Chapter 33-34

                                                                               33.

Where there is desire

There is gonna be a flame

Where there is a flame

Someone’s bound to get burned.

But just because it burns

Doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.”

P!nk

 

She woke up early as usual, but nothing had awoken her this time, she had after all slept since 8:30 the night before. She lay in bed, held onto the tiger and wasn’t sure what it was that was different. She felt beyond alone, and betrayed but it was something more, then she realized it was quiet. No screeching seagulls, only the cardinal who sang joyfully. She turned to her side and as she did she brushed the side of her body, felt the ribs sticking out.

When did I become this skinny?

She didn’t even feel hungry, she moved her hand down her body, felt the hipbones, sharp and pointy. Her stomach flat, no concave. The spine, a dinosaur’s back bones.

She moved through her morning with a growing hum in her chest. The tears rumbled, pressing against her throat, the corners of her eyes. They wanted to come out, but she held them in until she had dropped off the kids at school. Then she couldn’t any longer, she sobbed the whole way home.

When she came home she curled up on the floor and cried until she couldn’t breathe anymore.  Then she cried some more. The pain was everywhere, in her throat, in her chest, in her head, in her eyes. Everywhere!

 “It feels like he died,” she sobbed.

She had forgotten how it felt to grieve, how all-consuming and aching it was. How it could spread through your whole body. A poison without the mercy of death. 

In the middle of all this pain she remembered her bracelet, the one she had forgotten, the one Robert had promised to keep safe, the one that used to belong to her grandmother. Her grandmother she had never met. The urge to tell him to throw it out came to her at first but she knew she would regret that.

He can’t send it here. What if John opens the package and asks who sent it.

A terrifying movie played in her head. John finding out, kicking her out of the house, refusing to let her see the kids.  And for the first time since it all started, she got scared.

What did I do? I must be hexed! I need my bracelet back. Jenna!

She wrote a short text message to Jenna asking if he could send her bracelet to Jenna’s house, gave only a very brief explanation of what had happened. Jenna wrote back; of course she could do that.

Turned on the computer, didn’t open the last email from yesterday. Contemplated for a long time what to write, all the while grandpa’s voice was echoing in her head. “Always treat people with respect. Turn the other cheek! Don’t fight!”

 

Dear Robert,

Thank you for being discreet, a lot of fun and for making me feel special. I will always cherish these strange, scary, wonderful weeks we had together and you will always have a special place in my heart.

I hope you will find someone special to share your life with, for a while I thought it was me but obviously it wasn’t. Perhaps we will run into each other one day.

Here is my friend Jenna’s address, please send my bracelet to her.

She reread it several times before she pressed send. And of course there was a small hope inside her that she would get something similar back. But hope is not always connected to reality.

It was a relief to leave the house to pick up Jack. She walked by the tree where the seagulls used to be. One white clean feather was lying on the ground, nothing else was left. She picked it up, caressed her hand with it, felt the resistance in the bendy feathers. Then she put it in her pocket.

The sky was covered in dark slate grey clouds and as soon as they left preschool it started to rain. Hard, cold, fierce rain, that bounced off the blacktop and went straight through their clothes. She picked up Jack and ran with him in her arms. He clung to her neck and buried his face against her body.

“Angry rain!” he yelled as they ran.

“Yes, very angry.”

When they came home, he stood shivering in his wet clothes, looked small and helpless. A drenched puppy.

“We better get you out of those clothes.”

She helped him, smelled the icy rain in his hair, steely and cold.

“Can we lie in your bed mommy and read? And can I have a hot chocolate?”

“Yes, we can.”

He ran naked through the house and crawled under the covers. When she came up with the hot chocolate and a few books he was all the way under the blankets. The rain pattered the roof for two hours. As she laid there the grief was a sullen greyness in her body. She tried to focus on the stories, on the little boy next to her and his gentle touch.

How will I ever be able to go on? This time the pain is too much, too strong, too unbearable. I will never be able to go on.

But of course she was. She had always been able to go on. You simply get up and get going. Clean. Cook. Do laundry. Dig in the garden. Get the kids at school.  Walk mile after mile. And repeat until the pain is more bearable.

She had had the strongest impression that the two of them were accomplices of love. Bonnie and Clyde. Cleopatra and Mark Anthony. Romeo and Juliet. Marie Walvewska and Napoleon Bonaparte.  Maria and Robert Jordan. That this, this strong, powerful volcano of feelings was something they shared. Not that he would leave her high and dry

 

The only thing that existed in her head when she woke up the next day was daddy’s voice. “You can’t let people walk all over you.” But how do you get angry with someone who won’t answer when you call? She decided she would write an email, she doubted he would read it but she had to do something, anything.

I am not even sure why I write because you probably never will read this.

At first I was relieved that you left. Then I was sad and cried my heart out but now I am actually pissed off.

I told you that I easily lose myself and that my highs are as high as my lows are low. And you didn’t seemed to care. But when I showed it to you, you ran with your tail between your legs. That is not fair!

You told me to never lie to you again. And I didn’t but when I told you my honest truth of how you made me feel and how you had awakened my demons, you decide to leave!

You can’t just vanish and pretend I don’t exist. You won’t even talk to me or answer my calls.

You said you weren’t only toying with me, you said you wanted to show your island. You promised me we would go to Hawaii. You said you had lost hope that someone like me existed. And then you leave! Our first kiss that made me dizzy, when we said we were alike, when I lay in your arms, when we made love. When we stood on the subway and looked at each other. What was all that? Nothing?

You can’t play with someone’s heart without consequences. You made me believe in true love, or a soul mate or kinship.  Something hard to explain in words. What was that? Just bullshit?

I took you for a lot of things; a friend, a lover, a womanizer, a player but never for a coward. You made me feel like I belonged with you and now you won’t even respect me enough to talk to me.

What do you think that I am, some kind of unstable, needy lunatic who will ruin your life?

She was so angry she had to get up from the computer and go outside and kick some balls against the garage door.

“FUCK!” she screamed.

Then she fell down on the grass and cried.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”  

What the fuck just happened? I don’t understand! I do not understand!

Then a thought came to her that instantly calmed her down.

He is not dead! He lives only 40 minutes away. He might not want to talk to me, or answer my emails but I refuse to let him treat me like I don’t exist. I can take the train to the city; I will wait outside his building until he comes out. I can do that! I know how to wait. I can sit there the whole day if I have to. And if he doesn’t come out that day I can go back another time. I only need enough snacks and drinks. I can do that! I can pee in the bushes, wouldn’t be the first time. I come from generations of hunters. I can wait!

 

 

                                                                        34.

 

“We were prisoners of love a love in chains
He was standin' in the door I was standin' in the rain
With the same hot blood burning in our veins
Adam raised a Cain”

Bruce Springsteen

 

Something was strange with daddy, he wasn’t drunk, but he wasn’t really there with them. He sat and stared out the window and only answered with one or two words when they tried to talk to him. Mommy cried at least and hugged them and cried some more, and she cooked dinner in between the tears but daddy just sat.

He would look down at his hands, rub them together and then let them fall limp. Kristin walked slowly up to him and stood close to him where he sat on the armrest of the couch.

“Daddy?”

“Hm” he said but didn’t look at her. 

She leaned a little closer so she could rest her head on his shoulder. Felt the pulse on the neck beating against her face. He didn’t move; he didn’t pull her into his lap as he usually did and he didn’t push her away. It was like he didn’t even notice her. He didn’t smell like he normally did, no soap or aftershave, only a dismal odor of unwashed skin and cigarettes.

“Daddy?”

“What?”

She didn’t know what to say, she wanted to say “See me, look at me. Here I am.”

“What are you looking at?”

He lifted his head slightly and looked out the window more intently.

“Those seagulls are finally gone.”

Then he stood up abruptly, she almost fell over.

“I’m going out for a walk.”

She followed him with her eyes as he walked out into the hallway, put on his shoes and left. When he slammed the door behind him mommy came out from the kitchen.

“Daddy left,” Kristin said and pointed to the door, “he is going out for a walk.”

Her mother’s face got pale for a moment and she rubbed her face with both hands until two red spots showed up on her cheeks.

“Good,” her mother said with a strained voice, “good, he needs some fresh air.”

Dinner came and went, no daddy. Bedtime came and went, no daddy. The next morning her mother started to call daddy’s friends, they all claimed to not have seen him. She even called Fritz but he wasn’t home. Her mother went over to the window every five minutes and looked out and as soon as the front door slammed she stopped what she was doing and listened.

“I can’t believe he left now,” she mumbled to herself.

Dinner came and went again, still no daddy. Bedtime came and went again, still no daddy. On the second day Kristin found her mother sitting on the bedside with her arms around her legs and her cheek resting on her knees. Her eyes looked empty and her red hair was unkempt.

“I think you have to go and stay with grandpa for a few days,” her mother said without looking at Kristin.

Grandpa showed up an hour later, the old blue Buick parked in front of their building and he walked quickly inside. Kristin had helped Jonas pack his belongings in his backpack and she had packed her things. After mommy had called grandpa she had gone back to sit on the bedside with her arms around her legs.

Grandpa walked into the bedroom and closed the door. The two grownups voices were muffled through the door but Kristin could hear that grandpa wasn’t too happy.

“Now Linda? They need you now.”

“I can’t,” her mother’s voice was uneven. “I need…I can’t,” then the voice faded.

Grandpa came out a few minutes later, he looked grave but he put his arm around Kristin’s shoulders and helped Jonas carry the backpack.

“It is just for a few days until mommy feels better again.”

“Ok,” Kristin said and threw the door closed behind them. The noise from the door echoed in the stairwell.

 

As soon as the car had stopped on the graveled yard she jumped out. “I’m going down to the horses,” she didn’t look back to the car when she walked away.

“Yes, do so. I and Jonas will pick some raspberries for dessert. Be back by lunch!” he called after her.

She climbed through the fence to the pasture; the grass had turned brittle after this long hot summer but now after the recent rains a few new green straws had started to show. Today the sun was burning down from a clear blue sky. The horses had taken refuge under the trees and didn’t seem to want to come out and greet her. She looked for her favorite and saw her under one of the oaks.

“Sweet girl,” she called out and the horse lifted its head and looked. Then it came walking towards her. She put her arms around the neck and stood still with her face buried against the warm skin. Her throat was so tight, her eyes were hurting, her breath trembled and then finally she cried. Hard and short!