Heart Berries: A Memoir(15)

My therapist wasn’t disappointed in me. She congratulated me for analyzing my situation with you and considering how I was accountable for your mistrust.

“I am worried, though,” she said.

“I’m not going to break down again.”

“Not that. I’m worried that he’s using you.”

“It’s much deeper than sex. He tells me that he loves me and explains carefully why he can’t be with me. He considers me.”

“You’re in a vulnerable position. Months ago, you were in the hospital with suicidal ideation. He should consider how telling you that he loves you could make you feel. He should consider how having sex with you, and then explaining why he can’t be with you, is manipulative.”

I defended you. I knew that you did love me and telling me about other women was hurtful, but I stayed with you those nights on my own regard. If you were hurting me, I knew it was not intentional.

“I’ll give him a timeline. After three months I will begin to see other people seriously.”

My therapist was impressed with my solution and worried that I was giving you three more months than you needed.

The Institute of American Indian Arts offered me a scholarship. I accepted. The program was designed with a renaissance in mind. Sherman Alexie eventually told me that he said those words first. When people were trying to conceptualize a program for Native writers, he said it would be a renaissance.

I met with Lily briefly just to see the status of our efforts, to see if our college would compete with IAIA. I sat with her at a café. She was in the middle of a stack of papers. She was sweet. I told her, because I had nothing to lose, that I had been wearing the same shirt for three days. I was busy with my son and writing and the last of my classes.

She told me to look at what she was wearing: floral shorts and a mustard brown shirt. She shrugged her shoulders, and we laughed. She began to tell me about a man she was seeing, long distance, and that he was brilliant, and she was a mess.

“I’m still a mess with Casey.”

“I didn’t know you were still seeing him,” she said.

“I came here from his house.”

“Casey is so cool.”

“I believe you’re my mentor. I want to say that you knew Casey and I had broken up recently, and asking him if he wanted to cuddle isn’t okay with me.”

“Oh, god! No! I have very different relationships with my friends. This is a misunderstanding.”

“I just don’t want to talk to you about this.”

“When you guys broke up he was heartbroken.”

“Did he talk about me?”

“Not much.”

She started to talk about other writers we knew and who was incompetent and who was going to do nothing with their MFAs. I drank pi?on coffee and laughed at her jokes.

“I just want to say—I don’t know why Casey would have told you about me asking him that. Why do you think he told you?”

“He’s stupid. He’s always been thoughtless.”

She consoled me about you. She says that you love me. She wants to believe that you love me, I can tell. Romantics can be comforting.

You started to hold me more, and when I brought Isaiah to your home, you both rejoiced.

You made him his favorite meal: macaroni and cheese. You invited Lily over and she sat next to my son and complimented his manners. I was nobody to tell you who you could ask to your house. Isaiah had just got a haircut, and I dressed him up to see you. We all sat at the table, and then my son got quiet.

“What, baby?” I asked.

“Just,” Isaiah said.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

Lily excused herself from the table to smoke outside.

You observed my son and I, and by your face, I knew you didn’t know to be concerned for my son when he sunk down the way he did.

“There’s crumbs on it,” Isaiah said.

The macaroni had breadcrumbs on the top of it.

“Be polite,” I said.

He sinks deeper into his chair and won’t look at me. He regressed, and he was predictably easy to fix, but I didn’t want him to act this way in front of you.

You went outside to join Lily. I was more worried about how you might change your mind on us than I was worried about my son’s heart. And when I recognized that, I knew you weren’t ready for us. My baby was still dependent on me. He was even dependent on me to show him he could love you again.

I walked up to him and crouched down to his washed face, and I tidied his hair. He relaxed.

“I know, Isaiah,” I said.

He started to cry, and I hugged him. I quickly turned his emotions to joy when I told him that if he ate the non-crumby parts, we could go to the park.

“How much time we got?” He meant with Casey.

“Hours.” I smiled.

When you came in with Lily he was a different boy. He hammed for you and devoured his food. He asked you questions about everything, from bows and arrows to bears and wolves.

The dinners and the play became a routine. We came over on Friday and spent the night. You treated us well. You occasionally said some rude things to me, and you also guarded your time. Sometimes it was not a good day. I permitted it. Sometimes you were angry with me for asking you to text me more often. I permitted it. It was my fault, after all.