I Fell in Love with Hope(93)

“What do you mean, not forever?” Sam asks, all softness evaporated.

“I–”

“Don’t you want to be with me?” Not a question. An accusation. A reach for a lifeline, like Henry searching for his ghost. “Don’t you love me?”

Sam and I stare at one another, the closet so dimly lit I can only make out his face and his outline. The longer I take to answer, the more he tenses.

I want him to be happy.

I want him to be happy with me.

I want him, and he wants the world.

So for the first time, I’m not sure that I’m enough.

Sam’s body sags slowly. The tears that belonged to Henry dry. He wipes them from his cheeks, his jaw flexed. He looks as he does when he is being examined, vulnerable, shame behind the echo of his breaths.

He rubs his face up and down. Then, a hardness I don’t know takes to him, like a knight putting up a shield.

“Alright,” he whispers. He turns around, reaching for the doorknob.

“Sam?” I call. “Sam, don’t leave, please,” I beg. I try to grab the back of his shirt, but he’s already opened the door and shut it behind him. “Sam!”

The room goes completely dark.

Like a smog-ridden battleground.

I wonder, as I cry, if Henry got an answer to his question. I wonder if he ran through the black and came out on the other side. I wonder if, in the light, his friend was waiting for him, smoking a pipe, smiling with open arms.

And then I wonder if Henry is still running. I wonder if he will run through the dark only to learn there is nothing on the other side.





the inbetween moments





Dad,

My first memory is of you.

You kiss my face, laughing when it contorts, gentle hands on my back. Mom is beside you, her hands tickling my belly. Your eyes are warm. Your words are tender. My world is a crib, and your love is the weather.

I’m not certain how much reality that memory holds, but I don’t waste time questioning it.

Funny how memory works, isn’t it? You remember what is strange more than what is normal. The normal days blend together, but the in between moments stand out.

I wonder what it says about my life–that I remember more vividly the moments of your kindness than I do your hatred.

I wasn’t aware of it when I was younger. The hatred, I mean. I didn’t know that it was abnormal for your dad to scream and slam the table because you accidentally broke a plate. I didn’t know that it was odd to be stripped naked and thrown into an ice-cold bath because you asked why boys couldn’t kiss other boys.

Mom was the one who cleaned up the shattered ceramic and dried me off as I shivered. It made me sad when she turned the other cheek, but unlike you, her kindness was constant. She never once hurt me.

One night, when you were away on business, she slept in my bed. She cried when she thought I was asleep. The next morning I saw the bruise on her cheek. Streams of wine color caught in a patch of putrid greens and yellows.

That was when I decided I wouldn’t hate her.

Of course, I couldn’t hate you either. You were all I knew.

You taught me right from wrong. You guided me through the beginnings of life. And every time I went the wrong way, acting a little too weak or a little too curious, you said:

God will forgive you.

I was stupid back then. I was a little boy who thought kindness lied in a clenched fist and that my existence was something to apologize for.

But you forgot, dad, that the more a child grows, the bigger the world gets. My crib became a house and our house became a town and little by little, I came to know what kindness really looks like.

There was a day you took me to the park to play catch. I had just gotten my first-ever report card. I had good grades, so customarily, you smiled, but you were bothered beneath it. Kids are intuitive. They pick up on those things.

I knew, even then, when I was barely at your knee, that it bothered you when my teachers called me reserved rather than outgoing. It bothered you that I should’ve been at your hip by that age, that I never spoke, and that I couldn’t catch.

So, when the baseball hit me in the head as a symptom of your frustration, I let it happen. I let the blood seep over my eye, and I let you carry me back to the car, kissing apologies on my forehead.

That was the first time other people had witnessed you hurt me. I remember mothers with their toddlers by the slide and swing set putting a hand to their mouths in shock.

I wanted to tell them that it was okay. That it was an accident. That you cared about me and you only hurt mommy and me some of the time.

That night you washed my hair and bandaged up my head. You kissed me goodnight and said you would teach me and that it would all be okay.

Though I didn’t cry when you turned off the light, I felt this intense emptiness. Mom and I were a quiet pair. The house itself had more to say to us than we did to each other. I had no friends or siblings to talk to either.

I was lonely.

I wanted your kindness, and for that, I was willing to learn how to catch. I was willing to pretend to be someone I am not to please you.

It worked for a while.

Your anger became scarce. There was the occasional frustrated bout where you screamed at me or called me names or pushed me, but you always caught yourself and apologized.

There was this one habit you had that exists in the cluster of bumps.