What we Have Found

How do we stop from strangling ourselves in our loose ends? I know you came because I called. I don’t how much you remember, how much came through the grey.
Mackay, I’ve known you since I was born, or probably before. Our mom’s were pregnant at roughly the same time and there are pictures of the two of them sitting side by side, comparing the swells of their pregnant bellies. I imagine you and I may have tapped Morse Code messages back and forth to each other from our womb homes.
We were born two weeks apart in the same local hospital. It was inevitable that we would be friends, so we were. Most of my childhood memories involve you but sometimes I wonder if I have any specific memories of those years or if the images I see are a composite of all the time we spent together. These are some of the things I remember:
1) Sitting in your back yard drinking imaginary tea from my miniature porcelain tea set. You were always a king and I was a very bossy queen who told you to do things like wipe your nose and pull up your socks. In my mind we are anywhere between four and six. By six, the neighbourhood boys had made it clear to you that boys did not drink tea, not even imaginary tea, from porcelain tea cups.
2) Kissing you, my first kiss, in a game of boy chase girl on the playground. I caught up with you next to the swings and went to kiss you on the cheek, the usual punishment when you were caught. You looked so disgusted that I decided to tease you by leaning in for a big smooch on the lips. The disgusted face must have been a bit of a lie because suddenly your tongue was in my mouth. See, that sounds like a concrete memory but you claim we kissed earlier than that, at a sleep out in your back yard. I don’t know whose memory to trust.
3) Playing never ending games of crazy eights, on the porch with lemonade if it was sunny, in a blanket fort in either of our living rooms with hot chocolate if it was cold.
4) Auditioning for the school play in grade nine, when my memories become a bit more distinct, and, somewhat to our dismay, being cast as Romeo and Juliet which only added to the litany of “are you guys dating?” we were forced to field on a regular basis. We weren’t.
We didn’t date until university. That is, we didn’t date each other until university. We dated as much as anyone else in high school. Nothing serious for either of us. Nobody ever passed muster when compared to you. Your girlfriends were always jealous of me and most of my boyfriends felt the same about you. Almost everybody thought our friendship was weird but for us it was what it had always been. I do think it’s kind of strange that neither of us considered the romantic possibilities at the time but it’s hard to shake the image of a snotty nose kid you grew up with even when an almost full grown man is standing before you.
I guess we didn’t happen until my dad died so in a sense we were always tied together in death. It was my first year in university. I had moved away. Not far, only a four hour drive, but far away enough to feel like it was a whole new world. I was just trying to get my footing, figure out who I was in this new landscape, when my dad had a stroke. As soon as you heard, you drove out to get me. I remember, you talked to all my profs and made sure I got extensions. You cleaned my dorm room so I could go back to a nice space. You sorted through my dad’s stuff, keeping the holey red cardigan I had given him as a Christmas gift when I was five, tossing the ridiculous collection of ties. You dealt with transferring bills to my mom’s name and all the details we were too upset to consider. Basically you said and did all the right things. It’s so trite, but in losing my dad I found my husband.
I’m glad we didn’t get married right away or anything. Neither of us were the impetuous types. It wasn’t a whirlwind romance but a slow natural progression from friends to friends and more. It wasn’t entirely without its weirdness. The first time we slept together was a disaster. I kept freaking out about the fact that I was seeing you naked and when you started kissing my neck I laughed. You tried not to be offended but then, mid deed, I had a full blown laugh attack and we were forced to stop. Luckily, we got better at that stuff. The rest was easy. Some times I wondered if I lost out on the thrill getting to know someone for the first time but what was that thrill compared to the comfort we had?
You proposed two years after my dad died. There was no hot air balloon ride or candle filled bedroom, just a sensible discussion about the possibility, a discussion that ended in the decision to go ahead and get married. Our parents were thrilled but not surprised. No one was. Like any newly wed couple, especially a young one still struggling through school, we fought. I was a yeller and a thrower, books, cloths, pillows, anything unbreakable I could get my hands on, while you were a quiet sulker, prone to walking out and wandering for hours. But, we were always able to laugh about it all later. I was happy. You had always been there for me and I imagined you always would.
One night we argued. It was common argument. You had a bad habit of leaving wet dish cloths in the sink. If I didn’t notice, they’d sit there and start to smell and it drove me nuts. I found one in the sink, got irrationally mad, and ended up throwing the dripping, stinky thing at your face. Understandably, you got pissed and stormed out. That was the last time I saw you, at least in that form.
You were walking on the shoulder of the road and a drunk driver came flying around the bend and struck you. You died instantly, or at least that’s what the police officer who knocked on my door said. I don’t imagine that they ever tell you that your loved one suffered a slow agonizing death. In one moment, I lost my husband and my closest friend. I could try to tell you what this feels like. How at first you think it’s a cruel joke, even though you know it’s too terrible to be fake, how even when your brain understands your heart doesn’t, how there’s numbness until the knife of your grief splits you open and spills your pain in hot tears, in shrieks, how your body stops working and you find yourself falling to the floor, breath gone, how the words don’t matter, how you want to be held but can’t stand to be near anyone, how you are deaf but every noise puts you on end, how you are a shell that keeps breaking, a seam that keeps splitting, a blackness that swallows the world whole. But, unless you’ve been there, my words are just words.
I don’t remember thinking “I’m not going to make it” but everyone around me seemed to think I might break irreparably. They were around me day and night. Sharp objects and pain killers were removed. I was brought hot teas and cold cloths, sung songs and stroked, left alone in dark rooms and surrounded by hugging arms. Nothing cut through my raw pain. My only thought was “Mackay, Mackay, Mackay” a chant that filled my head, some times a lullaby, some times a war cry, some times a prayer.
I hardly moved from my childhood room for months. Food was brought to me on trays. Some times I ate it, mostly I didn’t. At first, I was left in peace but after a while my mother and other well intentioned guests started trying to pique my interest in the outside world. I was brought gossip magazines and blockbuster movies. I was cajoled and bribed and then sternly admonished to get out of bed. I couldn’t. But then one day, I heard you call my name and I felt you standing over me. “Rose,” you said “I’m here. You called me loud enough and long enough and I found you.” I felt the pain lift, like a dark velvet curtain rising to reveal a bare stage. There is nothing there yet but the audience is full of anticipation. You were my audience and so, for the first time in months, I left the bedroom.
I remember standing over the sink and brushing my teeth. The face in the mirror seemed not to be mine. The eyes and cheeks were sunken. The teeth appeared enlarged against the thinness of my face. I was shades paler. My hair had grown but was matted, unwashed and unbrushed. You stood over my shoulder and watched me, encouraging me in this simple task. I thought I might have lost my mind but it was a relief. I sat at the kitchen table and ate breakfast -poached eggs on English muffins and orange juice- with my mother. She watched me with such attention and shock that I thought she must seeing you behind my shoulder but I was the only unnatural apparition.
It didn’t take long to settle back into our place. Many of the pieces of you, photographs of us together, books you had enjoyed and underlined, your favourite mug, had been tucked into boxes by well-meaning friends and relatives. I pulled them all out, feeling that they would weigh you down, stop you from simply drifting away again to wherever you had come from. It’s a grey space, you told me. You didn’t know how long you had been there, only moments it seemed, but you had torn through the fog, following my voice. I missed our conversations. In your ephemeral state it was hard to pin you down to anything concrete - no more arguments about communism versus socialism or the merits of carbon trading- but we gained an intimacy even sharper than when we were both solid. I felt you slip inside my skin at times. I breathed you in. You guided my hands as I chopped onions on the wooden cutting board. You twirled me as we listened to Cuban salsa on your old record player. You slept in my hollows, never rolling over to the edge of the bed. When I finally went back to work at the school, you followed me. I would feel you blanketing the children when they got too rowdy, touching my neck when I was tense, always calming the air.
People were constantly checking up on me. Though they wanted to see me doing well, I suspect they were unnerved by my sudden recovery. I told them I felt you around me, knowing they would nod and agree without understanding a thing. Slowly though, they got used to my strength, used to my new habit of talking aloud to myself, the way I would suddenly smile as if I had witnessed something funny or touching that the couldn’t see. I too grew used to these habits. Again, in loss, I found my husband.
I could have continued like this forever. I suspect you could have too though I often feared you would eventually be called back to this grey space. Or that I would and we wouldn’t be able to find each other. Sure people thought I was a bit strange, felt I spent a bit too much time alone, but they didn’t matter. Only you. And then Ryan.
I think you noticed him before I did. You had that ability to be over everything and I tended to ignore others. You didn’t say anything but, in retrospect, I felt a shift. You were afraid. He approached so slowly, I never thought of putting up my guard. Hellos in the corridor, a cup of coffee in the staff lounge, just another co-worker, but you knew before I did that I looked forward to seeing him, made excuses to linger. We lived close. Soon we started walking home together. It was awkward at first. I felt you around me always. I imagined I was betraying you as I laughed at his jokes. Once he touched my arm gently mid sentence and you tried to seep into the space between us. He looked at me strangely feeling the air grow suddenly cold. I grew momentarily cold too. Believe me Mackay, you were still the love of my life. But he was flesh, and you were a memory I was breathing life into.
I never planned to let him in. Or maybe I did. Some times we forget to lock the door on purpose, tempting fate. You were angry with me. You didn’t say it of course, conversation being limited as it was and directness not being your style even in life, but I felt you pull away. You stopped coming to work with me and at home you often stayed in other rooms. I felt the pain lurking just beneath the surface and afraid to let it out I would call to you again and you would join me, plugging the leaks for a while.
But I couldn’t ignore Ryan. He was persistent. He made me feel like letting the pain leak out. The first time we kissed, I sobbed for hours. He held me on the stoop, refusing to let go even when it grew dark and cold. I know you were watching from just over my left shoulder. I felt your pain find mine.
After that, cracks started appearing in us. I would call and you would not come. I would enter a room where you were but not be sure of your presence. I would find the photos of us face down on the mantle or knocked to the floor. I would cut myself while chopping onions. The records would skip incessantly. I turned to Ryan who seemed to have infinite patience for my halting steps towards him. Eventually my steps became strides and leaps and I found myself in his arms despite the resistance. Do you know what it was like making love to him knowing you were so often watching? Saying “I love you” while you listened in? My heart tore a little each time but Ryan was also my salve. He makes me happy as you once did.
Mackay, you are my first love and you always will be but I cannot tear myself in two anymore and I cannot keep you here. I know I called you and I cannot promise I will never call you again, your name will always be in my heart and on my lips in times of trouble, but I want to usher you back to where you belong. Can you afford me happiness?
* * * * *
I asked Mackay to leave but I see now that he cannot. I called him here and now he is lost, trapped in a world that no longer has space for him. I tried to find the exit but I am even more lost than him. I called him here and so I am responsible for him. I cannot love two men at once. I asked Ryan to leave. He was the only one that could. I am resigned to private looks and the intimacy of the formless. In yet one more loss, I am bound to my husband.