Authors: Kristin Jones
“I miss you. I love you.”
His eeriness had drifted away
just as my dream-convergences had. It was my old friend, the first friend I had
made in grad school. My Michael. It never occurred to me, in my stupor and my
hours of torture, that I might have missed him a little, that he filled a
certain void in my life.
The fact that his
I love
you
remained unrequited never seemed to come up as we walked along Devon.
You would have thought we were in Mumbai with all the brightly colored fabrics
and layers of spices penetrating our nostrils. We glided through the streets,
and my feet never touched the ground. They say that’s what love feels like,
like you’re floating. But there was more of a pulling than drifting.
The hot oil of my samosas
dripped onto the last of the winter snow, melting down through layers of earth.
I devoured as we chatted, more land deteriorating with each morsel of samosa.
“You know, there’s something
that’s been bothering me,” I mumbled through peas and potatoes.
“The fact that you slept on
Swanson’s couch?”
“You really need to stop
being jealous.”
“Jealous? Ha!” Michael’s
emotions seeped through the outer layer of his facial skin, dripping out
through his pores like teenage acne.
“So it still bothers me that
I never found out who Eliza is. Remember that girl?”
“Oh, the one who invited you
over for tea?”
“Yeah. I mean what was that?
What happened that day?”
Michael shook his head, still
pulling me along the sidewalk, gliding, not walking, along Devon Avenue all the
way to the lake.
A young girl, a blonde that
could have been Gabriella’s age, glided by us. We were two vehicles passing in
traffic. Her acknowledging look had become commonplace; rarely did I pass by
children without some odd glance or gesture. But it was her expression toward
Michael that paused our dialogue.
It was fear.
Why?
But there we went again,
flowing down the street, sliding like hot paneer. Michael’s tugs, drawing us
further from the child, never gave me the time to process the child’s reaction.
“I’ll go with you,” Michael
announced.
“What?” I was reeling from
all the floating and dragging.
“To Eliza’s. We’ll go
together and see what’s going on.”
***
Green bottles lined the wall,
covered every inch they possibly could until they had to start rounding the
corner to begin a new wall. The sun shining through the soft jade tint of each
bottle and jar should have been romantic, not disconcerting. Michael normally
chose decent restaurants, or at least places we both agreed were acceptable.
I told myself I’d give his
choice a try, at least once.
This place, this solitary
table where distorted emerald eyes waited to pounce on you when you weren’t
looking, reeked of sterilization. Each poultry slaughtering was a surgery, each
beef carcass a cadaver. It was hospital food, this strange meal we had stumbled
upon.
Of course it was green curry
that I forced down, there in the watchful gaze of the jade glass. The table was
its own shade, a
grass green
I decided.
“I feel uncomfortable here.
Can we go soon?”
The blank stare on Michael’s
face spread through his body. Limp and lifeless, he had become a mannequin
staring back at me. But oh how I craved that lifeless lump, how my loneliness
called out for it.
The solitary waiter, a
catlike man who might have clawed me at any moment, seemed to hiss in defense
at our every request. It was an inconvenience, asking for the bill. The bill
came on
their
terms, when
they
were ready.
“Okay, I’ll pay this time.”
Again
.
Rather than finding my debit
card in my purse, Gabi’s map came flying up at me. Yes, it was a used purse and
definitely not real leather. But that never completely explained why Gabi’s map
flew out if it so disappointedly, like it had never seen such an inferior
accessory.
Its wings stretched, arched,
then flew toward the glass. It flew the way you’d imagine a treasure map would
fly, gracefully like any other butterfly. The first glass broke elegantly,
shattering and falling in fountains and arcs. It took only moments for the rest
of the jade glass to realize what had happened and follow suit. They burst out
like Niagra Falls, tumbling to the ground purposefully, beautifully. Tempted to
watch, I instead grabbed Michael’s hand as I stood. My eyes hesitated, watching
the verdant rivers of glass.
“Michael, the map is still
fluttering. It’s waiting for something.” My words fell on deaf ears. How he
managed to get to his feet, I never knew.
The last of the glass fell,
tumbling over our shoes. It moved far too much for my taste, far more active
than I preferred my glass.
Michael stood there beside
me, sill mute and staring off into nothingness. My dummy and I watched as
Gabi’s map fluttered in slow, choreographed motions. The map was making up for
the vitality that Michael lacked.
The more the map butterfly
danced, the more the room filled with deep contrasts of blue and yellow. The
breaking of the glass had revived the original primary colors. Each pigment
returned to its owner; the jade glass picked itself up, separated into two
sides, and reformed according to yellow or blue.
The map would not come back
to me, even as I held out my falconry glove– well okay,
my Target
glove
– to retrieve it. Only when I turned to leave the room did it
finally come back to me.
It refused to be near
Michael.
I turned softly back to look
at him, partly regarding him and partly giving him my farewell. Part of me knew
that I was walking away from more than just a meal. The map sat perched on my
shoulder as I watched him. In his vacant body staring off into what was once a
green glass wall, his neck tilted a bit. He was thinking of something, or
someone.
“Goodbye,” I whispered. It
never bothered me that a map flew in butterfly spirals, that glass flew out at
us. What bothered me was that I just walked away from Michael.
I knew without looking. I
knew what sprawled across the arched entryway as I left. Shadows, looming
shadows, swam through the cracks, in and out like it was nothing. It wasn’t
until I was safely on the sidewalk that I looked up at where the address
numbers hung, there in the dark doorway.
***
Swanson encouraged me to
write out these memories, to have an outlet that would not interfere with my
research. Swanson fills my memory of that day in Cancún, that Spring Break,
when we had our day at the beach after recording Nahuatl and Zapotec speakers.
I was learning far more of Mexico’s indigenous languages than I imagined
possible, but misery still sprawled all over me, thick like an unwanted blanket
in the shoreline heat. My despondent gaze looked out over the endless lurching
of the water, wondering if Florida and Cuba would both just reach over and grab
me. Would I maybe prefer it?
It was loneliness, which I
knew far too well. You don’t lose a mom and have an absent dad without living
it daily. Mom’s passing might have been easier with someone to walk the path
with me, some sibling or aunt. But there I was, alone on a Mexican beach,
wondering how I ended up surrounded by drinking college students and feeling even
more alone.
Mom hated my father enough to
consistently conceal his name. She used her little code words, like Sperm
Donor, as if he didn’t deserve a name like decent human beings. “If you don’t
like your curfew, take it up with The Sperm Donor.” “Don’t use that voice with
me, Miss, or you can go live with The Sperm Donor.”
Oh Mom.
The couples stumbling
hand-in-hand, barely conscious from their alcohol indulgence, reminded me of my
other great void. Michael never passed his prelims, never sat for them.
Apparently I had dated a flake, a man-flake who floated through grad school
like a snowflake drifted across a glen. I wouldn’t deny that I missed his
friendship though, or that even in his oddities, he still eased the sting of
loneliness, if just a bit.
And so it was Swanson–
Vadim– who placed a single hand on my shoulder that afternoon as I
mourned my mother and Michael. The pat pat, the brief gesture that still
allowed him to retain his manliness, was enough to send tears flying. The salty
droplets leapt from my face to dive into the salty Gulf. They were returning
home, these little estuaries flowing out of my eyelids in their debouchment.
I remember my head falling on
his shoulder, his arms folding around me in the anonymity of a Spring Break
beach. It crossed my mind to accept the embrace, to appreciate the comforting
for the affection behind it.
***
The plane couldn’t have been
quieter. Swanson and I flew back to Chicago in silence, each stewardess
mistaking us for strangers travelling separately. Even the babe in seat 27B
remained inaudible until I could trace the outline of the Des Plaines River
from my window seat.
It was a strange lack of
noise, the silence of that flight, full of meditative passengers. Something was
about to happen, and I could see it in that not-yet-happening anxiety, that
holding of your breath as you watch your mom’s favorite bowl fall to the ground
in its doom.
Swanson paid for our cab back
to Evanston, dropping me at my apartment dutifully. Hesitant fingers sat on the
cabbie’s back door, my jaw dropping open to say something. I looked over to
Swanson, laughing at his nod even then, even after spending a research trip
together in Mexico. He couldn’t manage a simple
Goodbye
or
See you
Monday
.
“I–”
The words just weren’t there.
A thought had already formed somewhere; my speech just couldn’t quite pin it
down yet. More silence. My phone cut me off as I grasped for words, ringing
while I grabbed the black duffle bag.
“Bye, Swanson. I’ll email you
my transcriptions as soon as I get something substantial finished.”
Nod.
It was commonplace, the way
I– or anyone in my generation– could close a car door, schlep a bag
up to a second floor apartment, and somehow get settled inside, all while
answering a smart phone. Mom would have ironed while timing her roast and
answering the mustard colored rotary phone. Mom would have shook her head at my
graduate studies. “A girl your age should be married.”
The thing about answering a
phone while stepping over Grace’s garbage was that I had to ask for everything
to be repeated.
“Donnelly?”
“Donnell. Heinrich and
Donnell.”
“Oh, Mom’s lawyers. I’m
sorry. I just got home from the airport. So everything is okay?”
“Of course. I’m calling
regarding a special request.”
“Oh?”
“Your mother, Katherine H.
Faro, left a very unique stipulation in her will.”
“Didn’t we go over her will
already?”
“This is Sarah R. Faro?”
“Yes.”
“Please verify your date of
birth.”
It was always the birthday
that messed me up. It felt like a trick question, like they only asked to watch
me squirm. They were waiting on the other end for me to mess up my own
birthday.
“Uh, July el–
fifteenth. July fifteenth, 1989.” Just when I was about to have them fire off
their next question, I pictured Receding Hair Line Parker, staring out of Mom’s
windows and mocking me. He was the type that never got his date of birth wrong.
“Is this about Mom’s house?”
“No, Ms. Faro. Your mother
had some information to share with you.”
“Information? But it’s been a
year and half. Shouldn’t I have received this already?”
“She wanted to wait until you
passed your prelims. We have verified that you have passed and we are ready to
disclose the document.”
“It’s a document?” My head
was spinning. Who was I talking to anyway? Was this Heinrich or Donnell?
“Yes, Ma’am. You mother
wanted you to know who your father is. Can you stop by our office today?”
“My– Today?” It was
difficult to tell if I stood in the middle of the apartment, gaping, or if I
melted into the floor boards. The gelatinous legs were the same either way.
“You have a document?”
“Yes Ma’am. We do not
disclose sperm donors over the phone. Once the document is in your possession,
you’re free to do with it as you please.”
“Sperm donor?” We were back
to repeating everything.
“Yes.”
So all of Mom’s
If you
don’t like it, you can take up your complaints with the Sperm Donor
remarks
were in reference to an
actual
sperm donor?
The walls of my apartment
were collapsing in on me, crushing the shock out of me, reminding me to breath.
Why now? Why only after I passed my prelims?