Picture Us In The Light(105)
“Someday, maybe. We’ll see. Also, I started going to my church again.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that been?”
“It’s—complicated.”
“Complicated good or complicated bad?”
“Complicated like—I couldn’t bring myself to sing anything during worship and I was still furious at everyone who ever tried to tell me last year God works all things for good, but then during the message I just felt like God was reminding me that the whole history of the world is that it’s fallen. He promises redemption someday, just not yet. And in the meantime whole decades’ worth of the Bible is just grieving all these broken things.”
“Well, that’s—”
“Also, I broke up with Harry.”
The world tilts sideways, wobbling on its axis. “Wait, what?”
“I did it just now.”
I don’t know what to say. “Why?”
“I should’ve done it a long time ago.”
“You don’t have feelings for him?”
“Of course I do. I love Harry, and I’ll always love him, but not like that. But also—I don’t think I was ever who he wanted.”
The way she says it—I think she knew more than I realized, all this time. My phone buzzes again. “I don’t know what to say. You’re okay with it?”
“It’s weird, definitely. And I’m sad. But I wasn’t ever really in it. You know? At least not the way you’re supposed to be. It feels so selfish and wrong to just try to have some kind of happy ending when—when not everyone gets one. With Harry at least I didn’t have to feel guilty for doing that because it was never going to be happily ever after with him. We aren’t right for each other. It felt less wrong that way.” She hesitates. “I know you’re not supposed to think like that—like, shutting down your own life because you feel guilty. But I guess you feel what you feel.”
“And how do you feel now?”
“I wouldn’t say better, but—righter, I guess. Maybe better will come.”
There are so many messages when Regina and I hang up that I have to scroll back up to read them:
Yo, where you at
You up yet?
Pick up your phone
Pick it up
What are you doing are you sleeping still?
Pick up your damn phone
Danny
Dannnnyyyyyyyyyyyy
Danny stg if you don’t pick up right this second
Okay don’t pick up your phone, but
You know what you told me yesterday and I said I wish it could be different? It’s different now
Can I come over?
PICK UP YOUR PHONE
I write back, come over.
I feel tingly all over. When I get up and put clothes on, my fingers feel thick and numb, and I fumble with the buttons on my shirt. It’s quiet; my parents must still be asleep. My heart is percussive. I can’t stop smiling.
When I open my door the living room is empty, and I don’t hear anything from the bathroom. I peek out on the balcony and say, “Ma?” No answer. “Ba?” Still silence.
I tell myself they’ve just gone down to the laundry room or something, or maybe they went out to bring back some food, and I rummage through the mostly empty fridge and the cupboards. It’s only after I give up and plop down on the couch/bed that I find the letter next to their phones lying on the TV stand. It’s an envelope with my name on it, in my mom’s writing, and inside the envelope there’s three hundred dollars in cash.
Our beloved Daniel,
We have always believe in you.
We never want to burden you with our problem and mistake and we always dream of a much bigger life for you than this.
We know you will go on to do great thing as an artist. We will be always watching for your name.
Keep your same phone number always so we always know how to find you. Someday, when the time is right, you will hear from us again.
We love you more than you can ever dream.
You have known for years where she lives—the woman who gave birth to you. The woman who first cuddled you, who gave you your first name, taught you your first tongue. Who got on a plane and crossed an ocean without you like you were luggage that didn’t fit. Whom you have tried and tried to discard, who haunts you every day of your life.
All your life you cupped this dream in your hands like a bird: that he would come. Your baby brother, your replacement. You’ve rehearsed all the things you’d say to him, how to reduce him to nothing in only a few sentences, how to summon all those years of your own anger and make your pain lash around so vicious and wild it would break his skin and lodge itself underneath. And then he could carry those wounds back to them and infect them, too. Pain multiplies exponentially. What you cannot fix you can continue to destroy.
And then there he was.
He was nothing like you expected. But you—you were everything you should’ve expected. All those years of your plotting crumbled and you felt your old familiar self rising up, rushing in to try to ease his way and make him feel better. All those same familiar urges that make you smile when men say Smile!, that made you go to the movies with your advisor one day because he said he was lonely even though you didn’t want to, that made you worm yourself into bright Chinese dresses with your sister to take Christmas pictures your mom arranged each year growing up, that bring you home for every holiday. Who are you in the face of someone else’s pain? demand the urges. Who are you to withhold yourself? And you didn’t tell him, although you considered it, how six years ago (you work your way backward; he would’ve been about to start middle school) you went to see his father.