Tag: fiction

Afterthought

Autumn. Leaves just beginning to fall. The seminar room is filled with counselors, faculty, and caregivers. Marcus stood, along with a few others, mostly men, who, like him, had been among the last to arrive. They leaned with their shoulders against the reluctant gray concrete wall opposite the high windows on the other side of the room.

There were slide presentations, personal stories, some gruesome and some not, role play, Q&A, prompts from the leader (“Perhaps it was someone close to you or even yourself,” was the way she put it) to which many raised their hands (some slowly and some quickly) or nodded, or touched their hand to the shoulder of a person next to them. He had not responded in that fashion, nor was he moved to.

As an afterthought, though, later, during the lunch break, he recalled there had been a student of his, Rodrigo, who’d hanged himself over the door closer arm of his dorm  room and was found the next day. And, of course, there was Ralph who’d refused food and water and died a week later in his bed in St Vincents, and then, too, his own lawyer, Friedman, who’d driven his car into a bridge abutment on the Bronx River Parkway and survived but remembered nothing about it. Yes, there were those.

“Shit!” he said, shaking his head. Where had his mind been?

After the evaluation forms and the chit-chat with other faculty in the hallway and in the parking lot, he got into his car,  put down the pamphlets and notes he had taken and, only then, when he retrieved the key from under the seat, holding it cold and firm in his hand, about to insert it into the ignition, he shuddered… and it came so very clearly to him as if it were, in fact, the present …

He is thirteen…

… kicking his shoes through dry brown leaves along the curb, walking home from the school bus. The late bus. Mrs. Gormley, his homeroom teacher, made him stay after to clean the chalkboard erasers.

Walking behind Francis Romeo. Francis always has to take the late bus home, and he always sits in the back, smoking.

The front door had been left unlocked and wide open.

The house quiet. Dim, behind pulled-down shades. He puts his books on the stairs. No TV on. The door to the baby’s room is closed.

“I’m home. Sorry I’m late. Mrs. Grumbly made me stay after. Don’t tell Dad, and don’t tell Angie, but did you know that Francis smokes?”

No answer.

The hall bathroom door is closed.

“Mom?”

She says something.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

In the kitchen, he pours a glass of milk.

“Mom? I got myself some milk. Ok?”

He knocks once on the bathroom door. “Mom?”

“Leave me alone. I’ll be done in a minute.”

“Is there anything wrong?”

“No. Go away.”

He knocks again. “Do you need anything?”

“Noo-oo-oo,” in a whimpering wavering tone.

He jiggles the doorknob. It is locked.

“Get away from the door.”

“Mom, please, can you open the door?”

“I can’t. Just go away.” Her angry voice.

“Mommy, I can’t go away. I live here. Are you sick? Can I help?

No answer.

He waits… and waits… and then…

“Mommy, if you don’t open the door I’m going to get Angie.”

“Don’t you dare do that!” she screams.  

At that, doorknob turns, the door clicks open.

With his hand pressing against it, he looks in.

His mother is standing at the sink, facing the mirror, dressed in the yellow housedress she was wearing this morning as he left for the bus. Barefoot. Her hair hanging down on either side of her face.

Her glasses folded at the back of the sink, her eyes red-rimmed and wet. Her nose is dripping onto her upper lip.

She is rocking, slowly, side to side.

“Mom, what are you doing? What is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” folding her arms across her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Mommy, I can see that something is wrong. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Please, Marcus, just go out and leave me alone.” She smoothes her hair back.

Her left hand, the one closest to him, is balled into a fist.

“What’s in your hand?”

“Nothing.”

A bottle of Bayer aspirin lays in the sink. The cap off. The bottle empty.

His knees shake. Heat rises into his head. Tears fill his eyes. He is frightened. So alone.

He reaches forward to take hold of her arms, to turn her toward him. She moves responsively at first and then pulls sharply away.

“Don’t touch me!” she screams. “You can’t stop me. No one can.”

White streaks run from the corners of her mouth.

“Mom, please. ”

He sees how miserable and sad she is. He has never ever seen her like this before.

She swallows hard. Gags.

He backs away.

“Mom,” he pauses, then says no more.

She looks at him.

Then slowly, assuredly, his voice calmer and softer now…

“Ok,” he tells her. “I don’t want to stop you.”

Silence.

“I know I can’t. Believe me. Just let me see how many pills are in your hand.”  

She looks into his eyes.

“Open your hand and let me see how many are there. That way I can tell the police when they get here how many you took.”

She keeps her gaze on him. He takes her closed fist in his hand.

“Please, just open your hand a little to let me see them.”

They watch her fingers uncurl. A cluster of tablets, some moist with her sweat, rests in her palm.

They both look down at them. Counting.

And, holding her hand firmly in his, he suddenly, with his free hand, strikes the bottom of hers with a violent, concussive blow. The pills scatter, hit the mirror, bounce into the sink and into the tub.

She gags and retches, lurching forward grasping for the edge of the sink, losing her grip, she slips back.

Her full weight falls against him, forcing him hard against the wall and the towel bar. He grabs hold her from behind. Together, they slip, drop, and fall as one, hitting the edge of the sink and curling tightly beneath it onto the cold, checkered, green-and-black tile floor.

Jake. Julia. Winter. 1948

In her housedress, Julia opens the kitchen door. She looks out, folds her arms across her chest. It is dark. The wind blows the thin fabric against her legs.

“Get your slippers on,” she tells her son.

“Jake,” she says, speaking to her husband in their bedroom, behind the curtain separating it from the kitchen, “I wish you didn’t have to go in today,”

He pulls aside the curtain wearing his brown suit and a matching wide tie.

“Please leave if it starts to snow.”

He shrugs on his officer’s overcoat, stuffs his pant legs down into his galoshes, snapping shut the metal buckles.

Julia hands him his thermos of coffee. He leans over, kissing her cheek, tousling the boy’s hair. “Be good,” he says.

“Bring me something?” the boy asks. “A pencil?”

“Maybe,” he replies. Holding his hat fast on his head, he steps out into the wind.

“Call me,” Julia says. “Be careful,” then louder, “Jake, don’t you think you really should stay home today?”

He turns his head and waves. The wind flaps his coat around his knees.

The street is empty. He pulls the car away from the curb, trailing exhaust vapor behind, passing a row of garbage cans. One topples, rolls and bangs against the steel side of a neighbor’s hut, colored lights blink in the window.

He turns right onto Bruckner Boulevard. Juia closes and locks the door. The kitchen heats again.

Earlier, at breakfast, she had said, “I just don’t understand why you have to go in on the day after Christmas. Nobody else will be there. And it looks like it might snow. You think Eddie will be there?” 

“We need the money, Julia. We’re not in the army anymore. If I don’t go, I don’t get paid and we don’t eat.” He pushes his bowl toward the middle of the table and gets up.

Julia draws aside the window curtain now, looks out, lets it fall back, and clears the dishes from the table, where the boy sits with a few books, paper, pencils, and a box of crayons.

She mops the floor and folds laundry.

Every few minutes, she stops, looks out the window, sighs and returns to what she had been doing. The boy sighs as she does. He draws RAF P-40s fighters and Messerschmitt 109s in a dog fight shooting a flurry of bullets, popping his lips with each one.

The wind picks up. Snow begins falling after lunch. The phone has not rung all day. Julia picks it up, listening for a dial tone. She dials, waiting, listening, a finger pressed to her lips.

A woman answers, ”Hello. How can I help you?”

“Hello, can I please speak to Jacob?”

“One moment please.”

“Hello?” the woman says. “Jake is in back and cannot come to the phone. May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is his wife. Can you please ask him to call me as soon as he can?”

“I sure will, Julia.”

Julia starts to say something but stops, pressing the receiver against her chest for a moment before putting it down. Standing next to the bed, looking at the phone, thumbing her wedding ring around her finger.

She dials the phone again. This time she says, “Tell him it’s very important.”

In a moment, he picks up. “Why didn’t you call me?” she says. “I’ve been waiting all day. When are you coming home? Don’t you see it is snowing?… It certainly is snowing,” she says. “I can see it. It’s not just flurries. Don’t treat me like I’m crazy. It’s a foot deep. Please, Jake… Wait,” she says. “Don’t hang up… Jake…”

The oven ticks. She sits with boy in her lap, resting her head against him.

“It will be okay,” he tells her.

Snow now blankets the window.

She carefully opens the door an inch or two to look out. Blown by the wind, it swings in against her. Snow tumbles in around her legs, filling the entrance. She pushes back against it, packing the mounded snow tight. It will not close.

Books, papers, crayons, napkins, and cups blow off the table. The bedroom curtain is blown off its rod. The bedside lamp falls. Snow covers the floor, puddling by the oven.

“Where is he?!” she cries.

She  carries the boy into the bedroom, dresses him in a snow suit, boots, and hat. Her hands shake. She pulls her brown cloth coat from the narrow closet. Tears run over her cheeks. Her lips are pressed together, wrinkling her chin. She sinks to the bed, holding the boy, shivering, holding their backs against the wind.

“Why is he doing this to me?” she cries. 

Wind-blown snow whips through, toppling the hot pot on the stove, snuffing out the flames. 

She carries the boy back toward the door through a mat of snow and green peas. Her hand blocks the wind from their faces.

“Where is he?” she pleads. They retreat to the bedroom, but once again she goes to the door. Back and forth, to and from the growling wind and the spitting snow.

In her wet hair and shivering cheeks, they huddle, holding tightly to each other. Waiting.

Waiting.

And then the door pushes further open. He is covered in white. He kicks the packed snow out, bracing his shoulder against the door, slamming it shut. The frigid, racing, air stops. It is silent.

The three stand in the melting snow.

The room smells of gas. He turns the burners off.

 “What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?” he says. His face is red with cold and anger.

“Where have you been?” she says. “”I’ve been sick with worry. Can’t you see what the storm has done?”

“What the storm has done? How did the door open? Didn’t you lock it?”

“We opened it,” the boy says.

He looks at them.

“I opened it,” she says.

“What for? Are you nuts?”

“I wanted to see if you were coming home.”

“I can’t believe this. Look at this place. I told you I was coming home. I Can’t believe you opened the door.”

“I was so afraid you weren’t coming home. I didn’t know what to do.”

He kneels, picking up the pot and peas from out of the slush.

“You didn’t know what to do?” he says, his hands filled with filthy water and shreded napkins. “That’s hot,” he says. “You had nothing else to do but call me five times at the office.”

“I only called twice.”

“Becky said you called a few times.”

“Oh, so now it’s Becky. She treats me like dirt and then lies to you. Is that why you had to go work today? To see her?  Who knows what you were doing there all day.”

“Now I know you’re nuts. She’s Eddie’s daughter. She’s seventeen, for god sake. She answers the damn phone. I have nothing to do with her.”

He stands suddenly. His face clenched hard as a fist. She flinches, falling backwards, grabbing hold of his arm, knocking the boy down, pulling them all down to the puddled floor beside her.

My Dinner with Andra

Andra and I met for dinner at Wo Hop on Mott Street. It serves what she calls the most “authentic New York-style” Chinese food. It is bright, loud and crowded. It smells heavenly. And the waiters rush dishes out as soon as they are prepared.

Because her flight from Europe was delayed, we met there at 9:30 pm, shortly before closing.

We sat at a booth in a corner furthest from the kitchen. She’d slept on the plane intermittently and she was ravenous. She ordered for the two of us.

 We spoke for a while about Budapest, her writing, and the course she taught there. She was animated but soon her mood shifted.

She folded her arms in front of her on the table and leaned toward me.

“I am spent,” she said. “I had such great hopes for my year away and much of it was wonderful. But I now feel lost, unmoored, and meaningless to a certain extent and that life, in fact, lacks any inherent meaning.”

“Andra,” I said.

“No, I’m serious. I was there for a year and my classes were going well. I even considered moving there, at least for a few years, but as time went on, I felt the work was dispiriting. I was diligent. I admit, I had high expectations. However, my students were unengaged, uncommitted, at least in the way I had expected them to be: European, whatever that might mean. They were no better by comparison to those I had been teaching here. I began to ask myself, am I making any difference at all in their lives? They certainly were not making any difference in mine.”

“Andra, I know you. You’re a good teacher. Your students speak highly of you.”

“Yes, yes, I know that, but…”

“And this just began in Budapest?

“No. In fact, I had taken the job there because I felt that living here, in this New York bubble, was, with the constant hype, celebrity, needy causes, acquisitiveness, and self-satisfaction, stifling. Don’t you feel that at times?”

“About New York or that I am going through life playing a part of some sort with no meaning?”

“Well, both, but more than that, that life ultimately has no meaning. We fill our days with work and phone calls and dinners out, and futile political conversations without any effect. When, in fact, they are simply diversions from facing that we are alone in the world which cares nothing about us and which itself has no meaning.”

The waiter had brought platters of chow fun, spareribs with ginger and scallion and a shrimp dish I could not identify. I spooned some of each dish onto my plate.

“Andra, I don’t disagree with you at all. The world is, in fact, pointless. But life need not be meaningless or pointless. If you are thinking that because, ultimately, as perhaps you are, we all die, therefore life has no meaning, I disagree with you. If anything, death gives us the opportunity to find meaning in life, in relationships, family, and creativity.”

She was quiet while the waiter filled our glasses with ice water.

“On the flight back,” she said, “I had this terrifyingly real dream that I had somehow contracted a painful and incurable condition, much like when I was younger and had endometriosis which they could do nothing for except remove my uterus which I refused to do, and now I had this disease, equally painful and incurable. I woke up in fear. I may have screamed, because the attendant came over to me and she actually sat down next to me and asked if they should divert the fight for me, and of course I said no, I apologized and passed it off as nothing of concern.”

“That must have been so frightening.”

“Yes, yes, it was, but of course I don’t have such a disease. Not that I know of, but what if I do? It would be all over. How could I go on? Maybe I could. I mean it just shows you how flimsy life can be. Ultimately how meaningless it is. Do you ever feel that way?”

“Yes, I said, “I am constantly aware of the tenuousness of life and, and, how close to death we might be at any moment. Even at this very moment.”

“Doesn’t that terrify you?” she said, “I try not to think about that. I don’t think I could get up in the morning or go to work if I thought like that. But you have not touched the kung pao shrimp, it is truly scrumptious.” 

I took a bite of the shrimp.

“And then,” she continued, “just when I was considering lengthening my stay there, to focus on the book I had started, there was this student, an attractive young man from the Pest quarter of the city, who was clearly one of the better of the group, invited me to lunch after the semester ended. We went to the Espresso café near the Montenegro Embassy. He was an earnest young man and quite well dressed. I admit I felt a twinge of what, affection, perhaps. But as the afternoon went on, I was unprepared for what he began talking about.”

“What was that?”

“Well, at one point over our coffee, he said, conversationally, that he was studying acting and that Stanislavski taught that the essence of acting was to constantly ask oneself, ‘Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I come from, and where am I going?’ And he told me, again quite earnestly, that to truly live we must ask those questions of ourselves. Only then, he said, can we act with honesty, compassion. and empathy. Only then can we live rather than just perform.”

“That is remarkable insight is it not? I mean, for a young man. And, was that not what you yourself had been feeling? Did you see him again?”

“Heavens no,” she said. “Why would he say such things to me? His former teacher. I had no desire to spend the rest of the afternoon at a glorious outdoor café by the Danube or any time or any place, being lectured by him about how I should live.”

“But, Andra, was he not being sincere and caring and relating to you, just as you wanted. Just as we all want?”

She looked at me as if I was talking gibberish.

“I don’t know what we all want, and don’t think you or he know either. I toldhim that what he was suggesting to me was, by implication, impertinent and glaringly inappropriate. I am an educated, aware, and accomplished person. Thoroughly cognizant of my own mortality, and that, as a path to gain authenticity in life that I should engage in some theatrical trick is in any way superior to, say, just waking up each day, having a cup of coffee, breathing in some fresh air and saying, ‘fuck it, let’s see what happens today.”

Her watch beeped. She checked and moved to stand up.

“I am tired now. I am exhausted, and I am going home to sleep. I have come home from a situation which no longer worked for me. And tomorrow I will undoubtedly awaken, say ‘fuck it,’ perhaps out loud, and feel boundlessly better.”

I started to say something when she stood up. She waved me not to, thanked the waiter, gathered up her package of leftovers, and said, “This has been fabulous,” and, pointing to the check, she said to me ,“I have only a few Euros in my pocket. Please be a dear, will you?”

And then she was gone. Her footsteps clacked on the concrete steps up to Mott Street.

A Hole in the Bucket

Somewhere in this story there is a point. I’m not sure yet what it is, though it may be revealed in the task of my telling it.

I’ll begin here in the middle, with when I left the Yankee tour bus in the parking lot at Queechee Gorge and got into the car service I had arranged to have meet me.

I had agreed with the driver on the general directions and the cost, and after a brief and conversation, he looked in his mirror and said, – So, is this on your bucket list?

– Sort of, I said. A very short one. I told him I had some health issues and needed to get away to someplace quiet and less stressful. That was not quite true, but not entirely false, either.

– I hear you, man, he said. Bummer. You doin’ okay, though?

I told him I was and thanked him for asking.

– You bet, he answered.

Two or three weeks ago I first told Liza about I how needed leave the country, to go to Canada.

– Why on earth do you want to do that? Are you in trouble? she said.

– No, it’s not like that. It’s just every day, now, the relentless not knowing what will come next. Tariffs, Medicare, FEMA, deportations, DEI, the stock market, IRAs, firings, threats, trashing the constitution and our lives. I  just can’t ignore what’s going on.

– Nor can I, she said. But I don’t think about it all day the way you do. Thinking like that is right where they want  you. Making you feel powerless and vulnerable when I know you are  neither.

– But I feel that way. I’m frightened and depleted. I don’t want to live like this, not here, not now, and not for four more years.

We talked for days. I won’t go into it all now, but you can easily see how that was going and where it eventually led, given that there I was in a car service heading north with nothing more of a plan than an inchoate need to get away.

Liza is a wise woman, way wiser than I am, and I didn’t listen to her.

I had found a place on Google maps along Halls Stream Road in Vermont, upstream from Beecher’s Falls, where the stream and road bend close to the border with Quebec. The stream there is wide, and seemed likely to be slow, shallow, and hidden beneath trees. A spot where the farmhouses on the Canadian side seemed so close you could hit the bright white side of one with a baseball.

We drove north on I-91, then on two-lane roads over streams that shifted from one side of the road the other. It was all so green. The tension began seeping out of my bones. Granite cliffs with plumes of water plunging through the cracks and tumbling white and hard to the side of the road.

We turned onto more narrow roads with gabled houses on both sides and large front porches and stacks of cord wood under the windows.

My eyes grew heavy, and I dozed though, without the scenery to distract me, I did not rest. Lisa and our argument spun on a loop, snippets morphing into a city street, alone, I didn’t know where I was, or how I could get home and not even knowing where home was. Asking for help from unresponsive passersby.

I was then suddenly startled, as if I’d been shaken awake.

– We’re coming up to three hours now, the driver said. How much further?  

Where were we? I had lost track of the miles and the minutes. The houses on both sides had crept closer, encroaching on the rutted road. A fluttering of Trump flags in yards on the Vermont side, Buy Canadian and No US dollars Wanted on the other. The dark and ominous Sharpee lines so thickly drawn at home had been traced this far north. This was neither peaceful nor woodsy and welcoming.

I had envisioned getting out of the car at a quiet, deserted spot, stepping into the stream and walking south with the current. Finding a safe spot to climb onto dry land in Canada. I’d find a small town café with place to sit, blow steam across a hot cup of Tim Hortons and nod to folks in flannel shirts.

I was, instead, thrown off balance, tossed roughly aside by my own foolish self-centeredness. I was ashamed to have ignored Liza, her feelings, discounting her. Leaving her alone where I myself did not want to be. What I had envisioned was a selfish adolescent fantasy. In leaving I had lost what had been the most stable and reassuring place I had ever been. I felt a fool. I had betrayed her. I had betrayed myself. I had chosen to leave only because I could while others could not. To let them deal with whatever would come next. I am not fleeing gang violence or drug cartels or anything near that, as so many others are. Not even close. I’m a privileged opportunist playing political runaway.

– What are we doing here, Bud? the driver said.

He was right. What was I doing here? This was not where I wanted or needed to be, away from Liza, from reality, however grim I felt it to be.

– Oh, I’m sorry, I told him. I lost track of where we were going. Pull over for a moment, please. I don’t feel well. I need to…

– You bet, he said, and he got out of the car, walked away, and lit a cigarette.

Did I know what I needed to do?  Yes.

I paid the driver what I owed him and asked him to take me down to Montpelier. To the Amtrak station.

I now have ticket in my pocket for the train that leaves tomorrow morning at 10:25 AM which gets me back home by 6:09 PM. I will call Liza and get a room at a hotel.

It will all work out ok, I am certain, as it likely would have if I had simply listened more and heeded Liza’s advice.

But I will say one more thing that has come to me, two actually: 1) A bucket is no place to carry anything other than water and, 2) A list is not where the life that you want and which makes you most happy should reside.

The Song We Would Sing

Our children were quite young. We were living in the walk-up in Brooklyn, near the park, when, Sonja, my older sister who I spoke with sporadically over the past few years, called. We were in the bustle of dressing and feeding them, cleaning the kitchen, and dressing ourselves.

“Your father,” she said, “died this morning.” She may have said, ‘Daddy died,’ but I don’t recall that clearly.

“I’m sorry,” I am sure I said.

A graveside service was planned for the next afternoon. We arranged for a hotel room and a rental car.

Driving across the Brooklyn Bridge that evening. The lights of lower Manhattan. Chinatown, the East River bridges, the medical centers. All of it both so spectacular and so routine. I was sad to leave, if only for a day or two.

At the grave side, beside my mother’s, Sonja brought us around to say hello to family. The resemblance among my relatives was unmistakable. People I had not seen in ten years and more. Some not since I was young. Familiar faces. Names. Familiar smiles. Some, too, I had never seen nor heard of before.

How had so many years had passed. Why?

I know the how of what happened. The why was the real issue. I’d moved away after college. Long before cell phones and email. We’d never shared numbers or addresses. I lost track of family.

All those years, benignly estranged. No arguments. Disputes. Nasty words. Just nothing.

“You remember Aunt Minnie and Uncle Fred?”

“Yes,” I said. “The dentist?”

“Well, this is Janice, their great granddaughter.”

“And you remember Ruthie? Ethel’s, granddaughter?

“Yes.”

“This is Rebecca, her daughter’s youngest child.”

“Hello,” I said. “This is Bess and these are our children.” It was so good to feel a connection there with them.

On it went. New people, children of children of aunts and uncles I knew. Cousins of cousins. Generations of births and birthdays and illnesses and new jobs. Lost. Lost to me. An old novel with chapters that kept being written after I had put it down. I wanted now to read those unread pages, though I knew it was not possible. The gaps were inaccessible to me.

We drove back home the next day. Listening to Waze. The radio. My mind present, and also wandering in the distant past.

I had moved away. Never once thinking of the consequences. Caring for only my need to be away.

The kids were asleep in the back.

“What happened?” Bess asked.

“What?” I said.

“How did you lose track of all those people?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you ever think about them? Ask about them?”

“Sonja would tell me things once in a while, but I never thought more about it. For a while all the names had faces but then they became only names.”

“Doesn’t it make you sad?”

“It does. I feel terrible. I let it happen. Not once thinking about them. As if I left and they disappeared.”

“But, it was you who disappeared. Not them.”

“But my parents never…”

“Never what?”

“Never let me know what was happening.”

“And you never asked them?”

“No.”

“My parents and I didn’t talk much and then they were in nursing homes. And with their dementia it became impossible.”

“That’s not really an excuse, and you know it. There clearly were others.”

“No. Not an excuse really. An explanation. Maybe.”

“Maybe, but let’s never do that to our children, please,” Bess said. “Let’s keep them connected. Show them how important family is. What it is to be part of a family. Making family the most important thing.”

“I didn’t grow up with that.”

“But you did. You remembered your Aunt Minnie, Aunt Ethel. Harold. But then you let them all drop away.”

“I did,” I said. “I only see that now.”

Back home, we returned the car and stopped at the market on Eighth Avenue and 12th Street to pick up milk and bread. Bess put the kids to bed.

I stood by the stove heating water for tea. Mesmerized by the bubbles twisting upward. The larger ones roiling the surface. The warmth on my face. Drifting into another space.

Seeing all those others, how they were with each other. Embracing one another. How easily they embraced me as they did when I was so young.

But feeling, in that mindless space, what I had never said to myself before. I don’t think that my parents loved me. Feeling that so clearly should have wrenched at my heart, but it didn’t. It was, instead, a relief, a validation of, growing up, how lonely I was. Lost. Alone. An observer at some close remove. Awkward. Feeling as though I never had the right or reliable answer to any question. In school. At home. Anywhere. Nothing felt unjudged. Nothing felt safe. Though I can’t ever remember being aware then in those terms. As if the wrong response would be punished by further isolation.

The kettle must have been boiling for a while. Bess came up behind me. She lay her hand on my shoulder, and turned off the burner.

“How are you doing?” She said.

“I’m okay,”

“You sure? Will you tell me what you’re thinking?”

“I was watching the water boiling” I told her. “My mind drifting to yesterday. The past. Not happy thoughts though. Thinking about what it was like for me growing up. But then a song came to me, as if from the rhythm of the bubbles. One we used to sing in the car when we drove from our apartment in the Bronx to my father’s relatives in Brooklyn. The windows down, my father smoking a pipe, my mother on the front passenger side. And, she would begin to sing ‘Merrily we roll along’ and I would join in, and we would sing it a few times until we tired of it, and she would start our favorite one. The one I loved. ‘You are my… sunshine’ she would sing, and I would join in, ‘… my only sunshine…,’ and we would sing the whole song, over, and over again, ‘You make me happy when skies are gray,’ until our cheeks hurt from smiling. And then she would nod to me and slow the tempo down and we’d both deepen our voices, for this last time, the last line, ‘Please… don’t… take… my… sunshine… away.’”

Bess listened to me while she made the tea and set the cups down on the kitchen table.

“I love you,” she said.