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• "I, too, am ten years old," he replies
• when i know who I am
• best friends forever

“I, too, am ten years old,” he replies

 

Someday I’ll tell my story on the page of a book, he said from the blue.

Why not now?

I need to tell my father first. I need to tell my dad.

i woke up today to watch you sleep and realized that i don’t know you.

That would make sense. You’ve never known anyone before. Have you.

Have you?

Ryan, you know what i mean. And no more plays on words.

But swordplay is how I prove my skill with my two-edged words. You know that much about me.

i love you.

How can you? You don’t know me.

i hate you.

That’s more like it.

i hate myself.

That is truth.

Are you happy now?

Am I ever?

Do you hate me?

Do I know you?

i am ten years old.

‘I too am ten years old, he replies.’

i love you.

‘What is love? A feeling? A thing? A place? An act? Or does it matter?’

Do i know you?

Once upon this time.

Tell me.

I need to tell my father first. I need to tell my dad.

Tell him.

Come with me.

To a graveyard where he lays upon a patch of ground in the shadow of a monument to two who are over fifteen years dead. He picks up the stem of a crumbling rose and rolls it across the palms of his hands. Immersed in thought.

Matt Austin, who followed us from the car, tells me to come and get him when we are ready to leave. He then finds a bench several yards away and takes out a book.

“Shall I Never Rest In Peace While Old Liberty Holds Me Thus?”

 A painting, set at the Lincoln Memorial, of a man beaten and trodden upon by the Flag to which he is chained, was brought to life by a skilled artisan after the death of its painter, Roger Hawthorne.

[To me.]

I came to ask him why. Why is it she says such great things about him? Why is it she still loves him? He couldn’t have been that great.

He designed his own monument?

[Crazed.]

You understand! I knew you would! I knew you loved me.

Loved you? i don’t know you. Remember?

You greatly underestimate your intuition, Miss Stevens. You do love me—we both know that—and neither of us believes in love at first sight. I didn’t love you until I met you—really met you—and I assume the same is true for you.

“How can you love somebody you don’t know?” It was rhetorical then and it still is.

But the answer is, in case you're still in doubt, you can’t.

Then what was it i felt this morning?

Doubt.

[Wistful sigh.]

I haven’t told you as much about me as I should have and you think it’s because I don’t trust you.

i trust you.

I can fly.

You can?

I can.

Then where are your wings?

‘How can a bird fly without strings? How can a human fly without wings?’

We don’t need them.

But you don’t believe me, do you?

Do you want me to?

[He turns away from me.]

          He’s buried here with my grandmother. They died the same day, by the same hands.

[Cold.]

The day before, she was pregnant. They fought. My mother saw it all. The screaming. The slapping. The blue air and black eyes.

She tells it all with vivid detail before I go to sleep at night:

          Over double creased pants; that’s why they fought.

[There is a slight pause before he begins again, haltingly.]

A mis-crease   a grab of red hair           burning polyester    burning skin           indigo nails in bruising flesh               Mommy stopit      Daddy don’t!

It had to be hot; he stoked the fire first            thought he was cooling down      thought he was gonna end it                     didn’t see him turn around but saw him try to end it             she grabbed the smoking prod       burnt her fingers       my momma watched                  her own swelling belly                          grandmother swore “Your killing our baby”         he hit her again        the demon left him                     blood stained carpet            shrieking older child          to the hospital “Mollie don’t scream”                  she did not want to be alone        “What’s happening to Mommy?”   “Mommy’s fine. The baby’s mad is all”                           “Is my baby mad?”  “Don’t cry”    vomit and tears       “Daddy’s little girl don’t cry”   stays in car   cradles me prenatally    they come back without the baby                                silence   …       …       …       …       …       …       …       …       …                

       And the next day he kills her. And the next day, he kills himself.

Nathan is her baby and I am my mother’s son.

      

I-I wanted him to know I knew.

i believe you, Ryan.

I know.

So what now?

I need to tell my dad.

Tell him.

Wait here.

He gets up and runs over to the tall blond man who wasn’t reading the book at all but worrying that he’d lost his eldest son to the ghost of a man to whom his wife still clung so tightly and, as a result, still held on to life in her thoughts, as well as their blood. Matt Austin hugs him like the ghost man never would have and says that it’s okay and says that he heard it all and says that no one living, dead, or otherwise could ever love Ryan as much as he does. And i know it’s true so i'm happy for him, happy for the both of them, but why is it that i want to cry?

They get up and walk off, down the gently slopping countryside, a father blur and a son blur, side by side, skirting the tomb-blurs and smears of statues, galloping off into a brilliant sunset that only exists in my mind.

i know where the car is. i know how to force down this pain and pretend that i am simply an emotional girl and not a jealous one. i know how to fake normality and lie and say i got a little lost, but i just had the craziest thought creep into my mind. How am i any better off than Mollie? So, her parents are dead and mine aren’t, but isn’t it funny that she gets more out of hers than i’ll ever get from my living ones?

This is that moment of stupor and violent epiphany that you never want to have in public because you can’t control your emotions and you can’t control your thoughts and you realize that you're sobbing on your side on the ground at the base of an oversized tombstone but you can’t do anything about it, nor do you really want to, which makes you cry all the harder.

There’s a hand on my back and i won’t open my eyes ‘cause it’s probably the ghost but i wish it was my father and i know it’s not my father so i try not to cry harder but i can’t help it. i don’t open my eyes but force my feet to act the part until i feel the bench beneath me and try to get a grip. The hand is joined by the other and i am enveloped in a gentle hug that does not belong to me, given by someone who doesn’t even know me or what i go through or what i did.

So this is what it feels like.

So foreign. i am too rigid.

       “Alive, tell me what’s wrong.”

i can’t.

       “You don’t look well.”

i’m fine.

       “I’m not just Ryan’s dad. I’m a doctor, and I know you’re lying.”

i am lying but i’ll be okay.

       “You don’t want to tell me about it?”

i can’t.

       “Can you tell Mollie?”

No.

       “Alive, you know Mollie and I are here for you.”

Because you know my parents aren’t?

       “Not just because, but yes.”

You can’t tell anyone.

       “Would you rather tell Mollie?”

Do you not want to know?

       “If you're okay with it. I want you to be comfortable.”

i’m jealous of your children. i don’t know my parents. They don’t know me. i hate them. i hate myself. i can identify with your wife but not talk. She’s scarier than you are. i can’t go home. i got kicked out. We fought last night, my mother and i. My father watched and did nothing.

“Is that all?”

Yes.

“Is that all?”

i can’t.

“Are you sure?”

You don’t want to know.

“Try me.”

i’m pregnant.

[Pause.]

“Come with me.”

---

When i know who i am

Let there be no emotion

in my voice

no emotion

had no choice

there must be

no emotion.

let it slide from me

leaving just

animal control

let it flee from me.

can’t be whole now

All control now

All control

 

Leave me standing here

no emotion

left in me

no emotion

can I give you

can’t be whole now

All control now

All control

 

Let there be no emotion

in my gaze

no emotion

change my ways

there must be

no emotion.

make your love let me go

leaving just

raw nothingness

make your love desert me

wholly bare now

nothing there now

nothing there

 

---

best friends forever

We went down to the seashore today. Ryan and i.

An overcast day. Late afternoon.

It was magical anyway. We held hands and tried to walk barefoot in wet sand. i sank in, ruining the perfect-movie moment. Walking along the shore is harder than it looks on television.

We tried to write our names with mottled black-white gull feathers near the tide line. i added a third addition.

Every time, the tide killed its four-letter representation completely. Always first.

He didn’t take it seriously.

i wished he would have.

i know i am ungrateful, though i am richly blessed.

Blessed?

He is too understanding.

No harsh words. No questions. Just eager preparation.

i am jealous of it already.

It will be swathed in happiness and drowned in love by Matt and Mollie. Ryan already loves it.

He is too easily attached.

He likes to talk to it and sing to it and tell it stories.

i fear that he is beginning to love us equally.

And i know that i can never feel that way about it.

There is guilt in the admittance and an unstable resolve.

There is a nagging void filled with wistful regret.

i know that i shouldn’t feel this way, but i will only do what comes naturally.

Nothing.

“What are you thinking, Alive?”

Is murder wrong?

Instantly “Yes”.

A smile lights up his face.

He pulls me to himself and grabs my hand.

Yes, he is much too understanding.