Pieces of Things that Fell Apart

February 29, 2016

These are parts of the free-writes I did for the “prompts,” at the Artsmith Writer’s Island Workshop I was fortunate to attend, this past weekend.

1.

The June nights in Vancouver are cool but long. The sun lasts into the late evening.

I took the Skytrain back, from the inner city beach front, after sitting in my usual evening perch on a dock, staring at two loving ducks playing in False Creek.

Dusk arrived as I walked home, from my train stop on the suburban street, to my small, ramshackle and moldy house. I entered the back yard and saw my husband standing in the dark, talking on his cell, in the farthest corner of the back yard, in the dark.

2.

I had walked home from English Bay, of Vancouver, to the suburbs — our so-called home — after a long ride on the Skytrain, Vancouver’s subway. It was dark. In the back of the yard, our small yard, my husband stood under the furthest tree, in the back of the yard, the darkest corner of it, talking.

I stalked him.

“Did I scare you?” I asked, knowing I had caught him.

He stormed into the house. I followed him, unholy furious. I slammed the back door. The storm-glass broke. I slammed the bedroom door. The framed concert poster by the band we fell in love together to, Uncle Tupelo, shattered.

I bellowed, broken, “Who were you talking to?!”

“I’m not telling you,” he said.

“I want to see your cell phone record.”

He locked himself, and his cell, in the bathroom.

I cried.

It’s come down to this. We are collapsing.

3.

I used to think we were in love, until death, through sickness, and, of course, health. But, now, I wonder if it was safety and convenience, a crutch, a crush, not a 20-year romance.

We hurt each other, over and over. We lost each other, over and over, through the ping pong game of dueling careers, which turned into mutual deceits, lies and loneliness, the worst loneliness — the one where you face away from each other, in bed, but you still breathe closely — but not together, at night.

The bedroom door slammed shut. It was dark. The primrose bush outside the window bloomed, full and fragrant and sorrowful, in the moon light.

I heard my daughter crying in her room as I laid my head on my pillow in our bed, the bed I inhabited alone, as my husband brushed his teeth and settled in on the couch, his bed now.

It is over. I must leave, now.

4.

My daughter, long blonde hair, large blue eyes, thin, tall, kind, intelligent, she’s growing up.

It’s graduation day from secondary school, as they call it, in Canada. She’s off to Montreal, to McGill.

I’m not there.

My cancer took me from her, as did my divorce. Both.

She smiles for the camera, with her friends and her boyfriend, anticipating her new life at McGill.

I’m not there.

Her father hugs her, so proud.

I’m not there.

She enters and leaves the stage with her diploma.

I’m not there.

Does she remember me?

Does she remember when I picked lice out of her hair, when I held slumber parties, with pizza and balloons? Solved the problems between warring girls?

That was so long ago.

And, I’m not there.

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