A Bridge to You

As I get out of work this morning, I stop and stare into the sky and remember. I used to lift him from his cradle and stand by the window watching the sun rise while his mother slept. I whispered secrets that my father once whispered to me when I was young, things that I don’t remember not knowing.

This morning, I can almost feel the weight of him in my arms, can almost see him as dawn breaks, golden bright above the factory’s twin smoke stacks

I let my eyes follow the black billowing into the sky where it joins the shadows of clouds before the sun. That’s me, I think. The fires I feed make a bridge to you. He never answers. I reach my hands up, dark and crusted with grease and soot, but I am cold in the weak fire of the sun. I turn away. As my hands drop, ash wafts from my clothes and hair.

A wave of laughter drifts from the main entrance. I only have been through that gate once, when I was desperate and hired. You are too dirty, now, they say. You must keep away from the pristine white glow where people work. When they say that, I know. I am not a person anymore. I am become fuel, fit only to feed the fires.

The other workers cringe away, not letting one bit of me touch their cleanliness. They hold up handkerchiefs to mask the stench of me. They wish I were invisible. I wish I were invisible.

I try to retain a memory of accomplishment. I am important. I feed the fires. They live and wash and smell so sweet because of me. I don’t have anything but that left. Sometimes that is enough.

I walk along dark ways, staring down the other shadows that might try to carve out my heart to find my pay. They don’t know that my heart is gone, carried away. Once I thought that my heart was large enough to hold the world. A woman loved me enough that she gave me a son, and together we dreamed of life and love and more. Then he was gone.

The doctors called it chance. A genetic anomaly. A million to one odds. I called it hurt. She called it my fault, and I let her because her eyes were so pained that I couldn’t see myself in them anymore. Sometimes people grow closer in tragedy. We didn’t.

My apartment is empty. It echoes with absence. I have no pictures, no cradle, no windows that look out onto the sky. When I get there, I scrub off as best I can. My skin is never clean anymore—the lines of my hands are embedded with grime.

As I finish and consider the bedroll in the corner, I hear a knock. I consider ignoring it, but it is an anomaly in my ordered non-life. I open the door.

She is there. I can’t meet her eyes so I stand back so she can enter. She has never been here before. When he died and she left, I abandoned everything that reminded me of them—the career I once dedicated myself to, the neighborhood we lived in, the parks we frequented. I never see my parents anymore—they loved him too dearly.

I stand, not looking at her. I almost wonder what she thinks of the emptiness, but it’s unimportant. I try to remember what to do for visitors. I don’t have a seat to offer her or food in my kitchen. There is a trail of soot covered clothes that leads from the door to the shower. I turn on a light and wince at the bright. Her hand reaches out to me—I can see it from the corner of my eye. I turn away. It drops—I hear it come to rest against her side.

She says my name. Her voice is so soft—it reminds me of the time she held my heart. It hurts. “Is that really you?”

I nod, wondering how long it has been since I participated in a conversation. Weeks, maybe even a month or more. There’s no need for talk among the fires. “Hello.” I wait, unsure of what she needs from me.

“How have you been?”

I shrug. My days are full of sleep. My nights are full of fire. I am too tired most of the time to think, and that is good. “Surviving.” That is more than I deserve. I lean against a wall, tired. “Is there some problem with the money?” That’s the only connection I thought we had left. Every week I send her money to take care of the house and the bills. It takes funding to die—doctors, hospitals, funeral directors.

The cremation had been free because he was so small and tragic. That had been what first drew me to the fires—it was a place I could share warmth with him.

“No. That’s finished.” She stops. “The hospital was paid off last week. It’s been five years.”

I wait, peering down at her feet.

She moves uneasily back and forth. Finally she spits the words out in a rush. “I need you to sign so the divorce is final.”

I am surprised, but I hold out my hand for the last of it. “I thought we were done with that already.”

“Nearly.” She places a stack of legalese into my hands with a ball point pen.

I read through the familiar phrases, signing wherever seems appropriate. Each signature feels like a brand searing through the last ties we have to each other. I hand everything back. “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

I turn to the door, ready to have her gone.

I hear her choke back a sob. She says my name again. “I’m going to miss you.”

I don’t say anything.

“I met someone.”

Her words tear through my gut. I take a deep breath. “I wish you every happiness. You deserve to be happy.”

She hugs me. I stand awkwardly, waiting for her to let me go. I don’t want to touch her. My hands are unfit. “You too. You deserve to be happy.” She leans back, and I see her eyes for the first time since he died. “I’m sorry that I ever said otherwise.”

I close my eyes against her. It hurts to be forgiven even more than it did to be blamed. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Not yours. Not anyone’s.”

“I know.” And I do with my head, even if I don’t feel it.

“I wish you would talk to me about him. Remember the good times.” She buries her face in my chest, but I can still hear her. “There were good times.”

I want to say yes, there were—but the words won’t come. “I’m not ready.”

She nods. She pulls away. “I hope you are someday.”

She doesn’t say goodbye and neither do I.

I just strip naked and lie in my solitary bedroll.

I close my eyes and see the dawn, golden behind my fires.

word count:1188