June 2009 (novella)
I posted part of this before. really am at a loss of HOW to end it:
-
I will tell you what comes next and hope that you don't hold it against me.
I am eager to take Sarah's own words to my own heart. And at least, for the first few days, try to. But I keep waking up at night. I'm distracted at work. My head is lost in a fog. The weather gets warmer and I'm more distant.
I revisit my childhood memories, like some people pace through museums and ogle at their favored paintings. I revisit them again and again, eager to pick up on any new clue that would shed light on the Keith Brannigan subject. I think about them in the shower, I think about them on the toilet.
I could leave well enough alone, but God works in mysterious ways.
I'm at the supermarket, finishing my purchase. The teenaged cashier is probably on several drugs, sure. He stares at me with stoned eyes, something I'm familiar with thanks to my high school years.
"47.52. You have any coupons?" he asks.
"Do I look like I have any coupons?" I answer back sharply. Really I don't mean to come off as some rude, holier-than-thou ass. This kid is just doing his job. He doesn't register any emotion as he finalizes the transaction and off I go. Or off, I should have gone.
I see the figure of Keith Brannigan standing near the sliding doors. He's gazing at his wristwatch and his shoulders are hunched forwards. I nearly stop, dead in my tracks. Because these kind of things just don't happen. The person that you've been awkwardly wondering about, because of their strange involvement with your own parents, just doesn't appear like that. Snap of the fingers.
As I mentally wrestle with approaching him, he spots me. Dead center, can't miss it. He spots me, the man gawking at him with bad balance and an open mouth.
"David!" he cheerfully yells. My fate is sealed. He even flags me down. God, if He exists, made this too easy. And so, help me.
"Mr. Brannigan, what a s-shock." Don't stutter, you're not a boy. Mr. Brannigan smiles.
"A good shock, I hope? I'm here with the wife. She needs some," he shrugs. "Whatever it is women need. They always need something."
"That they do."
"I personally hate grocery stores. Consumerism, the downfall of western society. Hate 'em. Brings me to this not-desireable location." He throws back his head and laughs some. He's in such remarkably good spirits. I suppose, though, why shouldn't he be?
"Right? Everything's getting smaller and prices are all going up." I weakly hold up my own bags.
"End of days stuff, it is. I heard you saw Sarah again recently?" He flashes me yet another smile. I wonder if those are his real teeth. And if they are, God he bleached them. What kind of man this side of Hollywood does that?
"Yup."
"That's good, that's good. I mean, even if I didn't do much with your dad up until, you know...I'm glad you two can be friends."
"Hey, Mr. Brannigan? Can we step really outside for a moment?" I make a gesture, indicating this desire. I have to do what comes next.
"I'm able to walk, aren't I?" Mr. Brannigan has a disposition that could put Josef Stalin at ease, that much is for certain. He's hard not to warm up to, really. I had been wondering if I should hate him. It would be a blind hypothesis for hatred, but since when does hatred need to be grounded in known reality.
We move outside. The night is warm. It's the summer, or the start of it. Balmy, peaceful and sweet. There's not another soul stationed outside. People are either coming or going. No one lingers.
"Everything okay?" Mr. Brannigan stands close to me. I can almost smell his aftershave and it smells like Dad.
"Mostly. I wanted to ask you, though. And I'm sorry if this isn't the greatest place or time for such a question-"
"Eh." Mr. Brannigan shrugs his big shoulders.
"-what led to your falling out with my father? I'm sorry, again. I just want to know." And then I cough. I can't even make eye contact. My concentration falls to the cement, with littered cigarrette butts and wads of hardened gum.
Mr. Brannigan does not speak. His silence burns my ears.
"Well." And after what stretches like a century, he speaks. "It's understandable you asked. It really is. I can't hold it against you and I'm not offended. I mean, maybe I would have been in the past. But things sure are different now. With, what, Ed gone. Way before his time, too. Shame. Anyway, back to your question. I'm a man of honesty, David. I think that's one of the greatest character traits any person can possess. I believe in living a life free of secrets or discretions. What does that accomplish? Not much, I think, not much at all. I raised Sarah to believe in the same concept, too. That being said, I don't talk much about why Ed and I terminated our friendship, prematurely sure. It's all my fault though. God. I didn't think I'd ever say this to you, so excuse me. Your mother and I, when you were really young and when WE were really young and also stupid, we had a fling. That's what it was- a drunken night of stupidity. It meant nothing to neither of us. But we tried to hide it. Me, from Linda and your mother from your father. Both of us from your father, actually. I was never super-close to Ed but I considered him a good friend and I wouldn't have wanted to hurt him, not for anything in this world. Doing that, though. Well, neither of us could really hide what had transpired. You build a web of lies- do you see why I value honesty so much, David?- and you get stuck in them. No one could get their facts straight. I came clean to Linda, which went well, thank God. We're still married, obviously. And your parents, well. Someone had to suffer and I took the shot for that." He poked his chest. "I didn't want any friction between your mother and your father. I said I initiated it and I regretted it and that she did love him. And she did! She does still, I bet. Everyone makes mistakes. You mustn't ever doubt your mother's love for your father. Don't. No good will come of that, either."
"I don't." I couldn't. I can't.
"Ed didn't want the hell to do with me anymore, though. I'll always remember the day he came over. It was raining out, that's why it made such an impression. Very cinematic that way. I was in my studio and bang bang bang at the door. There I went, opened the door, and BOOM! right to the jaw. Took me to the floor and I'm kind of a big guy, too. Was roughed up a lot in the marines! And he brought me to my knees. Gotta always commend Ed for that. Then he drove off, soaked and snarling and all. Never uttered one word the whole time."
Another silence fell upon us, only punctuated by the sounds of the cars that passed us. Little periods and exclamation points.
"Ed was a great guy, God bless him." Mr. Brannigan's head was lowered in though. His big, esoteric-looking brow was frumpled.
Mrs. Brannigan barged upon our scene then, as I was taking in everything for the count.
"Keith, there you are. You wouldn't believe my luck in that stupid store. Out of our brand of toilet paper, seriously? Oh hi, hi- is that, is that David?" Mrs. Brannigan meets the expectation of "aged hippie." I almost expect the smell of incense or the sudden break-out of impromptu yoga.
I nod. She pats me on the arm.
"You are a great boy. What have you two been doing, catching up?"
"Yeah, we've been catching up of sorts. This, that." There is a gleam in Mr. Brannigan's eye, a gleam of "oh, I've told the truth and I have nothing to hide." I don't hate him, not like you would expect.
"That's very nice! You should come over some night, David. I could make dinner!" Mrs. Brannigan smiles broadly. I see an older picture of Sarah in her face. It's promising.
"That sounds good." I'm not going to take the invite. I know that already. Why would I? It would just be a stomach full of discomfort.
"It does, doesn't it?"
I walk away and watch them with new eyes, even though there's no reason. I suspected it all along. In the car, I breathe in and out. Like a Buddhist monk in training, I just focus on my breaths.
"You okay there, David?" Mr. Peterson watches me at work. He's hovering over the edge of my desktop computer, yellow and outdated. He's wearing a tweed jacket with patches at the elbow and I can't stop fixtating on the pattern. Red, yellow, orange. What was he thinking when he picked that rag out? "You've been very distant lately. It's not like you. You're a man of the moment."
I smirk. A man of the moment sounds like it gives me a James Bond flash. If only he knew the boring and dry life I lead.
"There's a lot on my mind, sir." I don't make any falsehoods. My mind is in a constant tangle; it never ceases. Lately it had been off-the-wall. I sleep two hours and eat less than I have in some time. I start to look like I've taken up meth for my newest hobby. All I need is some missing teeth and bugs wedged in my skin.
"Oh, I feel you son. But don't let that deter your work ethic." He gives me a piercing shot, his eyes in slints, and ambles away, proud of his stance. If it weren't for me, even though I haven't been up to par so much these days, no work would ever get done from his subordinates.
Asshole. I wish I could punch him in the back of his neck. Snap his head right off, like pulling petals off a daisy, that easy. I'm not a creature of rage, though, and even a child could be wise enough to see mine is all misdirected at the improper sources. I am just tired with how my life is turning out.
I am upset that my mother had an affair. I am upset that the girl that I have almost loved for the greatest expanse of my life is out of my hands. I am upset I have a shitty job. I am upset about a multitude of factors.
I try not to be upset with my mother, per se. This is easier said than done, like most of the Christian doctrine. It's better written than acted out. I see her as she is: human, capable of sin. Capable of falling victim to vices. And it was so long ago- can I really care that much? Ah, but I do, I do.
It was a drunken night of stupidity...God knows we've all had those. For me, it was a Chinese girl named Becky with a pierced lip and a curious habit of biting me in my sleep.
I can't imagine my mom through these years without the visor of my own memory darkening it all. It's funny: I see her as she is right now. When I go back to my pile of childhood recollections and blurred dreams, I see her as she is right now. As a young woman, I am injecting shades from photographs and videos.
I have one crisp, clear memory of my mother when I'm young and I can see her as she was, not as how I should expect her to be. Her hair's long and hanging around her face like Diane Keaton's in Annie Hall. And she feels like the most benevolent force in the whole universe. Better than God.
She's combing my own hair and talking softly to me, like a coo. I have to be three or four, at the time of this memory.
"You have so much hair, David!" she's teasing me.
"One day, that kind of comment will be a blessing. But, oh. I don't know. Look at your father. It's like He-Man's sheath, up there." She keeps coming, taming the last few curls. Can't say my hair is that curly, these days.
"All done." And I thought: my mother is beautiful, my mother is perfect, she can do no wrong.
Yet. This was when she had slept with Keith. This was when she had broke my father's heart, no doubt. I can almost imagine the ensuing fights; I can see the rage and desperation in my father's normally placid eyes.
"I thought..."
I have to concentrate purely on his eyes for a moment. When imagining the scene in bed at night, hand on my stomach. The fact I have to concentrate so much is disturbing to me. I should know these things; my father looks just like me.
I stop seeing my mother so much. Of course, she's lost in her own planning, excitedly making prep for the Switzerland trip with Crimshaw.
She rings, when I'm watching TV to nullify my mind. Like a zombie. Replacing old pictures with new, meaningless ones that will filter out of my brain once I turn it off.
"David?" her voice is like a stranger's and I'm not sure why. If you think about it, I've heard this voice for twenty-six years. I've heard it even before I picked up and left the womb.
"This is." Don't be a dick, David. Not again.
"Oh cut that out. You haven't been calling."
"Nope."
"May I ask why?"
"You may." She makes an offended noise. I can hear her running water.
"Jesus H. Christ, David. What's up? What have I done to fail you now? Are you on some Freudian bullshit bender?" The water stops running and she stops talking. I squint.
For a moment, I just hold my breath in my mouth, like when you're at the beach and you scoop up the sand, just to hold it for a moment. Then, to let it go.
"I've been depressed." To let it go.
"Well, David. I'm your mother. I know these things. So: no shit."
"It is to say?"
"It is to say."
"We need to have a real conversation." I put my hand over half my face. I don't want to say it and I'm letting it out with a grimace and a real throbbing in my stomach. I wonder- shit, have I eaten today?
The worst is still yet to come.
By sundown, she's over. I expected this. I'm eating a microwave burrito and watching Jeopardy. I am, in a way, the person I was several years ago, when I had just emerged from the womb of academia with my BA in hand, all bright-eyed and gushy.
She's wearing running clothes.
"You ran here?" I question as I open the door for her to slip in. She shrugs.
"It's beautiful out. I need the exercise."
"You really don't." My mother has always been a svelte, in-shape woman.
"It makes me feel healthy. Alive. Can I sit down? David! Do you even clean?" I've decided to let the inside of my apartment match the inside of my...psyche? Soul? Being?
"When the mood calls for it, yes." She knocks off a pile of discarded magazines and takes a seat on a sofa that used to beige. Now, I think you'd call it yellow.
"What's up?" she says with a sigh, wiping sweat off her face. I take the seat in the armchair directly opposing her.
"A lot." I say and point to the sky. She rolls her eyes at me.
"Cut it out. Act like a grown up, David."
And then: I can't go about it any other way.
"Mom. Did you sleep with Keith Brannigan?" I could have smacked her for that response.
Hit her with the back of my hand, like some belligerent husband.
"Where did that come from?" Her eyes are alert. Her complexion is so pale. I sigh and bury my brow in my opened fist.
"You said. You said, that night. When I took you out. You said."
"Oh God. I did. How much did I drink?"
"Too much."
"Right. Oh, David." She exhales the exhale of a woman in tumult. I wonder if my father's spirit is on the grounds, somewhere, now. "I never, ever wanted to talk about this with you. God knows, with anyone, in my life. Frankly, it's none of your business."
"Mom."
"I talked too much about it in the past. Do you know the kind of Hell I put your father through? Do you know the kind of Hell I went through? I've repressed so much, I'll be forward with you." She's so uncomfortable and I feel deep pangs of regret for making her feel that way. But some of the burden is off my shoulders now. I can sleep somewhat better at night. Somewhat.
"I can surmise."
"It was stupid! So stupid! I had a fight with your father, I went out drinking with, with Keith and Linda, Linda had some kind of emergency with Sarah, it was just us, your father had gone off to Crimshaw's for the night, the house was empty, you were asleep....it didn't last long. Two bodies, seeking comfort. Or mostly me."
"What did Keith need to be comforted by? He just wanted to help."
There is an elongated pause that comes after. What has needed to be said has been said. I can't say she didn't love my dad- that would be stupid of me. I can't say that I forgive her: we are in this strange middle place now. The truth, it has been said, is out there.
"I'm sorry," she finally says in a whisper. I nod.
"I know."
Then, she gets up from the couch. Brushing her jogging pants off, she heads towards me. And she hugs me, then, very tightly that I don't think I will be able to successfully breathe.
"I know that's not all that's bothering you. Call me when you want to talk about that." There are tears on the outskirt of her eyes. I bet she's imagining my dad. I bet she's imagining ten thousand images I cannot name.
And then, she leaves.
The last thought of that evening: when did I become such a wine drinker? I used to hate the stuff. I can still hear her running shoes on the cement outside, ricocheting into space.
-
I will tell you what comes next and hope that you don't hold it against me.
I am eager to take Sarah's own words to my own heart. And at least, for the first few days, try to. But I keep waking up at night. I'm distracted at work. My head is lost in a fog. The weather gets warmer and I'm more distant.
I revisit my childhood memories, like some people pace through museums and ogle at their favored paintings. I revisit them again and again, eager to pick up on any new clue that would shed light on the Keith Brannigan subject. I think about them in the shower, I think about them on the toilet.
I could leave well enough alone, but God works in mysterious ways.
I'm at the supermarket, finishing my purchase. The teenaged cashier is probably on several drugs, sure. He stares at me with stoned eyes, something I'm familiar with thanks to my high school years.
"47.52. You have any coupons?" he asks.
"Do I look like I have any coupons?" I answer back sharply. Really I don't mean to come off as some rude, holier-than-thou ass. This kid is just doing his job. He doesn't register any emotion as he finalizes the transaction and off I go. Or off, I should have gone.
I see the figure of Keith Brannigan standing near the sliding doors. He's gazing at his wristwatch and his shoulders are hunched forwards. I nearly stop, dead in my tracks. Because these kind of things just don't happen. The person that you've been awkwardly wondering about, because of their strange involvement with your own parents, just doesn't appear like that. Snap of the fingers.
As I mentally wrestle with approaching him, he spots me. Dead center, can't miss it. He spots me, the man gawking at him with bad balance and an open mouth.
"David!" he cheerfully yells. My fate is sealed. He even flags me down. God, if He exists, made this too easy. And so, help me.
"Mr. Brannigan, what a s-shock." Don't stutter, you're not a boy. Mr. Brannigan smiles.
"A good shock, I hope? I'm here with the wife. She needs some," he shrugs. "Whatever it is women need. They always need something."
"That they do."
"I personally hate grocery stores. Consumerism, the downfall of western society. Hate 'em. Brings me to this not-desireable location." He throws back his head and laughs some. He's in such remarkably good spirits. I suppose, though, why shouldn't he be?
"Right? Everything's getting smaller and prices are all going up." I weakly hold up my own bags.
"End of days stuff, it is. I heard you saw Sarah again recently?" He flashes me yet another smile. I wonder if those are his real teeth. And if they are, God he bleached them. What kind of man this side of Hollywood does that?
"Yup."
"That's good, that's good. I mean, even if I didn't do much with your dad up until, you know...I'm glad you two can be friends."
"Hey, Mr. Brannigan? Can we step really outside for a moment?" I make a gesture, indicating this desire. I have to do what comes next.
"I'm able to walk, aren't I?" Mr. Brannigan has a disposition that could put Josef Stalin at ease, that much is for certain. He's hard not to warm up to, really. I had been wondering if I should hate him. It would be a blind hypothesis for hatred, but since when does hatred need to be grounded in known reality.
We move outside. The night is warm. It's the summer, or the start of it. Balmy, peaceful and sweet. There's not another soul stationed outside. People are either coming or going. No one lingers.
"Everything okay?" Mr. Brannigan stands close to me. I can almost smell his aftershave and it smells like Dad.
"Mostly. I wanted to ask you, though. And I'm sorry if this isn't the greatest place or time for such a question-"
"Eh." Mr. Brannigan shrugs his big shoulders.
"-what led to your falling out with my father? I'm sorry, again. I just want to know." And then I cough. I can't even make eye contact. My concentration falls to the cement, with littered cigarrette butts and wads of hardened gum.
Mr. Brannigan does not speak. His silence burns my ears.
"Well." And after what stretches like a century, he speaks. "It's understandable you asked. It really is. I can't hold it against you and I'm not offended. I mean, maybe I would have been in the past. But things sure are different now. With, what, Ed gone. Way before his time, too. Shame. Anyway, back to your question. I'm a man of honesty, David. I think that's one of the greatest character traits any person can possess. I believe in living a life free of secrets or discretions. What does that accomplish? Not much, I think, not much at all. I raised Sarah to believe in the same concept, too. That being said, I don't talk much about why Ed and I terminated our friendship, prematurely sure. It's all my fault though. God. I didn't think I'd ever say this to you, so excuse me. Your mother and I, when you were really young and when WE were really young and also stupid, we had a fling. That's what it was- a drunken night of stupidity. It meant nothing to neither of us. But we tried to hide it. Me, from Linda and your mother from your father. Both of us from your father, actually. I was never super-close to Ed but I considered him a good friend and I wouldn't have wanted to hurt him, not for anything in this world. Doing that, though. Well, neither of us could really hide what had transpired. You build a web of lies- do you see why I value honesty so much, David?- and you get stuck in them. No one could get their facts straight. I came clean to Linda, which went well, thank God. We're still married, obviously. And your parents, well. Someone had to suffer and I took the shot for that." He poked his chest. "I didn't want any friction between your mother and your father. I said I initiated it and I regretted it and that she did love him. And she did! She does still, I bet. Everyone makes mistakes. You mustn't ever doubt your mother's love for your father. Don't. No good will come of that, either."
"I don't." I couldn't. I can't.
"Ed didn't want the hell to do with me anymore, though. I'll always remember the day he came over. It was raining out, that's why it made such an impression. Very cinematic that way. I was in my studio and bang bang bang at the door. There I went, opened the door, and BOOM! right to the jaw. Took me to the floor and I'm kind of a big guy, too. Was roughed up a lot in the marines! And he brought me to my knees. Gotta always commend Ed for that. Then he drove off, soaked and snarling and all. Never uttered one word the whole time."
Another silence fell upon us, only punctuated by the sounds of the cars that passed us. Little periods and exclamation points.
"Ed was a great guy, God bless him." Mr. Brannigan's head was lowered in though. His big, esoteric-looking brow was frumpled.
Mrs. Brannigan barged upon our scene then, as I was taking in everything for the count.
"Keith, there you are. You wouldn't believe my luck in that stupid store. Out of our brand of toilet paper, seriously? Oh hi, hi- is that, is that David?" Mrs. Brannigan meets the expectation of "aged hippie." I almost expect the smell of incense or the sudden break-out of impromptu yoga.
I nod. She pats me on the arm.
"You are a great boy. What have you two been doing, catching up?"
"Yeah, we've been catching up of sorts. This, that." There is a gleam in Mr. Brannigan's eye, a gleam of "oh, I've told the truth and I have nothing to hide." I don't hate him, not like you would expect.
"That's very nice! You should come over some night, David. I could make dinner!" Mrs. Brannigan smiles broadly. I see an older picture of Sarah in her face. It's promising.
"That sounds good." I'm not going to take the invite. I know that already. Why would I? It would just be a stomach full of discomfort.
"It does, doesn't it?"
I walk away and watch them with new eyes, even though there's no reason. I suspected it all along. In the car, I breathe in and out. Like a Buddhist monk in training, I just focus on my breaths.
"You okay there, David?" Mr. Peterson watches me at work. He's hovering over the edge of my desktop computer, yellow and outdated. He's wearing a tweed jacket with patches at the elbow and I can't stop fixtating on the pattern. Red, yellow, orange. What was he thinking when he picked that rag out? "You've been very distant lately. It's not like you. You're a man of the moment."
I smirk. A man of the moment sounds like it gives me a James Bond flash. If only he knew the boring and dry life I lead.
"There's a lot on my mind, sir." I don't make any falsehoods. My mind is in a constant tangle; it never ceases. Lately it had been off-the-wall. I sleep two hours and eat less than I have in some time. I start to look like I've taken up meth for my newest hobby. All I need is some missing teeth and bugs wedged in my skin.
"Oh, I feel you son. But don't let that deter your work ethic." He gives me a piercing shot, his eyes in slints, and ambles away, proud of his stance. If it weren't for me, even though I haven't been up to par so much these days, no work would ever get done from his subordinates.
Asshole. I wish I could punch him in the back of his neck. Snap his head right off, like pulling petals off a daisy, that easy. I'm not a creature of rage, though, and even a child could be wise enough to see mine is all misdirected at the improper sources. I am just tired with how my life is turning out.
I am upset that my mother had an affair. I am upset that the girl that I have almost loved for the greatest expanse of my life is out of my hands. I am upset I have a shitty job. I am upset about a multitude of factors.
I try not to be upset with my mother, per se. This is easier said than done, like most of the Christian doctrine. It's better written than acted out. I see her as she is: human, capable of sin. Capable of falling victim to vices. And it was so long ago- can I really care that much? Ah, but I do, I do.
It was a drunken night of stupidity...God knows we've all had those. For me, it was a Chinese girl named Becky with a pierced lip and a curious habit of biting me in my sleep.
I can't imagine my mom through these years without the visor of my own memory darkening it all. It's funny: I see her as she is right now. When I go back to my pile of childhood recollections and blurred dreams, I see her as she is right now. As a young woman, I am injecting shades from photographs and videos.
I have one crisp, clear memory of my mother when I'm young and I can see her as she was, not as how I should expect her to be. Her hair's long and hanging around her face like Diane Keaton's in Annie Hall. And she feels like the most benevolent force in the whole universe. Better than God.
She's combing my own hair and talking softly to me, like a coo. I have to be three or four, at the time of this memory.
"You have so much hair, David!" she's teasing me.
"One day, that kind of comment will be a blessing. But, oh. I don't know. Look at your father. It's like He-Man's sheath, up there." She keeps coming, taming the last few curls. Can't say my hair is that curly, these days.
"All done." And I thought: my mother is beautiful, my mother is perfect, she can do no wrong.
Yet. This was when she had slept with Keith. This was when she had broke my father's heart, no doubt. I can almost imagine the ensuing fights; I can see the rage and desperation in my father's normally placid eyes.
"I thought..."
I have to concentrate purely on his eyes for a moment. When imagining the scene in bed at night, hand on my stomach. The fact I have to concentrate so much is disturbing to me. I should know these things; my father looks just like me.
I stop seeing my mother so much. Of course, she's lost in her own planning, excitedly making prep for the Switzerland trip with Crimshaw.
She rings, when I'm watching TV to nullify my mind. Like a zombie. Replacing old pictures with new, meaningless ones that will filter out of my brain once I turn it off.
"David?" her voice is like a stranger's and I'm not sure why. If you think about it, I've heard this voice for twenty-six years. I've heard it even before I picked up and left the womb.
"This is." Don't be a dick, David. Not again.
"Oh cut that out. You haven't been calling."
"Nope."
"May I ask why?"
"You may." She makes an offended noise. I can hear her running water.
"Jesus H. Christ, David. What's up? What have I done to fail you now? Are you on some Freudian bullshit bender?" The water stops running and she stops talking. I squint.
For a moment, I just hold my breath in my mouth, like when you're at the beach and you scoop up the sand, just to hold it for a moment. Then, to let it go.
"I've been depressed." To let it go.
"Well, David. I'm your mother. I know these things. So: no shit."
"It is to say?"
"It is to say."
"We need to have a real conversation." I put my hand over half my face. I don't want to say it and I'm letting it out with a grimace and a real throbbing in my stomach. I wonder- shit, have I eaten today?
The worst is still yet to come.
By sundown, she's over. I expected this. I'm eating a microwave burrito and watching Jeopardy. I am, in a way, the person I was several years ago, when I had just emerged from the womb of academia with my BA in hand, all bright-eyed and gushy.
She's wearing running clothes.
"You ran here?" I question as I open the door for her to slip in. She shrugs.
"It's beautiful out. I need the exercise."
"You really don't." My mother has always been a svelte, in-shape woman.
"It makes me feel healthy. Alive. Can I sit down? David! Do you even clean?" I've decided to let the inside of my apartment match the inside of my...psyche? Soul? Being?
"When the mood calls for it, yes." She knocks off a pile of discarded magazines and takes a seat on a sofa that used to beige. Now, I think you'd call it yellow.
"What's up?" she says with a sigh, wiping sweat off her face. I take the seat in the armchair directly opposing her.
"A lot." I say and point to the sky. She rolls her eyes at me.
"Cut it out. Act like a grown up, David."
And then: I can't go about it any other way.
"Mom. Did you sleep with Keith Brannigan?" I could have smacked her for that response.
Hit her with the back of my hand, like some belligerent husband.
"Where did that come from?" Her eyes are alert. Her complexion is so pale. I sigh and bury my brow in my opened fist.
"You said. You said, that night. When I took you out. You said."
"Oh God. I did. How much did I drink?"
"Too much."
"Right. Oh, David." She exhales the exhale of a woman in tumult. I wonder if my father's spirit is on the grounds, somewhere, now. "I never, ever wanted to talk about this with you. God knows, with anyone, in my life. Frankly, it's none of your business."
"Mom."
"I talked too much about it in the past. Do you know the kind of Hell I put your father through? Do you know the kind of Hell I went through? I've repressed so much, I'll be forward with you." She's so uncomfortable and I feel deep pangs of regret for making her feel that way. But some of the burden is off my shoulders now. I can sleep somewhat better at night. Somewhat.
"I can surmise."
"It was stupid! So stupid! I had a fight with your father, I went out drinking with, with Keith and Linda, Linda had some kind of emergency with Sarah, it was just us, your father had gone off to Crimshaw's for the night, the house was empty, you were asleep....it didn't last long. Two bodies, seeking comfort. Or mostly me."
"What did Keith need to be comforted by? He just wanted to help."
There is an elongated pause that comes after. What has needed to be said has been said. I can't say she didn't love my dad- that would be stupid of me. I can't say that I forgive her: we are in this strange middle place now. The truth, it has been said, is out there.
"I'm sorry," she finally says in a whisper. I nod.
"I know."
Then, she gets up from the couch. Brushing her jogging pants off, she heads towards me. And she hugs me, then, very tightly that I don't think I will be able to successfully breathe.
"I know that's not all that's bothering you. Call me when you want to talk about that." There are tears on the outskirt of her eyes. I bet she's imagining my dad. I bet she's imagining ten thousand images I cannot name.
And then, she leaves.
The last thought of that evening: when did I become such a wine drinker? I used to hate the stuff. I can still hear her running shoes on the cement outside, ricocheting into space.
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