Segment 9

         I go and I’m here. It’s the past again. Each shift is starting to feel like withdrawal, I find myself on the floor each time, shaking and shivering, each translucent nerve on fire, a dry taste in my mouth and a buzzing in my brain, the sensations growing each time. I wonder how long before they ruin me, before my transient body gives up and refuses to accept any more? I can’t keep a hold of it, I can’t keep myself solid for much longer. I keep saying that and I keep surprising myself. I don’t know how long this will go on. I can’t say, I can’t tell. I hardly remember when it began, so long ago.
         My face is buried in carpet. It’s yours, it belongs to your house. The soft fabric scrapes against my skin. My face isn’t here. I keep saying these things as if somehow they might make some sort of sense, if I keep repeating them enough times. A foot kicks out, goes through my ribs with barely a rustle. Your foot, on a small sneakers. Your legs, clad in jeans, rising up to be what seems to be an unimaginable height. But that’s just perspective. I shift and you become small again. Younger, too, your clothes compressed into a fashion ten years gone, your face looks fuller, you don’t realize how sick you got until someone leaps the passage of time and moves past degrees, skipping over blocks of years. You probably never even noticed yourself, as more and more of yourself was taken away, leaving you with a little less every day, thinning you out, trying to convert you into something that was only a shadow of what you were. But we’re more than just our physical bodies, even if the bodies themselves control everything. But they’re the weakest part of us, the thing we need the least. And yet when it betrays us, we’re gone, we’re done and not all your science can reverse what a vengeful body has wrought.
         You’re sitting on the couch and you’re not moving. Once in a while you cough, but the sound is deep and angry, something hard refusing to shift from somewhere deep inside your chest. The couch shakes when that happens, the whole house trying to force it out of you, the thing you can’t escape from, no matter how much of it you remove it always comes back, clogging everything, choking you from the inside. Is that what finally does you in, I wonder, or was it something else, a factor that everyone overlooked, an angle nobody can control.
         You cough again, a thicker, harsher sound and your body doubles over. At the end of it, I hear you swear and it sounds so odd coming from your voice, you sound too young to say such things but that’s how it goes, you have to go faster than the rest of us, to get where we were, to get where we would be, when you weren’t there. No. No. I’m romanticizing it, try to make something oddly poetic out of what happened, when all that happened was life, brutal and lonely and short, the same thing that happens to everyone else, that’ll happen to the rest of us. It wasn’t special, except when it intersected. It shouldn’t hurt, but it does to me, because I see what we lost, every time I turn around.
         I think you’ve been crying. Maybe not. I want to see you happy. All these moments are jumbled together, I remember the sound of your laughter, the way it cut through a winter day. Not this, the way your eyes are redrimmed, like they’ve been struck by something caustic, or the way your body shivers under a baggy shirt, like it’s trying to keep from tearing itself in half. I can’t be drawn to all these times, these bitter affairs, because that made up so little of what you were, of how it was. It gives a poor representation and that’s not the memory I want to take with me, when I go into the dark, when all else fails and I have to jettison a piece to make room for the rest, I want the curve of your smile to have a place, unburdened by this, by what goes on here. You weren’t perfect, I know that, I could tell you a million ways in which you weren’t, if I had the time, if I had the inclination but you never claimed to be and I never pretended that you were. But you deserve better than this, than this parade through sorrow, I want to celebrate you and mourn you, not with a drink raised to the uncaring sky, but to immerse myself in everything that you were, not to find the half shadows in the corners of you and illuminate them, but to discover the thing that made you cringe, that made you laugh and try to construct a story, now that we have the beginning, now that we have the end, we can make the plot and trace the arc and maybe it won’t make sense but it’ll be something to have, I’ll take it with me as I spiral down and if I never climb out, at least I’ll have something to hold onto, when there’s nothing left to see.
         The door opens and light spills in. I never realized the curtains were drawn. You can’t see out and they can’t see in. A shadow drops down, a pillar piercing the room, rising right on top of the carpet, revealing every bumpy contour.
         “I’m home,” someone says in a deep croon and with some surprise I realize that it’s your father. I turn and see him step into my line of sight. He’s wearing a suit, he must be coming from work. Is this spring, summer, I can’t tell. You must be home from school but you’re just sitting there and I don’t know how long that’s been. It may not matter. The engine may have been stalled, until we walked in and things started to move again.
         “Hey, honey,” he says as he comes in, like he just saw you there. You barely glance up at him, staring down at your lap. “You look like you had an exciting day.” I always liked your father, he was friendly without being obnoxious, a listener without being intrusive and he successfully resisted the urge to punch me in the face no matter what the circumstances were when we ran into me, which was probably more often than he would have liked.
         He’s standing some distance from you, but directly in your line of vision. You can’t ignore him, even if you wanted to. I expect him to have a briefcase, for some reason, but he doesn’t. There’s just him. Cracking a smile, he ventures, “But I bet it wasn’t as exciting as my day.” He takes a half step to the side, his shoes are planted deep within my back, spanning the width of my shoulders. “Why, just today, I got to sit through a quarterly report. You know what that is?” His mock eagerness could make me laugh, if I knew where I had left the emotion. In another time, perhaps. “That’s when we all sit together in a room where they’ve outlawed comfortable chairs, around a very long table, to listen to each other tell everyone things we already know. Except somehow my company, who I thought only worked on boring things like mutual funds and stock portfolios, somehow they’ve managed to invent a stasis bubble . . . so that time, instead of passing normally, just drags and drags and drags, so that even though you’re almost certain that you’ve spent like ten hours in the same room, listening to people drone on and on and you expect at any moment to look out the window and see flying cars go by, you find out that it’s only been an hour and you still have another whole hour to go.” He takes another step toward you, like he’s trying to get your attention. Above me, he’s like a monolith, rising high in creased pants and sharp jacket. “And it gets better, it really does, because the people who are running the meeting want your input on the stuff, so you can’t just stop paying attention or, like I do, actually think about the work you could be doing, if you weren’t trapped . . . you have to make comments or you’ll look like you don’t care about the company.” In a neat motion, he turns around and flops down on the couch, so that he’s opposite you. You shift as the cushions bounce, the only sign that you even notice the intrusion. He gives you a funny look but makes no comment, continuing with his speech. “And because I know you’re wondering, yes, Daddy had to present as well.” He sighs and rests one elbow on the arm of the couch, crossing his leg so that the ankle of one leg is resting on the knee of the other. “But he’s not actually sure if he said anything substantial and it’s quite possible that he made it all up as he went along.” He glances over at you, a smile covering half of his face. “So if Daddy’s company suddenly takes a nosedive and goes out of business, it might be his fault. But you didn’t hear that from me.” He reaches up and smoothes a bit of his thinning hair, looking toward the ceiling and sighing as he does so. “Stay out of the real world, kid. You’re better off. Even better, just don’t grow up.”
         You make a sound suddenly, a muffled and choked thing. Your arms are crossed over your chest and you look away sharply. Something in you is trembling, about to vibrate free of whatever’s holding it in.
         A quizzical and slightly worried expression crosses your father’s face. His forehead furrows, his eyes narrow. In a slow, deliberate voice, he asks, “Listen, is everything all right? Are you feeling okay?”
         You don’t answer immediately but I can see you’re biting your lip. I can’t tell what’s wrong, I don’t know anything about this. I’m just as confused as your father must be, trying to tell a funny story and not getting the reaction he expected. The problem with funny stories is that you have to know when to stop, or it ceases being funny anymore.
         “What’s going on?” your father asks again, concerned. He doesn’t lean closer to you, but his voice has the ability to make him seem much nearer than he actually is. He’s above me, but I’m not here. “Talk to me, come on, what’s wrong?”
         When your voice finally comes, I barely recognize it. It’s a wisp of a sound, a strangled whisper that seems to wither as soon as it leaves you. “How . . . how long did you know?”
         Your father seems taken aback by the question. For the first time I notice that there’s a book on your lap, a slim volume. It’s closed now but your fingers curl around the cover, as if trying to choke it, to crush it into something you can dominate and eventually contain.
         “Know what?” he asks, honestly confused. “What are you talking about?”
         “You never told me,” you say, almost accusingly, completely ignoring his question, or perhaps answering it in your own way. Your voice is shaking and from what I can see of your eyes, they seem sunken, haunted. It’s not like you at all. It might be a trick of the light. “All this time and you never said.”
         “Said what?” he asks, showing a rare flash of irritation. “What is this, what are you talking about?” He shifts on the couch, sitting up straighter, more like a parent. “Enough of this, now. Enough. Tell me what’s wrong, just say it.”
         “I’m going to die,” you say, maybe. Or maybe I just hear your thoughts, crumpling on themselves. That doesn’t seem right, although it’s true. It’s too blunt for you, to state it so plainly. Your fingers crack open the book, trace a page in it.
         “What was that?” your father says.
         “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” you demand suddenly, moving your small body in a brief blur, flinging the book at him. It falls short, bouncing on the cushions, landing next to him, upside down, the pages opening like a dead flower, laying out everything for him. You collapse then, against the couch, crying quietly now, with something broken inside of you. I can’t stand the sound, I never liked it, especially from you. It comes out as a low pained whimper, like something being twisted until the point where it starts to fray and all the threads are trying to clutch at something but there’s nothing to hold on, nothing at all left to grasp. “All this time I never knew, I just never . ..” your words come out thick and tangled, merging together into one long syllable, a dark word that’s taking you down, dragging you away. Your father is staring at you like you’ve gone mad and after what seems like an eternity he stares down at the book. His fingers run across the words, touching them lightly, like he’s trying to absorb them, take them away from you. He must read them as well, whatever the book is about, whatever it says. I see his eyes flicker closed briefly and he sighs with an odd kind of pain.
         You’re crying harder now, propping yourself up on the furniture, sniffing and sniffling. You start to cough, a wet and deep sound, and it doesn’t relent after the first few, getting harder and harder, until your face is red and your body shuddering.
         “Come on, honey, calm down, please . . .” your father says, reaching out to touch you. But his face is ashen, he seems honestly shaken up by this. “Come on, you’re going to make yourself sick . . .”
         You manage to stop it, then, somehow, seemingly by holding it in by force of will. Your water rimmed eyes stare up at him, sliced with a harsh snarl of frustration. “Get sick? I already am sick . . .” you tell him, hoarsely. Your hair was longer back then and it’s catching drops of your tears, as if in a net, sticking to your face, helping you reabsorb what you can’t afford to lose. “I’ve been sick since the day I was born.”
         He’s trying to regain composure, your father is. Part of me can’t believe he never expected this to happen someday. Or maybe he did, but he knew that the day it happened he would be surprised. So maybe it’s all going according to plan. “But you knew that, we’ve told you that before, it’s, what you have, it’s something that you can’t rid of but that doesn’t mean-“
         ”That’s what you told me,” you snap back, in a tone that I don’t imagine you use with your parents very often. He tolerates it this time, perhaps, because of the circumstances, perhaps because he doesn’t know what else to say, When something has been set in motion, there’s no stopping it, you let throw yourself in its path and let it run you down, or you get the hell out of the way. Your father appears to be trying to decide which tactic is best, but he’s running out of time. “And I never questioned it, I never . . .” your voice gives out again and for a second I think you’re going to cough. But you recover, and continue. “I was curious today, I don’t know why. I’ve never been curious about it before, I didn’t want to think about it, maybe. What you told me, that was good enough.” He’s letting you talk and I’m not sure why. He wants to see where this is going, he’s judging the path of the boulder and waiting for the last possible second to move out of the way. Because he wants to meet it head on. Because he thinks it might shift direction, if he holds out long enough. I’m between the two of you, on my knees and I’ve got no air at all. “So I got a book out.” Your voice has been too calm throughout this small speech, in contrast to the frenzied rhythms of before. It’s just describing the day. How it came apart. How it all came down. “I just wanted to read, see if I could learn anything new. I like learning new things. I thought I did.” You take a deep shuddering breath that seems to take root somewhere in your chest. “I learned some new words today, at least,” you say, and you’re staring at some point beyond him, some place that isn’t here. “Like prognosis and . . . ah,” you cough lightly, trying to wave the motion away, “and . . .” it’s hard to finish, your lips won’t wrap themselves around the words, the mind recoils, “life expectancy . . .” you force the last words out, trying to eject a rotten fruit, to spit it away as far as you can.
         Your father swears under his breath, closes the book with a slow, detached motion.
         “This is, it’s just a book,” he says quietly. “It’s not the gospel truth, you can’t believe everything you-“
         ”Of course I didn’t believe it,” you respond, curled up on the couch, facing away from him, toward the blank television, perhaps watching your grey reflection, distant and distorted, the way you see the world on a rainy day, when the clouds don’t reflect the light properly. I’ve stood in solid places where the microfine raindrops pass right through you, sliding in between molecules. I’ve never felt so clean, in that day. I can’t go back there, but I’m here, watching your dissolution. “You taught me better than that. So I looked in more than one book.” It’s just the type of thing you would say, so lightly. But there’s no lightness in you now and the eyes that stare at your father now are accusatory, flashing with muted anger. “They all said the same thing, Dad. Are they all wrong? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
         “I’m just saying, what you read doesn’t always reflect-“ his words are halting, like he doesn’t expect to actually get a chance to finish the sentence.
         “How old are you, Dad?” you ask suddenly, the question a barb with hidden thorns. He’s hardly taken off guard by it at all.
         “Forty-one,” he says, instantly, then seems to brace himself.
         Instead, it seems to catch you off balance, a gear clicking in your head that was sticking before, putting together one final piece. “Then,” you say, pulling out the words breath by breath, trying to squeeze yourself into a smaller and smaller corner of the couch, “then by the time I reach your age I’ll have . . .” your throat seems to go dry and it’s a much tinier voice that finally finishes, “ah, been, dead for ten years.”
         “Stop this,” he says, moving so that he’s sitting up straight. “Stop this now.” It’s an order, he’s using his parent voice but he’s hesitating, insisting to someone who isn’t there. In his lap, his hands are shaking.
         “I always thought, I’d, that I wouldn’t get worse, that this is the way that I’d always be and I’d . . .” you lace your hands together, your skin flushed, your face too young for these thoughts, “that maybe some day I’d be this little old lady, like grandma and that the, the only thing . . . I’d never be able to run really far or climb a mountain, or, stuff like that.” You look at your father and there’s no energy in you for anger anymore. “But I’m going to make it that far, am I, I’m not-“
         ”Stop doing this to yourself!” he nearly shouts, his voice cracking. The couch shifts and I think he stands up but he doesn’t move. I’m not seeing enough, there’s different times branded into my vision, the years are blending together and overlapping and it’s like being shown five movies on the same screen. I can’t get the plot but somehow it’s morphing into an odd kind of sense, a world where things happen at their own whim but somehow the threads pull together. My name is whispered sideways. “You know,” he says, doing his best to keep his voice level, though I can hear the echoes of his shouts, telling me how much of a jerk I must be to do this to his daughter, when in the end you were doing it to me, “you can’t, you can’t go down that road, when you start thinking like that you . . . when I was in high school . . .” his voice is breathless, he’s trying to pull you back from somewhere but he’s only being guided in the dark and it’s a race to see which of you will fall off the cliff first. “We had this guy, this joker, who thought he was cute and he went and, ah, he drank a whole bottle of cough syrup. You know, just for fun. Maybe someone dared him.” Your father’s eyes are flickering all over the room, nervous, he’s waiting for something to happen, for someone to come from elsewhere and change it all and end this. Maybe he senses other eyes. “And not long after, he . . . he stopped breathing.” He swallows, visibly, his throat bulging. “He was eighteen, I think. If I were him, I’d have been dead for . . . for how long now? Too long. And I’m just saying, what I’m trying to say . . . you start thinking about stuff like that and it . . . it drives you crazy, it eats you up because . . .” He can’t finish, he knows what he’s saying is useless. Once the realization has arrived, there’s no turning back, you can’t close the door and forget what you’ve seen.
         “That’s different,” you say, “he, that guy, he did it to himself . . . I, this, this is what’s, it’s happening to me, I didn’t have any choice, this is what I have to live with and . . .” you stop and press your hands to your face, a classic contortion. “You didn’t tell me,” you say again, as if it changes anything, as if it’s the most important thing in the world.
         “It wouldn’t have been right . . .” he tries to say.
         “You never said, you could have-“
         ”What?” he shouts and this time he does stand up, for real, in this reality, with a sudden ferocity that sends you scrambling back against the arm of the couch, almost stumbling over it, your small body nothing but arms and legs and motion. “What did you want us to say, huh? That most kids who have what you have are gone before they graduate high school, that they don’t even get to go to college? Is that what you want to hear?” You’re definitely backing away now, trying to get out of his line of sight, but he hasn’t moved, he’s bearing down on you without budging. He was never a tall man but you never were a large person, it’s all just perspective, the way things appear when viewed from the end of a distant tunnel, the way raindrops echo long after they’ve splattered and the moisture evaporated. “Your mother and I, we . . . we’ve tried your whole life to keep you happy and to, to make sure that you didn’t have to worry about anything and . . .” his face is red and he might be sweating, this argument is too confining for him, what he really wants to say is submerged, there’s a subtle fear lingering just under the skin, “and now you say, you tell me that none of that was any good, that you wanted to be reminded, to be told-“
         ”I’m not a little kid anymore,” you tell him, with a ragged voice, one foot on the floor, ready to flee, to run away from whatever is rushing down on you. Somehow the boulder has changed trajectory and instead of a diminishing shadow in the distance, it’s growing larger. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it, you-“
         ”I don’t?” he asks, sarcastically. I can’t look in his eyes. I don’t like what I see there. “That’s great, honey, that’s wonderful . . . you’re an adult now, you want honesty, is that what you want . . .” he’s pressing down on you with his voice, and you nearly fall off the couch, your eyes wide now, not used to seeing your father like this, tiny explosions going off in his brain, “you want us to tell you how it is, you want me to tell you what it’s really like . . .” he reaches down to scoop up the book, misses it entirely, keeps talking like nothing had happened, “how I sit there, I read the newsletters from the foundations, I see the names of the kids who didn’t make it, I see that they’re younger than you and I thank God that you’re still here, that you’re as healthy as you are, I lay in my bed at night and it makes me afraid, to think of them gone and how quickly you might go too . . .” one of your arms is covering your face and you’re clearly backing away now. You might be trying to say something, to stop him, but it’s too late, you’ve brought this upon yourself and once begun, it has to run its course, it had to finish the only way it can. “You want honesty? That’s what you want? Like adults do? I don’t have that, I only have what I feel. Is that a lie, to tell you that everything is going to be okay? I don’t want it to be, but if that’s what you want, I . . . I can’t do that, all right?” He’s pleading and not asking. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, that’s honest. You want it straight? You want me to give it to you straight?” Maybe you nod, cowering near the couch, your eyes blinking quickly, already turning watery. I can hear your heartbeat from here, racing like a wild thing. “The truth is, I don’t know what the hell is going to happen to you and it scares the living crap out of me that I can’t tell you anything else. So I’d rather smile and pretend that everything is going to be fine rather than sit around crying all the time because I don’t know what else to do.” He half sighs, half snarls. “But if that’s what you want me to do, from now on. Is that it? Is it?” Your face is breaking down, your hand is covering your mouth but you’re losing it, it’s all falling apart. Maybe you thought you’d gain the upper hand but you never realized what kind of minefield you were walking into. “I can’t give you the truth, okay, I hope you know that . . . if you want the truth, you, you can . . .” he snatches the book up now, finally, holds it like he’s going to break it apart, snap it right in two, “read this, if that’s good enough for you, it’s all laid out in garbage like this, you want the damn facts, they’re all in here . . .” he’s waving it now, trying to cut the air with it, or hoping that the air will slice it in half, “if this is what’s important to you, more than what anyone tells you, what you read in here, then . . . then go read it and believe it and maybe, dammit, maybe it will come true, if you keep believing it but, ah, but . . .” he makes a strangled sound and with a quick motion flings the book right into the couch, it bounces off the backend, flops down on the cushion and tumbles to the floor. Hands clenched at his side, he stares at you, now at the bottom of the steps, both of your hands on the bannister, your face contorted, drenched in an angular sorrow. “You won’t hear me say it,” he finishes, breathing heavily. “That it’s true. You won’t hear it from me. And if you don’t like it, I’m sorry but that’s just the way it is.” The book is at his feet and he kicks at it, sending it forward a few inches. “And that’s honest, that’s what you get.” He eyes you with a piercing glare, “Are you happy now, then? Are you?” He makes the words sound like a threat, a whiplash snarl where only the tip of it reaches you. But that’s the fastest part, the piece that does the most damage.
         I think you’re trying to form some kind of response, you’re trying to process everything that has just slammed into you, but even if you could talk it wouldn’t be anything coherent. Instead you stand there at the bottom of the stairs, your face inches from your hands, your eyes pressed shut, lips compressed tightly together. The only sound is a tiny whimpering, as you try to increase the gravity, try to keep anything from escaping. Without letting him know, you’re breaking apart inside.
         Spent, your father slumps back, perhaps battered by the echoes of his own voice. Bonelessly, he flops down on the couch, staring at you with sad eyes. “Stop it now,” he says, a tired order given to oblivious ears. You seem to twist, appearing at more angles than possible. But my vision may not be right, I may not be seeing things as they are. Your face is shimmering, wet, your try to wipe it off on the backs of your hands but it’s no use. There’s too much. He watches you, narrows his eyes, seems to deflate slightly. “Dammit,” he curses, just low enough that I can hear.
         When he speaks again his voice has softened. “Listen, don’t . . . don’t be like this, I’m . . .” Just the sound causes you to cringe, a verbal slap without the sting. You start creeping toward the stairs, eyes still closed, everything still confined to that tight system. “Honey, please,” he says, trying to draw you in, but he’s making it up as he goes along, of all the things he ever expected to get into a fight over, this was never something he imagined. Years later, you’ll fight over boys. One will be me. The words bad influence will be thrown around liberally. But that’s to come. This is still in the way, you have to pass this moment first, to get to where you need to be. “Don’t go upstairs, don’t leave like this, when you’re, not like this . . .” you haven’t moved toward him, but you haven’t moved. “Please,” he insists, without really asking for anything. He reaches out with one arm, the muscles quivering under his suit jacket, almost too tired to sustain itself. “We have to talk about this, all right? We can’t let it rest like this and never . . .”
         To me, you look small and lost and deprived of all direction. Again, I’m reminded why I hate seeing you like this, in this state, in any state at all. I’d rather be torn away, than to see you torn. You always had about yourself a certainty, a sense that you had already picked a direction and were heading in it regardless of where it led and if anybody wanted to come with you they were more than welcome to. Any of the problems you ever had, were when you deviated from that, when you let others set the pace without regard for you and what you needed.
         “So come on,” your father pleads, his own face perilously near collapse. Have you moved an inch closer? I can’t tell. I’ve got no depth to compare. I’m intruding on this moment and there’s nothing I can do about it. I want to look away but my eyelids are transparent and I can’t stop seeing what’s here. “I don’t want to see you like this, honey. Don’t, let’s . . . come on, we can talk about it. We don’t have to, just don’t walk away, it’s . . .” he sounds tired, his own arguments wearing him down. “That’s all I’m asking.” You’ve moved. You haven’t twitched.
         And then you’re with him. I must have blinked, somehow become detached. Reconstructing, it makes no difference, in time, in this time. One second you’re broken, hovering at the stairwell, debating whether to flee for a higher place. Then you’re back on the couch and your father has enfolded you, his arms around you and you’re crying into his shirt, staining the whiteness, an impression of your face that might never fade. Maybe he’ll never wear the shirt again, after this day. Maybe it’ll still smell of your sorrow, for long after you’re gone, so that if your father went into his closet, a month after you leave us and hold the shirt up to his face, he might be able to drink you in and convince himself that you haven’t gone very far, when in reality you’re terribly out of our reach.
         But that’s later. I can’t be here later. There’s other times, and I can’t stabilize. Voices cry, a keening wail, yours and his, softer murmurs. He’s saying, “Sh,” and stroking your back, in that gentle parental way, saying the whole time, “It’s okay, sh,” like he might calm everything about you and bring some peace to this place. But he can’t, it’s not possible. You’re vibrating, shivering.
         “I’m sorry,” you keep saying, through a thickened voice.
         “It’s okay,” he tells you but the two of you are in different conversations, talking to each other without discovering what the other is really saying.
         “I was scared,” you say finally, cracking through. “I read it and it was all I could think about and . . . ah,” something clenches in you and I think you’re about to cough again, move the solid mass in your chest and bring it somewhere else. “I just, I felt like, I have this clock in me just ticking down and . . .” you clutch at your head feebly. “I’m going to die,” you say, hardly audible. A low moan escapes you, an involuntary gesture.
         “We all are,” your father says, uselessly and sagely. “Someday.”
         “It’s not the same,” you protest. “Nobody else knows when and for me, it was like . . . someone was spelling it out, just . . .” you swallow, forehead pressed up against his chest. “I don’t this,” you whisper. “I don’t want it to be like this. I want to grow old.”
         “You will, honey,” your father says, as much desperate hope as a promise.
         Something in his voice enrages you and your body spasms. “Don’t lie to me, Daddy,” you demand, you threaten. “I don’t want to hear it, I . . .” but whatever it is that rose in you suddenly falls and you collapse without moving again. “Oh God,” you say, eventually, when speech releases you. “Oh my God.”
         He holds you close, rubs the back of your head, as tender as he can. But your whole body is an open wound, what’s inside is bleeding out, staining the whole room like a crime scene and every touch must be sending a thousand alarms through you. “Oh God,” you say again, like it might make some kind of difference.
         “It’s okay,” he says quietly, kisses you lightly on the top of the head. “You don’t, you don’t realize how far you’ve come and . . . how far you have left to go.” You don’t respond and he sighs, his chest depressing. “When you were a baby, you were so sick, you can’t even imagine how it was, you were always in the hospital, I think they were talking about reserving a bed for you at one point,” you smile at the memory, despite yourself, “and all the doctors they told us, they always said you were, ah, you were touch and go, they could never say what your chances were. You could have died, they told us, at any time. Any of those times.” His face has become pensive and you’re listening without moving. This house is empty. It will always be empty. “And each time you’d come home with us. You might be back two weeks later,” he says, with a quiet laugh, “but they always let you out. And sometimes, late at night when we were all supposed to be sleeping, I’d hear you cough, just a little or wheeze and I’d get up and I’d, I’d watch you sleep, peaceful and struggling, sometimes for every breath and just . . . you weren’t giving up.” He squeezes you tighter, you’re almost lost in him. “That’s why, what all the books in the world say, it’s just words. None of it’s true, for you. Don’t ever believe it.”
         “It scares me, when I think about it,” you say, softly, your voice muffled by him.
         “Then don’t think about it,” he replies simply. “Okay? It’s that simple. Listen to your father, for once.” You giggle a little bit at that, sadly. “All right? Okay? Can you do that?”
         “But what happens,” you ask, tenacious to the end, “What happens if I . . . I go, before I want to?” You can barely get it out.
         Your father laughs easily and honestly at that. “Before you want to? That’s everybody in the world, kiddo.” His face turns serious. “But that’s why you make sure you have no regrets, so when you leave, you leave free. Just be happy, all right?” he says, putting his face close to your ear. “Just do that, and it won’t matter. It really won’t.” You don’t answer, and he squeezes your shoulder. “Can you do that for me? Please? Can you?”
         “I don’t know,” you say into his skin. “I really don’t know.”
         “Sure you can,” he murmurs, pressing his cheek against yours, but staring outwards, through me, past the wall, into some other place. “Of course you can.” And looking at his face, I realize that the gap between what he says and what he feels may be larger than he even knows. But that could just be me, seeing what I think I should see.
         And even that I can’t say for sure, because before me his face ripples and fades, and I’m pulled along again, sucked aside, with the afterimage of the two of you sitting huddled together in the empty house, saying nothing at all, carried with me, until part of me can believe that you’re still there, like that and frozen, until you can accept that whatever small comfort you’ve derived is the only small comfort you’ll ever need.