook for more information. Please, I beg, please let it have been a heart attack. Let it have been a stroke. An aneurysm. But the biting truth, the thing I think I already know, is gnawing away at me from the inside of my gut, a pit so raw and wildly churning that it sends me running to the bathroom where all I can do is lean over and retch. 

Minutes later, I find it: a comment from a friend of his that affirms what I already know.

He took his own life.

I am shredded anew as I crumple to the floor, the dark, unlit Christmas tree looming over me from the corner of the room while I heave and sob, the unbearable question of how he did it racing around my brain, leaving a string of potential answers, each more devastating to imagine than the last. 

I do not sleep that night. I toss and turn and thrash until the covers are completely undone, until they are simply a heap of blankets that I drag across the bed as I roll over, double over, sit up, curl up. My hair is damp with tears and sticks to my face in clumps. My eyes swell and burn. I lie on the far side of the bed and look up out the window.

Can you see me? I ask him silently, my face turned skyward. 

Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call? Didn't you know that I meant it when I said you could call me anytime and I would come? Did I ever lie to you? Did I ever not follow through? I would have come, I would have sat with you, I would have called your doctor with you, I would have taken you to the hospital, I would have done anything to keep you safe and keep you alive. I would have done it. Didn't you know?  

But the sky doesn't respond. It just stares back at me, cold and pocked with stars, and says nothing. 

*     *     *     *     *

I get angry. At everything. At him. At his therapist. At the god he so devoutly believed in. At myself. I read our last text conversation, exactly one week before he took his life, and I pick apart every word of it, scouring for a sign, a clue, something I missed, because this is what you do when something happens that makes no sense. You look for some sense. You look for something that has some kind of goddamn rhyme or reason or rule or logic or predictability to it because surely the world is not so terrifyingly random that your friend can tell you seven days, just SEVEN FUCKING DAYS, before he kills himself that he is fine. Surely he must have said, somewhere, "Jenn, it's all about to come crashing down" and I simply missed it. Surely. He must.

But he didn't.

"I'm doing good" he wrote when I asked how he'd been. "I hope you're well" he said at the start, and then, later, "How are you?" He told me about his Thanksgiving. He asked how my boys were, asked for them by name. He filled me in when I asked how his kids were. He went into some detail about his pride for one of his children who was facing a difficult time. 

I told him I was sorry to hear things were rough for her. I told him my heart felt for her because it's difficult to discover that someone you care about isn't showing up, isn't coming through to be there for you when you need them.

He never replied.

*     *     *     *     *

I write. A long letter, by hand, the things I hadn't said simply because there hadn't been time. You don't step back and take stock, you don't try to gain the perspective of the impact someone has had on your life when they're still so largely in it.  

You don't do that until they are gone. 

Dear John... 

I write and write and write until I'm empty. I roll the letter into a tight scroll and wedge it into a wine bottle. I peel off the label. I grab my hat, my gloves and my scarf. It's the day after Christmas and it's 26 degrees outside. It's supposed to snow later. 

I drive out of Massachusetts, through the winding stretch of road through Providence. I drive south until Rhode Island halts abruptly and becomes the Atlantic. There are only two other cars in the beach parking lot. 

I don't know what I believe happens after you die, I told him once. He believed in heaven, believed his mother was there, believed he'd see her again one day. I wasn't so sure. I told him about the gauzy sense of my father that I could never quite hold on to, like he might be just past the graze of my fingertips, someplace I could not touch. Or, I pondered aloud, maybe it's all just science. Maybe his body is ash and my sense of him is nothing more than a series of neurochemical firings, a trick of the brain. 

I tried to figure it all out before he died, I told him. But I never did. 

As I walk down the beach and stand before the expansive gray sprawl that is the ocean in winter, the broken clouds casting a dull, weary light, I know that I still haven't figured it all out. 

Dear John...I don't know exactly where you are. But I feel like this might be it. 

I watch the waves for a while. I study the sky. I breath in the sharp salt air. I let the biting wind snap my hair. I let my tears roll without brushing them away.   

And then I take the bottle, full of my heart, and I hurl it into the sea. 

I hope it smashes against the rocks. I hope the paper dissolves and my words, the biggest and most important things I will ever say to my dear, beloved friend, bleed until they are one with the water, so that he may know them. 

I hope this is the right goodbye. 

It begins to snow giant, beautiful snowflakes as I drive back home.

And I know then that it was.  

Scarborough Beach, RI  12/26/16

Everybody Hurts

In childbirth you learn to trust your body, to have faith that it knows what it's doing. You surrender to the pain. You let the pain serve its purpose.

A similar thing happens when you get a stomach virus. The body knows what to do: empty. Get it out. And so, as you lean over the toilet heaving your guts out for hours at a time, you reassure yourself that you'll be okay. You just have to let it out. The same is true for emotion. When difficult emotions try to surface, we so often try to avoid them. It doesn't feel good to be angry. It doesn't feel good to be sad. It doesn't feel good to process loss. So we drink. We work more. We go out. We make jokes, we stay busy, we read books and binge TV shows. We distract ourselves in any way possible to avoid feeling the feelings. But eventually these things bubble to the surface. Because your body knows what it is doing. It's pain with a purpose. Your body, your heart, is trying to get it out. We fight it, we numb it, we do all sorts of mental gymnastics to hide from it, when really what we need to do is let it come. Then you breath a sigh of relief once you've ripped off the band-aid. You've felt the icky feelings and had a good cry or identified some difficult truth about how you feel and what you want. You look down and expect to see yourself nicely healed under that band-aid. Only to find another, smaller band-aid that must be ripped off when its time comes. We serve ourselves best when we learn to trust that those unsettled feelings we have deep down are a sign that another band-aid is ready to be to ripped off. When we recognize that this is the only way to get to healing. And when we remember that sometimes what you reveal is a cut that never fully heals; it simply scabs over. If you pick at it, it will bleed every time. But you learn to stop picking. You learn to work around it, careful not to nick it, aware that it exists and is part of you. And you learn that when it does bleed, it will again scab over. You will be okay. You just have to let it out. And trust that your body and heart know what its doing.

Five

Year One

Christmas is coming, but still you died today.

I tuck the boys in bed and then I water the tree. I wander from room to room, pacing. I'm not sure what to do with myself. No one has come, not even my mother. 

There's a gauzy haze between us; I feel you here and gone, near and far. My stomach churns. I stop at the window at the bottom of the stairs, press my forehead against the cold glass and look up at the stars. Is that where you are now? 

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.

*     *     *     *     *

It's a new year now, but we're not done with your dying, so I get on a plane and write you a eulogy while the sun dips below the wing. I land in Seattle, at the airport where you are not. I cry in the back of a car, in the driveway of a house where you are not. I go to a church and stand before a room full of people I don't know and tell them that I am your daughter and how beautiful a thing that is to be. I'm trying to prove that I belong there too, in this place that is far from my home and far from my life and not ever where you and I really existed. 

I feel a panicky type of betrayal when it's time to leave and I cry openly as the plane pulls away from the terminal. I can't leave you and I can't stay. Do you know this feeling? You must, you must, because I am your daughter. 

I try to guess when we've reached the halfway point between Seattle and Boston. I look down, I look up, I look out, and I wonder if that's where you are now. 

Year Two  

Dear Dad, please be with me. 

My mind reaches for you as I look at the IV in my hand. I've made peace with the possibility that I will die today during brain surgery. But I can't do it without you. Please don't let me do this alone; please be with me. Please. Please. 

I offer up a last prayer to God: Thank you for my life.

And then, I shut my eyes. 

*     *     *     *     *

It's very late or very early. I've just been moved from ICU into my own room, a regular room, and I desperately have to pee. In 30 minutes I've gone from catheter to bed pan but I'm set on using the toilet. The nurse guides me and my IV into the bathroom. I turn to her and tell her I'm okay. I shut the door, sit down, and grin like an idiot as I go to the bathroom. 

I'm reaching for you again. WHOOOO-HOOO, LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO! I think of  your surgeries, how each one took more out of you, how each one was more difficult to recover from. I imagine I'm calling you, I'm laughing and telling you, "PEED ALL BY MYSELF TODAY!" I'm smiling as I call the nurse back in help me wash my hands. 

I feel you smiling with me. And in this small victory in a brightly lit bathroom of Brigham & Women's hospital, I have found you. 

I have found you. 

Year Four

Say something.  

It's December again, I'm putting a tree up again, I'm buying Christmas presents again, and I want to hear your voice. I want to know that you love me still. I want to know that you're proud of me. I need to hear your voice.

Say something.

Can you even hear me? 

Say something. 

Year Five

I don't remember a time in my life when I did not miss you, even as a little girl. I love you and I miss you were always a part of us. Goodbye was not new to us. Tears were not new to us. 

Sometimes I think I've adjusted to this new, lesser way for us to be, where I'm here and you're not and the conversations are always one-sided. But no sooner does it start to make sense to me than I'm knocked down and left breathless by a wave of grief I never saw coming.  

In five years, I certain only of this: those two constant sentiments of our relationship remain. They haven't changed. They never will.

I love you.

I miss you. 

The Funeral

The flooring of the Seattle airport is made of large, shiny, brown tiles. As a little girl I would walk the silver outline of them, my arms stretched out like wings, and wonder how many people could fit in one of the big squares. How many grown ups? (two) How many kids? (four) How many smurfs? (100, probably, but maybe more.)

My father would be there. If I was arriving, we were happy and hurried. We'd get to the car and drive through the winding spirals out of the parking garage and onto the freeway, because they call it a freeway out there in Seattle, not a highway. If I was leaving, there was a different tone. We were slower, my stomach in knots over the anticipation of the goodbye that was waiting. Sometimes I cried before we got to the gate. Sometimes I held it together until they called my flight. The older I got, the better I was able to control my tears. But I could never shake that knot of dread in my stomach when I'd leave. 

But those were the trips of my childhood and adolescence. Now as I look down at those familiar brown tiles I try not to think about the fact that my father isn't waiting for me this time. There will be no bone-crushing hug. There will be no warm voice to call me sweetie or pumpkin face. 

Because I am a grown woman now. And my father has died. 

*     *     *     *     *

It's after 11 when we get to the hotel, which means my body thinks it's 2 in the morning. My hotel room is cold. I don't bother to take off my coat or even my shoes. I turn the radio on to static because it's too quiet. I take a Tylenol PM and lie down and wait to fall asleep.  

I think about how I want to go home.

*     *     *     *     *

The next day we drive to my father's house, my in-from-out-of-town family and I. I sit in the backseat. We pull up the driveway.

I can't get out of the car. 

It's overcast. Maybe it's raining. Maybe I only remember it that way because it seems like it should have been gray and rainy.  

I have to get out of the car. I have to go into the house where he's not anymore, where I've never been without him. It's going to be the most real that it has been so far and I know I have to do it.

But first, I need a minute. 

*     *     *     *     *

That night, there's a party. The house is full of strangers, people from all aspects of my father's life that I didn't know, but they are warm and welcoming as I float among them. There's music and whiskey and laughter. I think about how much my father would love this, everyone talking about him. The house is warm and bright and full of love. 

It might be the best party I've ever been to. 

*     *     *     *     * 

The next day I put on a black dress and heels that hurt my feet. The celebratory feel of the night before has evaporated. 

I'm careful not to look at the wooden box of ashes sitting upon the altar. I wonder for a moment where my dad might be, if he's there with us or if he's in some place called heaven or if he's just ashes now in a box. 

I push that thought out of my mind. My brother holds my hand. I tune out most of what's being said. 

I've written something for the service. There was nothing I could do for my father while he was sick, while he was dying. I couldn't comfort him or bring him tea or make him toast. But I can do this for him. I can get up in front of all of these people and take my words and put them together to say something that will honor him. 

I read my writing. I am steady. 

My voice breaks at the very end.

But I do not cry. 

*     *     *     *     *

As soon as they call my flight to board, my heart begins to race. My stomach twists. There's a lump in my throat. 

I cry as I board the plane. I rest my forehead against the window, turned away from the passengers walking by. I watch the airport recede as the plane pulls away from the gate and moves towards the runway. I can't stop crying. We're taxiing. 

The plane begins to gain speed for takeoff. 

I don't want to leave here, I don't want to leave you, I think in a panic as we rush down the runway. 

I'm not ready to let go. 

I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. 

And then, we're airborne.

And I am going home.  

The Things I've Forgotten

These are the things I've forgotten.

They are the things I don't think about when I look back, the things that don't ever burn or sting. They don't actually make me feel anything.

That's the beauty of forgetting. 

I don't remember the sound the pressure cuff made when I peeled it from my arm after the doctor left the room to arrange my transport into Boston. "Unfortunately, there's a mass on your brain," he had said, so there was not, I decided, any further need to watch my blood pressure or track my pulse or even for me to stay in the johnny. They already knew what was wrong with me. I don't remember getting dressed or brushing my hair or refreshing my lipstick before I started making phone calls. That piercing rip of the velcro from the cuff as I freed myself from the bed and took what little action, what little control I could...I don't remember that sound at all.

I forget the understanding that settled upon me in the ambulance ride from the small hospital to the big one. Stuck in rush hour and hockey playoff traffic, I forget that moment of realizing the EMT didn't know what to do with me. I forget how he got chatty, how he felt the need to fill the sad space that was the back of the rig with words about his daughter preparing for college. I forget how he asked again and again if I was too cold or too hot. I forget how I wanted to put my hand on his arm and tell him that it was okay, that silence didn't scare me. That I needed the calm and the quiet to catch my breath in preparation for what was next. I forget how he eventually grew still and the gratitude I felt for it as I waited to be delivered to my fate. I forget that his mustache was reddish blonde and that the driver was young. I forget how I made a joke to that young driver as they lowered the gurney out of the ambulance. I made him laugh. I forget the look in his eyes at that moment, in the second after he laughed, the look that fell just shy of pity but not quite shy enough. I forget how that look chilled me. 

I don't remember the moment,a few hours later, when the nurse gave me a steroid shot. I don't recall the terror I felt as I bolted upright. Something was wrong; my chest was buring, every pore of my skin alive and prickling and stabbing. I don't remember the way it felt like tiny shards of glass piercing my skin, from my scalp to the roof of my mouth to my legs and my feet and I tried to say as much but all I could do was grab my friend's hand and gasp, "Shards of glass!" I don't remember how the nurse moved down to my ankles and grabbed them, holding them tight. I don't remember the way he looked at me, steady and sure, and told me I was okay, that sometimes this happens and that it would spread through my entire body but it would be over in about a minute. I don't remember that the way he held my feet grounded me in that moment or that, when he told me it was almost over, I believed him. I don't remember it at all.

I have forgotten the minutes and days and years that hung in the air when the neurosurgeon on call that night asked me, "What year is it?" I forget the work of trying to answer. I forget the "19-" that came to my lips. I forget the thought, "Wait...wait...not 19...wait." I forget the blackboard I saw in my mind that said, "20-" and how I couldn't figure out what came next. I forget the way he told me that it was alright. I forget the realization that I hadn't been able to answer, that it wasn't alright. I forget that I cried in that moment, the moment I knew this was all really happening.

I don't remember it at all, really.

I don't recall the fear that weaved in and out of those days.

I don't recall the lists and plans I made in preparation for potentially leaving my children motherless. I don't recall kissing them good-bye. I don't recall the feeling in my chest in that moment, a feeling exactly the same as the first time I touched them as newborns. I don't recall thinking that this was a delicious secret, how the intensity of love is the same at the end as in the beginning and I don't remember that I thought that was beautiful and gracious.

I don't recall the night before surgery, alone in the dark of my bedroom, lying awake staring at the ceiling and making my peace with the possibility that I would die the next day. I don't recall feeling at the same time that I had never been so sure of anything as I was right then that I was strong and ready to do anything I  needed to do to get back to the little boys I loved so much.

I don't remember these things. To remember them would be to dredge up the pain and beauty and clarity and fear and pain and love and grace and strength and pain and pain and pain.

These are the things I'll fight to forget.

These are the things I've already forgotten.

Scars

The human body has a single goal: to stay alive. That is its sole driving force.

Keep the brain working. Keep the heart beating. Keep the oxygen flowing. Stay alive. No matter what.

When the body endures a major injury, its immediate focus is recovery. 

But once the physical systems are stable, the body essentially says, "We didn't like that, don't do it again. In fact, here. Have some intense feelings. This should help you avoid whatever it was you were doing when you nearly killed us."

This is called trauma. 

*     *     *     *     *

I loved my incision, in theory. I viewed it as a badge of honor, a permanent reminder that I was a warrior. 

But I hated looking at it. The swollen skin was unnaturally pink, so puffy and pinched. The black dash-mark stitches cut along its length, with deep, crusty scabs dotting the patches between. It was harsh. 

It was violent. 

I'd face it each morning, examine it closely, trying to familiarize myself with it. I would stare it down.

And then, I would look away.

*     *     *     *     *

"You can wash your hair now," the nurse said the day the stitches were removed.

She kept talking. "You HAVE TO wash your hair. You have to keep the incision clean. Don't be afraid to wash your hair."

My long hair was a braided, matted mess after two weeks of being covered by a turban of gauze and then head scarves. A good deal of it was encrusted with blood. I wanted it clean.

But my head had been screwed into place and cut into, the skin, the muscle, the bone all cut into. They cut my head open. I didn't know how to do this normal thing, I didn't know how to try to wash my hair and be a pretty girl again after my head had been cut open. 

"Don't be afraid to wash your hair," the nurse said. 

*     *     *     *     *

My friend Karen rinses the shampoo from my hair.

I sit in the bathtub. I'm wearing my bathing suit. 

I cry as I watch the rust-colored water flow off my hair, swirl at my feet, and then slip down the drain. 

I cry hard. 

*     *     *     *     *

Incision. June, 2013. Photo by Erin Lockhart

2 weeks post-surgery. June, 2013

Finally with clean hair. July, 2013

1 year + post-surgery. September, 2014

Pink Moon

What would you do if you only had a few months to live?

How would you spend your time?

Who would you surround yourself with?

What words would you be sure you said?

We hear story after story of lives that change in a heartbeat: the 35 year old man who drops dead of a heart attack, the woman suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness, the family killed in a car accident. These stories shake us. We share them and say things like, "Life is short."

And then we go right back to wasting our time.

We stare at our phones. We date the wrong people. We worry about the extra ten pounds or the thinning hair or the wrinkles.

We don't take time to simply sit outside and breath in the sweet air, to be warmed by the sun. We don't linger in bed smelling our lover's skin as night stretches into morning stretches into afternoon. We don't grab our children's cotton-candy-sticky hands and run with them to the roller coaster. We don't say yes to the things that bring us joy, the things that evoke our passions, the people who truly matter.

How old are you today?

How many years do you have left?

40? 20?

How many days do you have?

100? 30? 10?

You don't know.

What would you do?

And why aren't you doing it?

In the Still of the Night (Part 3)

     “You’re drunk,” he insisted, hoping that saying so would somehow negate the impact of what she had just said. He stepped closer to her, looking hard into her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

     She took a drag of her cigarette and exhaled away from him.

     “He told me he didn’t ever want kids. And that I…” she paused for a moment and looked away from him. “That I wasn’t the maternal type.”

     He wondered for a moment if she might cry, might step forward and lean her head against him, softening against his chest, allowing him to wrap his arms around her, comfort her, care for her. Instead she dropped what remained of her cigarette to the ground, turned, and began walking briskly away.

     He caught up to her quickly, but she remained quiet as he fell in beside her and rounded the corner onto his street.

     “So what did you do?” he asked.

     “I had an abortion,” she said, her voice steady and firm. “It was what he wanted.”

     She stopped again, looking across the street. He could see his apartment building, could see his living room window on the second floor. He was eager to get her inside, to shut the door behind them and lock out the rest of the world. She was open and exposed out here on the sidewalk, under the expanse of the sky, where anything could swoop in and snatch her away from him. He needed her contained.

     “Hey, isn’t there a park over across the way?” she asked.

     “Yeah, a little playground-“

     “With a slide?” Her eyes were bright and she moved in close, looking up at him with a sly smile. “Let’s fuck on the slide,” she whispered.

      “I don’t think-“

     “Don’t think!” she laughed and in a flash she was running away from him, darting into the quiet street, unsteady with drunkenness as she turned to look over her shoulder at him.

     “Come on!” she called. He was too drunk to run smoothly, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and strode across the street.

     Contained. He needed her contained, but she was so damn fluid, so utterly uncontainable.

     She was walking backwards, looking at him, making sure he was following her. She passed beneath the glow of a street light at the park’s entrance and disappeared into the darkness behind it. It had engulfed her completely; he could no longer see her. His heart was suddenly pounding, his palms sweaty.

     “Where are you?” he called.

     She stepped out, laughing, from behind a small field house to his right.  

     “Kyla, let’s go. My apartment is right there.”

     But she did not respond, instead pulling off her top and tossing it aside. She was walking away from him again, heading past the swings and toward the slide at the back of the fenced in playground. He followed, his pulse quickening as she reached around, unhooked her bra, and let it slide down her arms and to the ground. He had always found her bare back beautiful, long and smooth until it widened out at her hips. God, he wanted her.

     She was already naked when he reached the slide.

     The taste of alcohol was heavy on her tongue as she wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. He was overwhelmed by the cocktail of cool night air, whiskey, and her skin, unsure of where to touch her first. He wanted to touch her everywhere at once, wanted his hands in her hair, on her face, on her hips, on her back, on her breasts, sliding between her legs. He was dizzy with wanting her.

     Her hands were at his waist, fumbling with his belt buckle. He looked quickly around the park. The back fence was lined with trees and the streetlight at the entrance was far enough away that they would be protected by the darkness.

     She was breathing rapidly, her chest rising and falling urgently as she pushed his pants down. He normally loved the feel of her hands on him, longed for her to touch him more, but tonight he did not care that she was barely touching him. She had grabbed his wrist and was climbing onto the slide.

     “Hurry,” she said breathlessly as she laid down. Maneuvering on the slide was not easy, but it only took him a moment to get his footing.

     He felt the weight of the night fall off of him the instant he slid inside of her. She grabbed at his back, digging her nails into him as she pulled him deeper. He felt a rush of excitement that went beyond anything sexual; he would erase the night with every thrust inside of her. There was no abortion, no Facebook status, no ex, no fiancé. He would erase it all until he felt sure none of it had actually happened.

     “Wait,” she said. “Condom.”

   

      “No,” he said and moved faster inside of her.

     “Get a condom,” she repeated, her words slightly slurred.

     He ignored her, instead taking her wrists in his hands and pinning them up over her head. She arched her back and moaned. Her breathing was fast, her eyes shut, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

     “Look at me,” he told her. He wanted to see her need for him in her eyes.

     She opened her eyes but quickly turned her head away.

     “Harder,” she half moaned, half whispered. He obliged, but as he looked down at her face turned to the side, he saw her cheek was wet.

     “Are you crying?” he asked.

     “No,” she said quickly. “Now don’t stop, keep going.”

    But even as she insisted that she was not crying, a fresh tear slid down her face, disappearing into her hair.

     “You are,” he said. He let go of her wrists but did not move off of her. Her legs remained tight around him.

     “It’s fine,” she said, wiping the tears away as new ones fell. “Just keep going.”

     He touched her face tenderly. Finally, she was soft and small beneath him. Finally, she was crying before him.

     “What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

     She kept her head turned to the side, looking, it seemed to him, at some distant, invisible spot in the trees.

     “He said he didn’t want kids,” she said, her voice so quiet he could barely hear her. “But she’s having his baby. And he’s going to marry her.”

     Adam Greene. All of her fucking, her wanting, her urgency, it had all been about Adam Greene. He felt a wave of heat and adrenaline wash over him, a rush of fiery anger like he had never known before.

     His hands were around her head in a flash, without thought, lifting it and slamming it repeatedly against the slide, 1-2-3-4, with as much force as her betrayal warranted. She grunted, a stunned look on her face, but before she could make another sound he had released her head and clenched his hands around her throat.

     Her throat. Her sweet, delicate throat that he loved to run his tongue along, loved to kiss, loved to smell, felt small in the fierce grip of his hands. She was panicked beneath him, her eyes wild as she clawed franticly at his arms. This was just like Kyla, to be so full of fight. His sudden anger had caused him to go limp, but he felt himself grow hard again as she struggled, the crushing of her windpipe within his hands leaving him in awe of his own strength. He squeezed tighter as her eyes rolled back in her head and she slipped from consciousness, but he did not let go, not until her chest had stopped rising and her throat was no longer pulsating beneath his fingers. Only then did he release her, stepping back from her body to catch his breath.

     She was more beautiful than he had ever seen her, lying there naked and exposed, one leg draped over the side of the slide, the inside of her pale thigh still shiny with fluid from their sex. Her neck had turned a brilliant shade of purple and he was glad for it. It was a tangible sign that she was his now, that he had finally, at last, contained her. Her head was resting at an unnatural angle against the rail of the slide.

     He wanted pictures. He wanted to be able to remember this, to look upon the photos whenever he was feeling low or insecure. His phone was in his pants which, with his shoes, were next to the slide. He hadn’t bothered to remove his shirt.

     He no longer felt intoxicated, he noticed, as he was easily able to balance as he stepped into his pants. It wasn’t until he had pulled up the zipper and buttoned them that he realized his belt was no longer strewn within his pant loops. He peered around the area surrounding the slide but could not see it. He tried to recall Kyla taking it off him, but it seemed her hands had gone from struggling to taking his pants off in an instant. She had most likely pulled it out of the loops and tossed it aside, he rationalized. No matter, he had others. And he wanted to get pictures of her body while it was warm.

     He began photographing her from afar in order to capture the hard sloping line of the slide in contrast to the soft curve of her leg dangling over the side. As he moved closer to take pictures of her face and neck, he scowled with the realization that he hadn’t had the release of an orgasm. He briefly considered masturbating right there, next to her body, but ultimately decided against it, as it was beneath him to do something so lewd in a public place. No, he would go home, take his time viewing her pictures, and let his excitement rise and fall until he could no longer contain himself.  

     The pictures were stunning. He felt confident that he had successfully captured every angle of her that he would ever desire. Satisfied, he made his way back to the park entrance. He was eager to get home and as he crossed the street toward his apartment, he found that he felt happier than he had in months. For once, hue felt a sense of pride in himself as a man. He had asserted control in an out-of-control situation. He had contained the uncontainable. He was the master of his own universe, he thought as he strode up the stairs of his building and let himself into his apartment. All was right in his world. He would sleep soundly tonight, of that he was sure.

     It was the call of approaching sirens that woke him the next morning.   

Girls Chase Boys Chase Girls

FROM: Boy
TO: Girl
SUBJECT: sorry

I'm sorry okay

*     *     *     *     *

Boy and Girl connect on dating website. Boy emails Girl. Girl replies. Boy and Girl exchange a number of emails before Girl finally gives Boy her phone number.

Boy texts rather than calls. Texting has its place, but it's not a great way to get to know someone new. Girl is not impressed.

But Girl likes meeting new people, exchanging stories, getting to know each other a little. So when Boy suggests Girl meet him for a drink, Girl says yes, Thursday night. Boy picks a place, as Girl is new to the area. Girl checks it out online and texts him that it doesn't look too murdery, so it's a go. Boy responds, "It's not very loud, so you'll be able to hear me talk."

Girl suddenly realizes Boy has not asked her very many questions about her. Girl begins to think that a cold beer alone on her couch with the company of a good book sounds like a better way to spend her Thursday night.

Wednesday afternoon, Boy texts Girl, "I can't make it tonight, hung up at work."

Girl is relieved. Girl doesn't bother pointing out to Boy that they were supposed to meet the following day. Girl figures Boy wasn't all that interested, Girl wasn't all that interested and it all worked itself out in the end. Girl texts back, "Okay, no problem" and assumes that is the end of that. Just as well since Girl already has another date, one she's excited about, lined up for Saturday.

(Girl will go on to cancel Saturday's date when THAT Boy tells her he has only been separated for 4 months and is living in an in-law apartment attached to the marital home where his wife still resides.)

However, a week later, Girl will receive an email from Boy saying, "I'm sorry okay".

Boy feels bad and wants Girl to make him feel better about it. Now, Girl is not an asshole. Girl has been dating long enough to know that it's complicated, that old baggage and fear of rejection linger behind every step of the process. So Girl says, "Dude, if I had a dime for every time I freaked out when a guy either gave me his number or asked me to meet, I'd have enough money to pay for every date ever with a guy I finally want to go the distance with. Dating is hard, people get freaked out and bail, I get it. But I've found that the times I've freaked out have been because I wasn't really ready to be dating, I wasn't actually interested but felt like I should give someone I had no online chemistry with a chance, or I WAS interested but there were red flags that I couldn't ignore. So don't sweat it, it's usually your gut telling you it's not right. First dates should be exciting, something you look forward to, not something you dread and want to bail on."

Boy replies, "I think it's sexy that you called me dude."

Girl shakes head. Boy is definitely not her type.

Boy messages, "Your sweet lets start over"

Girl responds, "I think at this point we should just wish each other well..."

Boy replies again with an "Awww come on" that Girl ignores.

Boy and Girl don't speak again.

And so Girl keeps looking.

Send Me On My Way

I knew this house was ours immediately.

It wasn't the bright kitchen or the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom that lured me in. It was the sunlit staircase, with one window at the top of the stairs and another at the bottom. I had only been a bride for two months then, but we agreed that children were in our future and as I stood just inside the front door, I could see myself carrying a baby down those stairs. We told the realtor we needed to think it over and then parked just around the corner.

"We're going to have babies in that house," I said.

And so we did.

The house bore witness to my life, as houses do. I waddled pregnant, rocked infants, read stories, nursed fevers, kissed boo-boos, calmed tantrums, set up sprinklers, stuffed stockings, planned birthdays, baked cupcakes. I cooked Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner and Easter dinner. I nurtured, and then ended, a marriage. I fell to my knees on the living room floor and cried for the death of my father. I blared the kitchen radio at 6 a.m., high on adrenaline and strength, the morning of my surgery.

I adjusted as the house continually ceased to represent my former life and morphed into my current one.

I have long loved this house. I love the way the light comes in through the expansive kitchen window. I love the way my bedroom smells, like fresh air and perfume, when the windows are all open. I love the scraping sound my son's door makes when he opens it in the morning. I love being under a blanket on my couch, watching the snow fall out the front windows. I love sitting on my back porch with a coffee or a beer or a book or a friend.

I love this house and the life I have lived in it.

But a person cannot truly move forward if her feet remain in the same spot. You can't stay where you are, I remind myself as I pack boxes, digging through the rubble of the last 13 years of my life. You have to keep going. 

I'm excited for a new beginning, a place that is free of ghosts. A place where I am not the ex, not the mourner, not the brain tumor.

A place where I am just me.

A place where I am home. 

This Must Be the Place

June 5, 2013
This is the water bottle with the red top. This is my red v-neck t-shirt. This is my pair of dark blue jeans. This is the trash barrel I stuff it all into. This is my contempt.

This is the ambulance. This is the rush-hour and pre-Bruin's playoff game traffic. This is the fear of hearing 'there's nothing we can do.' This is my watch. This is 5 pm. This is the thought that I would give anything to be in my kitchen making dinner for my sons. This is my father at my right shoulder. This is my grandmother on my left. This is the thought that they are here to guide me through my death. This is the prayer to my grandmother, woman to woman, to help me mother my children through whatever is coming next.

This is the longest ride of my life.


April 29, 2014
This is me with my head in my hands, crying for the biting shock of it all. This is my best friend. This is her hand in mine. This is her crying for the biting shock of it all. This is the processing. This is my scar. This is where it hurts.


September 12, 2013
This is the first MRI to check for regrowth. This is my stomach in ropes. This is my cautious optimism. This is the arm with a ripe, swollen vein that the woman can't seem to tap for an IV. This is the bruise she leaves. This is the set of foam blocks stabilizinging my head. This is the table I lie on. This is the noise the machine makes. This is the flashback to June it evokes. This is the hour the test takes. This is the tiny, cold room where I change my clothes. This is the man who comes over that night to rub the day out of my shoulders. This is the floor I sit on while I describe for him the complexity of emotions that day. This is the door he leaves from.


June 12, 2013
This is the white mark on my forehead from the Mayfield pins screwed in to my head to stabilize it. This is the razor used to shave my hair. This is the breathing tube put down my throat. This is the #10 scalpel that cuts my skin. This is the muscle that is sliced apart. This is the drill that bears holes into my skull. This is the circle of bone that is removed. This is the lumbar puncture in my lower back that drains off cerebral spinal fluid. This is the brain tissue lifted and shifted. This is the specimen sent to pathology. This is the muscle removed from above my jaw and patched up on my head. This is the 150 ml of blood that is lost. This is the 5 inch scar that remains.  

June 11, 2013

This is the quiet night.


June 12, 2013
This is me at 6 a.m. This is my kitchen. This is my blaring radio. This is me ready.


April 30, 2014
This is my scar.

This is where it hurts.

5 Reasons Why Being Single Is Just The Greatest Thing Ever And Ever, Amen. Infinity. For Real.

Being single is underrated. Sure, there are moments of loneliness that settle in every now and then, but at times like that I chose to focus on the things that are really super amazing and awesome about being single.

1) The Whole Not Getting Knocked Up Thing: Guess what, kids? Turns out the Catholic Church was right, abstinence really IS the best way to avoid pregnancy (unless you're the Virgin Mary)! This has also proved to be cost-effective, since there are few things I love to do more than take expensive pregnancy tests after I've been within five feet of a real, live man. So thank you, men, for staying away and thereby providing me with free birth control.

2) Abandoning The Two Forks Lie: I'm a sweets girl. Put chocolate on just about anything and I will order it off the menu. So the last thing I want to do when I've just ordered something called Chocolate Orgasm of Chocolate Death Love is share. I DON'T WANT TWO FORKS. I want to eat ALL of the Chocolate Orgasm of Chocolate Death Love myself. If not now, then I want to take it home and sneak-eat it at 3 in the morning by the light of the refrigerator like the normal woman that I am. But that's like 20th date behavior. There's a certain level of intimacy I need to have with a man before I'm comfortable reaching across the table and biting his hand when he tries to get near my Chocolate Orgasm of Chocolate Death Love. Being single means I don't have to pretend that I'm down with him wanting to get two forks so we can share. The Chocolate Orgasm of Chocolate Death Love is ALL MINE, MOTHERFUCKER.

3) Accepting That My Digestive System Exists: There are few worse things about dating than reaching that inevitable point in the relationship where you're spending so much time together that you can no longer hide the fact that you are a human and, as such, have a digestive system that, if it functions normally, will demand to be reckoned with. In other words, YOU CAN'T HOLD IT FOREVER. Eventually, your body is going to be like, "Look, we get that you like this guy and you'd rather wait until he has gone home or until the middle of the night when you're sure he's asleep so you can go use the downstairs bathroom without worrying that he'll wake up and be all on to you, but here's the thing...you've been holding it for 3 days now. We tried to warn you last night with that whole fart-in-your-sleep-and-wake-you-up-thing. But here you are, still trying to talk yourself out of it. Cut the shit, sister. Everyone poops. Now get to it already before we make you VERY sorry. We have ways of doing that. You don't even want to know." As a single woman, however, I don't have such problems. My body says, "Hey!" and I'm all, "Oh, right, okay" and that's it, the beautiful dance happens seamlessly, wherein I eat all of the Chocolate Orgasm of Chocolate Death and my body properly digests it. That is called harmony. And it is good.

4) I Always Control The TV: Sometimes I just want to sit and watch a re-run of Grey's Anatomy from back when it was good. Especially if it's the one where Denny dies and Izzy is crying in her pink dress and everything is all Snow Patroly. OR if it's the one where George dies and the way you know he dies is because Izzy is being resuscitated and then she's all pretty and getting on the elevator in that pink dress and you're thinking that's a bummer, Izzy is dead right now, and then the elevator doors open and OH. SHIT. IT'S. GEORGE. In his Army uniform. Oh my God. So, sometimes I want to just sit and watch that and cry a lot and not have to worry that someone is sitting on the couch next to me sneaking a peek to see if I'm crying because OF COURSE I AM. It's practically Pavlovian; if Izzy's in the pink dress then bad things are happening and crying will commence immediately. Being single means I don't ever have to watch football. Instead, I can watch people die on TV. You might just have to take my word for it that this is better. But it is. I swear.  

5) No Pressure To Cook Anything Fancier Than Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: My friend Karen and I used to say that we were going to write a cookbook called "How To Bake A Potato" because this was the kind of lame stuff that, when were both first married and realizing that cooking at home was a lot cheaper than getting Papa Gino's pizza every night, we had to look up. But then the internet came along and sort of shit all over that plan, so thanks for THAT, Al Gore. Eventually I learned how to cook well enough to sustain two small humans and not cause heart disease or food poisoning in my ex-husband or myself. Now the men I cook for are 8 and 10, so the general consensus is that if you can dip it in ranch and/or ketchup, then it's good eats. If I were dating, I'd most likely be whipping out the GOOD recipes once I found a guy worthy of my spending 3 hours in the kitchen for a meal that takes all day to cook, dirties every pot and pan I own, and takes all of 15 minutes to eat. But until then, it's grilled cheese.

Cut diagonally if I'm feeling all fancy and shit.

Human Touch

People need to be touched.

When our babies are born, we pull them up to our chests, their little hearts beating against ours, their skin against ours, their warmth entangled with our own. When we feel compassion for friends or family members, we reach out and touch their hand or pull them in for a hug. When we are in the various stages of falling in, or being in, love, we rest our heads on chests and drape our hands over knees. We wrap our arms around waists, we nuzzle into necks, we trace our fingertips gently along the lines of a body because we crave to be closer, closer, ever closer.

We need to be touched.

I sat in my best friend's kitchen one cold, gray day not long after my father died. She was cutting my hair, snipping away until she had finished. She dried it. And then she styled it, brushing it this way, fluffing it that way, smoothing it down. Tears streamed down my face as she did. It had been so long since I had been touched by someone who wasn't one of my squirming sons that I had forgotten what it felt like. Or just how much I missed it. My loneliness, my sadness, my longing, it streamed down my face.

Because she had touched my hair.

In the days between discovering the brain tumor and the surgery to remove it, my home was filled with friends and family. People I hadn't seen in years came to see me, wished me well. My living room, my kitchen, my dining room, they were full of people who brought me food, brought me magazines, brought me flowers, brought me toilet paper, brought me love.

But at night, the house was empty and still. And the very thing that was keeping me going during the day, this sense of strength that I had discovered, this certainty that I had everything I could possibly need in my life, even without a man, would crumble in the dark as I longed to be touched. Not in a sexual way. I wanted to be taken care of, to be comforted, to be held.

To surrender.

Just for a bit. Just until morning.

The last thing I saw before my surgery was my hand as they injected medication into the IV.  How many people had I touched, comforted, connected to with that hand? How many people had held that hand within their own?

I was staring at my hand, offering up gratitude for my life, for all the things I had done and felt and for the people I had loved.

For the people I had touched. For the ones who had touched me.

Because people...people need to be touched.

The Virgin Mary's Birth Plan

The Virgin Mary's Birth Plan:

-If a birthing ball is not available, I would like to labor while riding a donkey.

-If the baby and I are healthy, I would like to have a manger birth.

-I would like to have an unmedicated birth. (Unless the child's father, God, decides to intervene and take the pain away. Which would be nice. Since I'm doing Him a big solid here, what with the whole pregnancy-without-sex thing, which really gets people talking, by the way. I'm just saying...a little Divine Intervention would be nice.)

-I would like music during my labor and delivery. If angels do not appear to provide musical accompaniment, I will bring my favorite Enya cd.

-The following people are allowed in the manger during labor and delivery: Joseph (life partner), Wise Men (no more than 3), shepherds (no more than 3), and various barnyard animals.

-The following people are not allowed in the manger during labor and delivery: Innkeeper

-I will be exclusively breastfeeding. Please do not give my baby any bottles or pacifiers so as to avoid nipple confusion.

-Please do not allow barnyard animals to eat my baby.

A Letter To Santa Claus, From The Committee For Elf Welfare (Internal Affairs Division) Re: Immediate Suspension of The Elf On A Shelf Program

Dear Mr. Santa Claus,

We are writing today to express our concerns regarding your Elf On A Shelf program.

As you know, the Elf On A Shelf initiative was a fundamental component of the 2009 Creative Recessionary Elf Employment Program (or CREEP), an effort launched by this committee in order to minimize the effects of the Great Recession upon the North Pole's economy. We have always believed that the key to maintaining strong North Pole economic growth lies in ensuring that our elves have ample employment opportunity.

Initial implementation of the program was anticipated to be successful: elves who were ineligible for positions as toy makers, reindeer handlers, Keeblerian cookie bakers, or cobbler assistants, would be assigned to a household with children. The elf would observe the behavior of those children and report back nightly as to whether the child should be placed on The Nice List or The Naughty List. Enthusiasm for this program was high, as it had the potential to not only open up job opportunities for otherwise unemployable elves, but to also ensure workshop operations could be most efficiently utilized, as toy production could be tailored to appropriately reflect a child's most current Naughty/Nice List status.

However, now that the program has been in place for a few years, it has come to our attention that the elves involved are spending less time observing the behavior of children and more time engaging in activity that we find troubling.

The committee recognizes that you, Mr. Claus, are a very busy man. Given your hectic schedule, we understand that perusing social media sites may not generally be a productive use of your time. However, we believe that if you take a few moments to log onto Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, you will find ample evidence of the inappropriate behavior a number of the Elf On A Shelf employees are engaging in.

For instance, we have seen photographic evidence of elves ingesting illicit drugs, consuming alcoholic beverages, destroying personal property, and engaging in inappropriate sexual activity with Barbie dolls. Each of these offenses, as documented, has occurred during work hours and within the home of the elf's assigned family.

This kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. Not only does it inflict serious damage upon the positive image and credibility of North Pole elves, but our legal team  has advised that any litigation resulting from such elf misconduct could take years to resolve and  have far-reaching economic consequences.

Therefore, it is our recommendation that the Elf On A Shelf program be suspended immediately and all guilty elves be placed on the Naughty List indefinitely.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Warmly,

The Committee For Elf Welfare
Internal Affairs Division

Losing Santa

It started with the Tooth Fairy.

"I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy," my oldest said when he was 8. "I think it's just your parents."

He was watching me as he spoke and I could hear the question lurking behind his statement.

I looked everywhere but at him. "Well," I began, unsure exactly what to say next. I was willing to throw the Tooth Fairy under the bus, to strip her of her magical powers and own up, if I knew it would satisfy him. But I feared the avalanche of scrutiny outting her would spark.

Before I could decide how best to respond, he asked me flat out, "Is the Tooth Fairy real?"

Once he asked me directly, I could not lie. I gave up the Tooth Fairy.

And then I hauled ass out of his room before the flames of doubt could spread to Santa.

But just a month before Christmas, he went to his dad and asked the big question. And his dad was honest.

He waited until one night, right before bed, to break the news to me. I was prattling on about Christmas when he finally said, "Mom, I know Santa's not real. Dad told me it's you guys."

My heart broke.

I knew, at some point, this day would come, that eventually my boys would get older and no longer believe. But I wasn't ready for it at 8. I wasn't ready for this shred of innocence to be stripped away. They have the rest of their lives to question, to analyze, to sit with the reality of life.

I want them to be critical thinkers.

But I also want them to be believers, to be able to shake off logic now and then and simply bask in the wonder, beauty, and magic of feeling something.

While they are little boys, that means the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

When they are men, I hope that will mean love, humanity, and life itself.

And even magic.

Because we all need a little magic in our lives.

No matter how old we are. 

Let Me Down Gently

"Bye, Mom," my son says suddenly, because he is 8 and doesn't yet know that you don't just end a phone call so abruptly. You ease into it. Let me down gently, little boy.

"Wait," I say before he can hang up. "Last night I found one of your hippos in my bed."

"I know," he says matter-of-factly. "I left it there for you."

"For me?" I'm touched.

"Yeah," he says. "I don't need it anymore."

"Oh," I say.

Oh.

*     *     *     *     *

Originally, there was only one hippo. It sat in the corner of his crib, unnoticed, until the middle of one night when I stood outside of his room debating going in and just FINDING THE DAMN PACIFIER FOR HIM so that we could all sleep. But after a few minutes, he grew quiet. The next morning, he was holding the hippo close and chewing on its ear. The pacifier had been replaced by something he could find HIMSELF in the middle of the night.

Score.

However, even as his first birthday came and went, my son had terrible reflux, which meant there was not a single item belonging to either him or me that had not, at one time, been bathed in spit up.

So I ordered a back-up hippo. For when the primary hippo needed to be washed.

The second hippo was stashed in my closet, and the rule was that the primary hippo stayed in the crib (with an exception made for getting shots because everyone knows that rules don't count when you're getting shots).

This worked out well until I took a job working weekends. My very first day of work, I came home to find my son sitting on the living room floor with both hippos next to him.

"Buppos!" he giggled, holding them both out to me as if to say, "Can you even believe how much MORE awesome life is with TWO hippos, Mama?"

My husband shrugged. "He saw the other hippo in the closet."

So I ordered a third hippo.

"Buppos," my son would grin, stuffing the ear of one into his mouth and tucking the other under his arm while I gagged at the thought of chewing on cloth.

"Buppos," he would say quietly, settling onto my lap and into the crook of my arm in his warm, fuzzy footed pajamas as I read him bedtime stories and sang to him.

"Buppos," he would cry, his cheeks flush with fever as I tried to explain that we had only one hippo right now, that the other two were in the wash because he had thrown up all over them.

They were his buppos until, one day, they weren't. He called them hippos.

"Oh," I thought.

Oh.

*     *     *     *     *
 
A few days after leaving his hippo for me, he pulls me upstairs and climbs onto my bed, this big boy who is 8 and now has opinions about his hair and his clothes, who plays sports and asks me if it's true that grown ups use their tongues when they kiss. It's a beautiful thing, watching him get big, watching him become himself.

But it's a painful thing, too. I'm rarely Mama anymore. One day, when I wasn't even paying attention, I morphed into Mom.

How long before he stops wanting to sleep in my bed when he's scared? 
How long before he stops letting me pull him onto my lap? 
How long before he stops kissing me goodnight?

He has scooted over to the far side of the bed, the side I don't sleep on. He looks up at me.

"Mom," he says. "Can you get my hippos?"

I get him the hippos and climb onto the bed. He snuggles in, quiet for a bit, and I lie there smelling his sweet head.

Finally, he says, "I missed you in the summer. And I was sad because I didn't have my hippos that first night."

What this means, what he doesn't know how to say because he is only 8, but what I hear because I am 38 and because I know him like no one else on this earth does, is:

One day you were supposed to pick me up from school and you didn't. And then you were gone and nothing's been the same since. Tell me you'll be here when I come home from school. Tell me you won't go again. 

I pull him close. I tell him that I was sad when I couldn't come home the night I found out about the brain tumor. I tell him that I talked to his dad first thing the next morning and we made our plan to get him the hippos. I tell him that I missed him every day, but that I knew things would be normal again eventually. Or, almost normal.

The grown ups are in charge. And I was never really gone because nothing could keep me away.   

"Okay," he says, and he hops off the bed and goes back downstairs to play with his brother.

He takes the hippos with him.

Because he is 8 and doesn't yet know that you don't just get big so abruptly.

You ease into it.


Let me down gently, little boy.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

They can't decide what to do with me and the PA says as much. She's standing at the end of my bed with her perky ponytail and her white coat and I've already decided that I do not like her, not because of the perkiness of her pony, but rather because of the air of condescension floating off her like so many dandelion seeds carried on the wind. This is the first conversation I've had with her, but she is quick to point out that she saw me earlier in the day.

"I saw you by the elevators," she says.

I saw her too, holding her folders close to her chest as she looked over at me. I had been walking but needed to stop, choosing the most unfortunate spot I could find, a padded bench by the busy elevators. I sat, clinging to my IV pole and willing the floor to stop rising and falling.

Call, don't fall.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

I was feeling better as my eyes met hers. It didn't bother me that she was looking, everyone who passed stopped to look. With one eye patched, a turban of gauze that I did not know was blood soaked in the back, and my wrists and arms already turning a vibrant purple from an endless number of needle sticks, I wanted to grin at all of them and boast, "LOOK! Look at what I did!" But from her I could sense disdain, a silent "tsk, tsk, surgical patients should be up and walking, not lazily people-watching from the bench."

"So..." she trails off, flipping through papers from the foot of my bed. "We're trying to decide whether or not you should go home today. I'm...I'm trying to reconcile what the doctor wants for you and what I think YOU want." She looks up at me.

I hate her.

"What I want," I begin, "is to go home, so long as you can tell me it's medically safe for me to do so. But when you come in here telling me that you can't decide, I'm not convinced."

She frowns.

"You have family set up to stay with you?"

"Yes," I answer. Despite having committed the most egregious sin of getting sick without a husband, without a 'in sickness and in health' clause to enact, a barrage of family and friends have come forward, volunteering to take care of me for the next three weeks. They will wake me in the night to taper me off my steroids. They will be there to watch for seizures and confusion. They will dole out medications from the giant grid that houses pills of yellow, pink, white, and brown. They will help me up the stairs. They will make me smoothies and scrambled eggs.

They will wash blood out of my hair, an act so tender and sorrowful that even now, four months later, I cannot speak of it without crying. I cannot yet write about it.

They will rest a warm, steady hand on my back when I cry.

"You had a rough day yesterday," she says, her voice rising at the end so that I can't tell if she's making an observation or asking me a question.

I lean my head back against the pillow.

Yes. Yesterday was a rough day.

It was the day after brain surgery. I was in pain. A sweet girl in scrubs fed me a few spoonfuls of soup until I could drink a strawberry milkshake on my own. I was groggy, in and out of consciousness throughout the day.

A priest came into my room, making his introduction from the side of the bed.

I said hello. I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes to find my brother reading by my bedside.

I said hello. I fell asleep.

A woman who smelled like peppermint came in to take my vitals.

I said hello. I fell asleep.

"Jennifer," the nurse was calling to me in the afternoon as I tried to wake up. "Honey, we have to get you out of bed and walking. They REALLY want you walking."

I nodded. The neurosurgeons had told me this before the surgery. "You'll be up and walking the next day. We'll be sure of it." They had laughed and I had laughed, so eager to prove what a cooperative patient I could be. Oh yes, oh yes, you take out the tumor and I'll take over from there, I'll walk as much as you want me to walk, just get this thing out of my head without killing me and I'll do anything you want.

"Why don't we move you to the chair to start with," the nurse suggested.

 She removed the compression cuffs from my legs and helped me swing them to the side of the bed. I was surprised to see how weak they looked, so pale and thin. They were foreign, these soft, unsteady, timid legs.

I sat for a moment, then nodded to her that I was ready. The floor was shockingly cold beneath my feet as she took my arm and lifted me up. I stood for a moment, suddenly aware of pain in my lower back from the lumbar drain, took three small steps to the chair, and collapsed into it.

"Good!" she cheered.

"I'm going to throw up," I sputtered before leaning forward and beginning to retch. She moved quickly, shoving a blue basin under my chin just in time.

"Sit back," she was saying urgently, but my body was automatically doubling itself over as my stomach emptied. A brilliant white pain burst before my eyes and I cried out, "My head!" but could not stop vomiting long enough to realize that this was why she wanted me to sit back.

"-too much pressure on your head-" she was saying, and I suddenly shoved the basin at my mother and managed to squeak, "I'm going to pass out" before a sparkling warm blackness flooded over me. I felt the nurse's hand push me back against the chair. I could no longer see her. She was calling my name.

"Stay with me, Jennifer. JENNIFER, STAY WITH ME."

I tried to grab on to her voice, tried to take a deep breath, tried to tell her I was trying, trying to stay with her.

-just get this thing out of my head without killing me and I'll do anything you want-

But I couldn't speak again until minutes later, when I was back in the bed breathing in oxygen from a mask and nodding at another doctor, the nurse taking my hand and telling me, "You scared me."

Yeah. Me too.

"Yes," I confirm for the PA. "Yesterday was a rough day. But if I can, I want to go home."

She nods. "Alright," she says finally. "We'll get your discharge papers ready."

Surgery was on Wednesday. Today is Friday. I'm going home.

I'm relieved.



I'm terrified.




 

In the Still of the Night (Part 2)

Need a recap? Part 1

     He looked back down at the phone, at this former lover of hers and his engagement announcement. There was a pounding in his head, as if he could hear the beating of his own heart from within, that was growing as he clicked through to Jenna Burke’s Facebook page. 

     

     Her profile picture was of her and a friend, each with her blonde hair braided and wearing a straw cowboy hat, red plastic cups in the hands they had slung over each other’s shoulders to pose for the camera.  She was conventionally attractive; nice hair, nice tan, nice teeth, but generic, unlike Kyla who stood out in a crowd with her long legs and wildly curly auburn hair.  He had dated plenty just like this Jenna Burke, although none seriously, as he found that once he had fucked a girl like that, he grew tired of her quickly.

     

     He was scrolling down to find her status just as Kyla returned to the table, placing his shot before him and then sitting down.  She picked up her own glass, raised it in his direction, and tossed it back. 

     

     He looked down and read the post.

     

     “Baby Greene will be arriving in November!!!!” it said.    

     

     “Bottoms up, my friend,” she said, nodding at his drink.

     

     The pounding in his head continued as he looked across the table at her.  He had once asked her if she wanted children someday, but she had waved her hand at the question as if brushing away a small, annoying bug.

   

     “No kids for me,” she had said, leaning forward with a smirk, a glass of red wine dangling precariously by its stem between her fingers.

   

     “I’m not exactly the maternal type.”

     

     He did not take his eyes off of her face as he tipped his head back and let the warm liquid slide down his throat. He was feeling dizzy as the alcohol hit him. Nothing about this night was going the way he wanted it to. Nothing about this night was making any fucking sense.  Adam Greene and his pregnant fiancé and Kyla - his Kyla, HIS FUCKING KYLA - trying to drink them off her mind. He took a deep breath, held the side of the table to steady himself, and tried to tell himself that she was still the same, still the same Kyla she had been when she walked into the bar that night. She was not slipping through his fingers.

     

     No, she was sitting there, across from him, her same hair that he had run his fingers through, the same mouth that had met his, the same long fingers that had scratched down his own back. No. Everything was alright. They would leave soon and go back to his place and he would hold her close to him and she wouldn't be thinking of Adam Greene or his wedding or his baby. She would wrap her legs around HIM and be his and everything would be the way it was. 

     

     “You drunk yet?” she asked.  He nodded.

     

     “Great. Then we should probably go before I buy us another round and wind up throwing up all over the bartender.”

      

     He wasn't sure exactly where the feeling was coming from, but he suddenly felt bold. Rather than let her decide whether or not the evening was over, he stood and said, “Let’s go back to my place.”

     

     “Perfect,” she replied and in a moment he was steering her through the crowd and out into the night air.  He wanted to hurry. The sooner he had her in his apartment, the lights low, her naked body beneath his, the sooner everything would feel right again.

     

     They walked silently for a few minutes, until she slowed a bit. 

     

     “I’m drunk,” she said quietly.

     

     He was happy for this. Maybe she would pass out in his bed and stay the night. That would certainly go a long way to fix things.   

     

     “Wow,” she said with a small, forced laugh. “Wow. I am…I am REALLY drunk.”

     

     “Come on,” he said, taking her arm and walking quickly but she pulled away.

     

     “No, I…I need air, I need…” she trailed off. Her eyes were shiny but remained sharp as she suddenly looked at him.

     

     “Got a cigarette?”

     

     “At my apartment,” he said.

     

     “Bullshit,” she said, laughing and grabbing playfully at his waist where she knew he always had a pack.

     

     He was growing impatient, even as he stopped to pull a cigarette out for her. He couldn't be sure she wouldn't still turn toward the street, hail a cab, and slip away, leaving him alone with no relief for this feeling of urgency.  But as he leaned in to light the cigarette for her, she looked up at him with wide eyes and he felt, for a moment, better.  They were only a few blocks away from his apartment now. She was almost his again.

     

     She dragged on the cigarette as they walked, their pace slower than he would have liked. She hadn't exaggerated her drunken state; she stumbled for a moment, reaching out for him as she steadied herself.

   

     “Fuck,” she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Her breast brushed against his arm as she did. His heart raced. Three more blocks.

   

     “FUCK,” she yelled, turning her face up towards the sky and laughing. She let go of his arm and sped up her pace.

   

     “I mean,” she laughed bitterly, “I mean do you believe this shit?” She was in front of him now, turning back to face him, her hair bouncing as she did. He wanted her to stop. He wanted her to stop moving, stop thinking and, for fuck’s sake, to stop talking.

     

     As if he had made it happen himself, she stopped.

   

     “You know,” she began, and he wondered if, since he had made her stop moving, he could make her stop talking before the next words slipped out of her perfect, delicious mouth.

    

     “I was pregnant once.”

   

     He had failed.