A Thousand Letters
"Mr. Winters?" he asked from across the table.
My eyes snapped to his. "I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that."
He smiled genuinely. "It’s all right. I just asked if you had any other questions for me?"
"No." I pushed back my chair and stood, and he did the same, mirroring me as I extended my hand.
"Then we’ll see you tomorrow. Just call me if you need anything before then."
A curt nod was my only response, and I turned to leave the room. I was fifteen blocks from the house, but I didn’t hail a cab — instead I buttoned my felt coat and flipped the collar up against the cold, burying my hands in my pockets. But the cold seeped through, slipping into my skin, muscles, bone, and I welcomed it, wishing it would turn me to stone.
There was only one moment since the day he died when I could still feel, and I felt everything, my grief compounding in layers.
As he lay in the hospital bed with the light shining in on him, still, gone, I stood disbelieving at his side, knowing what I had to do. First was Sophie. I’d heard the phone drop to the ground, then Ben’s voice telling me they were on their way.
Then I called Elliot.
Her voice split me open. The second she gave me a response, I’d disconnected, unable to take anything more.
And when I looked at him again, I knew into the depths of my soul that he was gone.
I knew I was gone too.
I left the house, not knowing what I was doing or where I was going. And I walked. I walked until the sun disappeared and the snow began to fall, walked until my feet carried me to her. And as I stood in front of her window, I knew what I needed, what I wanted, the only thing I had left.
Her.
That was the moment I came alive. I crawled through that window and into her arms. I poured myself into her until I was empty again.
I’d been empty ever since.
I left simply because I couldn’t stay. I’d made a mistake, crossed a line in going there, unable to see past myself. And when I left, I broke her again with my clumsy, numb hands.
The emptiness was complete. I couldn’t feel her in my arms. I couldn’t feel my heartache. I couldn’t feel my soul or my feet against the pavement. All I had was the stinging cold to let me know I was alive.
The house was full of quiet movement as Ben, Lou, and Jeannie worked on setting it up for the wake. Something was baking in the kitchen, but I couldn’t eat, hadn’t eaten, knew I should. Instead, I hung my coat on a peg in the entryway and spoke to no one before walking up the stairs and into my room, closing the door behind me with a snick.
The light at my desk was still on, shining down on the blank paper like a spotlight, waiting for me to find something to say. How do you write a few words to sum up a man’s life? How could I explain what he meant to me, to the world, on a sheet of paper? How could I describe the loss that had consumed me, leaving nothing? Because I had nothing. Nothing to give, no words to speak.
But I pulled out the chair and sat down, staring at the paper, blinking and breathing, heart beating, autonomous, lost to myself. The pen was heavy in my fingers, the words heavy in my mind, and when the ball-point touched the paper, words slipped out unbidden, unwanted as the tears fell from my eyes, unabashed, unashamed. And I realized then that I wasn’t empty. I was broken; the sharp pieces of what was left of me were buried under shock that had collapsed, decimating me. But they resurfaced like the undead, cutting their way through the wreckage to open me up once again.
18
To Live
To live
Is to feel
So you know
You are real.
* * *
-M. White
* * *
Elliot
Dark eyes looked back at me in the mirror, dark hair framing my face, dark dress on my body. The world seemed to be bleak, quiet and empty, the sky shrouded in miles of fog that signaled snow. It made me feel small, a miniature in a world of miniatures.
I was not ready for today, and there was nothing that could stop it from happening. Today was here and waiting to be endured, survived.
I twisted my hair into a bun at my nape and turned my back on my reflection, the floorboards creaking to mark my movement as I stepped to the bed where my heels stood, slipping my feet in one at a time, smoothing the black skirt of my dress as if I could smooth the wrinkles of life away, make it straight and perfect. The poem sat on my desktop, the paper heavy between my fingers as I folded it into thirds and slipped it into my clutch. And with that, there was nothing else to keep me in my room where it was safe.
My family waited in the living room, dressed in black, half of them with a drink in their hands. They’d wanted to come, though I believed it nothing to do with Rick and everything to do with their own devices. Even Jack was there, standing somberly next to Charlie with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, his jacket bunched up at his wrists, looking impossibly handsome. But I wanted him less today than I ever had before. Today I didn’t know if I’d ever want anything again other than to turn back the clock.
They chatted amongst themselves, moving around me as they donned jackets and gloves, and I felt as if I were the center of a storm, moving separately, more quietly than the rest. And when we were all ready, I followed them out of the house, into the cold. Jack hung back, laying his hand on my back, asking me softly if I was all right. I nodded my answer, because how could I tell him the truth? How could I tell him that my life, my heart would never be the same? How could I tell him my soul had been shredded and thrown to the wind?
We split up into several cabs, Jack and I ending up by ourselves. But he didn’t press me, didn’t speak, just let me exist, my eyes trained out the window as the first snowflakes began to fall.
Three days had passed, and I hadn’t stepped foot in their home. There was nothing to be done there, not by me, and Sophie had come to me. She didn’t want to be home, either. So we spent the days in my room when she wasn’t with Sadie, who’d been staying with a friend too.