In the Holles Street Hospital maternity ward I was one of fourteen women facing each other through a dense pall of cigarette smoke from our beds across an expanse of linoleum floor. The babies were rolled up like loaves of fresh bread in metal cots at the foot of each of our beds.
Did we mean nothing? Did I imagine all of those affectionate times, when it seemed like I was your world?
I’d been in that headspace so many times, I immediately empathized and wanted to help. I didn’t want to intrude, but asked her “Are you okay?”
Pinch your nose, I tell him. He’s half crying, half giggling as I wipe his hands and face, as I remove his bloody clothes.
Minute one: I tell Phil he’ll be free.
I stand at the kitchen sink washing the one thing I took from home after you died: The Madonna & Child statue I meditated on—kneeling before you beaten, traumatized, loving you, year after year.
I know. I dreamt it last night. A giggling tow-headed toddler girl skipping away from me in a meadow. That’s how I knew last time.
I imagine a Foley artist expressing the visuals through sound. Scouring pad sandpaper blancmange emery board crushed clothes pegs pebbles slap of a rump steak chewing a wishbone knitting needles stabbing an old balloon filled with syrup.
Day Four of Air Force Basic Training and I still had hair. I can’t serve my country with thick, black curls, wearing my favorite Motörhead T-shirt.
I ventured in my thoughts to wild places, making promises to myself I knew wouldn’t see the light of day and yet, in that moment, I believed in.
A line ran down the middle of the hallway in the DePaul Behavioral Health Center in New Orleans. You didn’t cross it.
Tripping over her tongue tumor, my mom croaks out a few words. “You fold socks the right way, Emily,” she manages.
“We played Covid today.” He dipped his graham cracker in Nutella. I stopped with his milk half poured.
The windows are wet with dawn. My windshield wipers are old and leave streaks that make me regret my attempt at clarity.
I felt impatient and rejected. I took a deep breath and blurted, “What’s going on? Why are you avoiding me?”
Mom pushes in between her two Ragdoll cats, Sophie and Angel, feeling their warmth. She squints at the light coming in through the beige blinds and abruptly shifts, causing Sophie to jump up.
I have been watching them for years. They are so familiar to me, yet I know nothing about them. Not where they live, not even their names. Today I see them and I wonder what brought them to this point in their lives together.
The towering tray of leftover Thanksgiving fare remained intact as I struggled to open the hospital room door. My sister sat poking cloves of cinnamon into an apple, hooked to happy juice.
Last I knew she was living 900 miles away. She got married in a cave. Now divorced.
As I placed the milk into my cart, I glanced across the aisle. My heart skipped. I crossed the aisle with a singular purpose. Was it infatuation? Kismet? I didn’t care.