“I suppose you don’t even know what that means, what unfinished means to you.”
I looked down. The charcoal image of the frozen butterflies almost materialized on the floor. They looked like insects, like cockroaches, their wide wings closed and broken. I could see their faces. I could see them.
I knew my story needed an ending, but I wasn’t sure what I meant by “unfinished.” So he was right. I didn’t exactly know what unfinished meant to me. At least not yet. And so I didn’t respond.
“I hate to see you like this. And I don’t feel like asking questions either. But it would help to know when you think you’ll be done.”
“Soon,” I said, silently asking for his mercy and my own. “I hope you’ll still be here when I’m done.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, I hope I’ll be here for you,” he said, and started looking for something.
“You left your sketch pad here,” he added, and handed it to me. “I thought you might need it.”
The sketch pad still contained my portrait of Nick and my drawing of the butterflies. I had trashed the rest.
“Did you see this?” I asked, showing him the butterflies, and trying to share more than my words probably could.
“Yes, I did. What does it represent?”
I didn’t feel like explaining now. The nausea, the stench of wine rising from inside. I couldn’t really talk and so remained silent.
“I wish you could explain to me what makes you draw and write like this. ‘Unfinished’ doesn’t really do it for me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was.
“I’ll be home tomorrow morning. I’m going to my apartment,” I added.
I kissed Will, handed him to Matt, and left.
It hurt. Something did. Although I couldn’t find the source.
When I arrived at my apartment, I closed the door and felt excited and worried at the same time. Excited for the writing. Worried to discover where the writing would take me this time. I turned on the stereo and let my head go, looking for inspiration. I thought about the wine I had the night before, but that disgusted me now. I looked for my phone, and texted Nick.
Where are you?
He didn’t respond, but my phone said he had read my text.
I thought about sending another text but didn’t. Instead, I wrote. I wrote about the night before, and that was painful. I raised the volume of the stereo and rested a bit. When I opened my eyes, it was after two a.m. I checked my phone and found a text from Nick.
I’m at the Perl. Come.
The Perl was a nightclub not far from my apartment. I thought about going but then realized that if I did, I’d like myself even less than I had the night before. I looked at the empty bottle I’d left on my desk the last time I had been in my apartment, and I thought it was time to end that addiction. Would I fall into it again? I went out and closed the door.
I started walking toward the club, but I hoped that something or someone would stop me on the way. It was an ordinary Friday night. People were wandering around looking for a club or trying to remember where home was after too many drinks. Sometimes the door of a pub or a club would open and liberate a wave of sound or people, or all of them at the same time. A few times I peeked inside and felt dragged in, as if losing myself in the crowd would help me feel better.
And then another door opened, and some loud music leaked out. I liked what I heard. I tried to check inside but couldn’t, as there were too many people dancing. I thought the place might be perfect for me, and I walked to the entrance. The man at the door asked for my ID. I showed it to him, and he stamped a butterfly on my hand and let me in.
“Entrance for women is free tonight,” he said, as I was checking my butterfly.
“Like it?” he asked.
No, I didn’t. I just thought it was ironic. There seemed no way I was going to free myself from it. I didn’t say a word and entered. I walked to the bar but didn’t order a drink. Too easy, I thought. Instead I pushed myself to the middle of the room and started dancing. I danced and danced and sweated. And then I danced more, until I was exhausted and almost ready to collapse. But I still didn’t leave. I stayed longer and only when I was dying of thirst, did I leave. A woman nearby me decided to do the same, and I let her and her date, or boyfriend, or friend, walk past me. She couldn’t walk straight and seemed to be about to fall at any time. She must be in her thirties, I thought. She was wearing all white. Hard not to notice. The dress was too tight for her curves and too short for her legs. It barely covered her backside. This seemed to be her biggest problem at the moment, as she was all focused on pulling her dress down. What would people say if the dress showed her butt? That would be horrible? Her being wasted was OK with them, after all. What a pathetic, wasted beauty, I thought. Was I the same? I turned the corner, ducked into an alley, and threw up, perhaps because I had danced too much, perhaps because I hadn’t eaten in two or three days—I didn’t recall. Perhaps the woman or the thought of being like her had made me sick. My wallet fell on the curb and opened to my faculty ID. The photo had been taken years earlier. I was wearing all black and looked so professional. I stared at it. That photo wasn’t me. There was nothing of me there. I cried. I had wasted all those years looking for myself. Had I finally found it?
Where are you?
I grabbed the wallet, pulled the ID out, and trashed it. There was a hundred dollar bill behind it. Where did that come from? I never carried cash. I thought I had to spend it. I saw a homeless guy leaning against a rusty newspaper box.
“Would you cut my throat if I gave you a hundred bucks?” I asked.
He asked me something, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I closed my eyes, and the music of the club started buzzing in my head. And then I thought I heard my name. I opened my eyes and saw Nick coming toward me.
“Susan? What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck?”
I woke up from my trance, started walking away, and then I ran. But I was too slow, or he was too fast, and he caught me. He came close enough to touch me and then grabbed my wrist. I remembered the last time he had done that. Two years had passed, and I still remembered it so well I could replicate it in my mind. I was addicted to that memory, to him, and perhaps I was now going through symptoms of withdrawal.
“Are you on drugs or something?”
Yes, I thought. You. I’m on you. I remained silent and looked at him, my wrist still in his grip, or at least it felt so.
“Would you take me home?” I asked.
“Where exactly is that?”
“I don’t know.”
He called a taxi, and we left. While we were seated in the back of the car he came close and took my hand and held it. This time it was my pain he was trying to soften. I closed my eyes and felt suddenly at peace. Did I pass it to him? When the cab stopped, we got out and he took me in his arms.
“You’re so tiny,” he said. “You lost more weight.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pushed my head against his chest so as not to hear what I already knew. He opened the door, and we went inside. When we were in front of the sofa he laid me there to rest. I tried to crumple myself and our story up and toss them into a corner. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to write a new story now? Trash the past and start all over? What had I done wrong though? It still wasn’t clear. Would this one be better than the last? I still had my addictions, and he had his.
“I’ll make you some tea,” he said, and while he was waiting for the water to be ready, he came closer, caressed my forehead, and then moved the hair that was covering my eyes.
“You need to cut this soon. People want to see your eyes again,” he said. “I want to see them.”
I looked at him, into him. Then he stood up to check on the tea, and when he returned with a cup, he asked, “Have you been drinking?”
I said I hadn’t.
“Not today,” I added.
“What’s wrong th
en?”
I remained silent.
“We used to be friends,” he said, perhaps to make me feel safer.
In a way, we used to be, yes. He was probably the only friend I had made and lost too soon. Was it too late now?
“I have a story to tell you.”
“I’m listening.”
I told him about my mother, my grandmother, my nightmare, what I saw, his voice pounding in my head, my pain. I talked for a while, and he never interrupted.
“How do you feel now?” he asked.
“A little better.”
I hid in my cup.
“Do you miss making love to me?” I asked.
“Do you?” he asked.
Neither of us answered.
He started undressing me, and then I undressed him. I could barely see his body. I ran my fingers through his hair, then his lips, then his chest. He kissed me and stole my oxygen, and then I did the same to him. I breathed again.
“Let me look at you,” he said.
I looked straight at him to forget that I was standing there naked, that he was looking at me.
“Remember when you asked me why you made me uncomfortable?”
“Yes,” he said.
“When we were together, I felt like this all the time. Naked, while you had your clothes on. Wet with desire, while you were probably still wondering whether I was worth another try.”
He came closer to touch me, but I pushed him back.
“Wait. Tell me what you see.”
“I see your desire and I love it. I know I’m the one who’s causing it, and this makes me want to screw you so bad.”
He went down on me.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he said.
“Am I?” I thought about the drunk woman I had seen before, my photo ID, and I wanted to believe him, to see what he saw. I didn’t see me.
He kissed me, pushed me onto the sofa, pressed his pain against mine, pushed himself inside of me, and I spread my arms wide to keep as much as I could of him. And I felt suspended again, lighter for a few seconds, almost weightless, as I thought one would feel when falling down from somewhere high. I was giving in to Nick and my addiction.
Again And Again
I thought I would be OK, transgress one more time—one time only—and then stop. This is what I would do, I thought. And then I would return to my life. I would complete my book, close it, and go back to my roles of mother, wife, teacher. I would free my frozen butterflies, let them fly once, live their story, and then die. But it didn’t happen exactly like that. My one-time transgression turned into my life. And we transgressed again and again. We couldn’t stop. We had become each other’s addictions. I hadn’t told Matt about Nick, but he knew about us. We didn’t fight though, or argue about it. He just let me go, each night. He did say I didn’t know what I was doing, and he knew I would come back to him. Whatever or whomever was keeping me where I was, it would be over soon. Would it? It didn’t feel like that.
And so I would spend the night in my apartment with Nick and my days at home with Will, crossing Matt’s eyes each time I would come and go, and each time feeling horrible for what I was doing. But I couldn’t stop. I had to do it.
My book was almost complete. I had the feeling I was writing its finale, although it wasn’t clear yet what that would be. I felt pleasure and pain and fear. Pleasure with Nick. Pain when I saw Matt suffering and I knew that I was the one causing it. And I feared. I feared I could lose my child any moment. I got it now. The adrenaline, the pain, the fear, the pleasure, the pain. They were addictive. And intoxicating. And so poisoned, my soul finally free, I wrote and wrote and no longer struggled.
The ice had melted around the butterflies’ wings, and now they were flying all over. But they had turned into moths. Their wings were draped down their backs or spread out to the sides, and they would fly and feed only at night. They were flitting insects circling my candle, the only one I had left to light my studio, close to my computer, my prayer for myself and my writing.
Nick would come to my apartment every night, and we would both write, both immersed in a story or the craft of it. I would write on the carpet while he would write on my bed. Or we would both write at my desk, or both on my bed. That little apartment had expanded in unpredictable ways, suggesting lines or ideas and creativity that we had to explore.
We made love to the words we were writing, sometimes reading to each other. We would make love to each other and talk about it during the breaks. And occasionally we would eat, some cheap Chinese or Mexican food that seemed the best food I ever had. It all looked perfect, a story I would want to write.
“Don’t put your clothes on,” he said one night after we had made love. “Write naked. I want you to feel what that means.”
“What do you mean?”
He got up and brought me to my chair.
“I want you to experience what it means to be unfiltered when you write, connected to your writing, poured into your story without layers. And I want to watch while you do that.”
I smiled and felt warm.
Less than an hour later, he pulled me from the chair, went to the stereo, put on Sinatra, and asked me to dance with him.
I bent to grab my shirt from the floor, but he stopped me.
“Please, wait. Just this song, and then I’ll let you get dressed.”
A few moves later I was on the floor again, my back against the carpet, his eyes on top of mine.
How did that happen? It wasn’t long ago that I was standing right there and calling his name, missing him like crazy. And now he was there with me. I still had bruises, but I had not caused them this time. He had, by pressing me against the carpet every time we made love there. I ran my fingers over those bruises and thought I loved them.
“I love you,” I said, one night.
He looked at me, turned away as though to retain what I had just said. Then he turned back and asked, “Are you sure?”
I smiled, and he pressed me harder against the carpet.
“I love you too,” he whispered.
The nights with Nick had become like opium to me. They relieved me from the pain, they relaxed me, and they made me feel as if I were sleepwalking or dreaming, suspended from the ground at some undefined height. But when I returned home, and when Will went to bed, I would feel the absence of it. I could not eat, I was more and more anxious, and I found it more difficult to focus. And then I would leave again. And crossing Matt’s eyes at the door had become harder each time. But this is what it was, day after day, again and again.
Broken
And then it was the end of July. It was so hot that night I could barely breathe. I had no air conditioning in my apartment, and I was alone, as Nick had to be somewhere for work. We had agreed to see each other the following night.
I felt alone.
I thought about returning home to Matt and Will, but that didn’t feel right. Will was sleeping, and I would have to share the bed with Matt. I left the apartment, taking my computer with me, and walked. I had no specific destination in mind, but at some point I called a taxi and went to my grandmother’s house. The light in my bedroom was still on. Would it bother my grandmother that I had come back before finishing my story? She had told me to come back when I was done to read the story to her. The story wasn’t finished though, and yet I felt I needed to be there. I found the keys in my purse, opened the gate, then the big entrance door, and entered.
The house was silent. It was two in the morning, and everyone was sleeping. I tiptoed up to my bedroom and closed the door behind me. I lay on my bed and started feeling tired and sleepy, but I wanted to write. If not the finale yet, at least sketches of ideas for one. I pulled out a notepad and started writing. I wrote a few words, then a line, but nothing special was coming out of my mind. Bored and frustrated, I started looking around the room. I had not done that in years, and I barely remembered what the drawers and closet contained. I opened my closet and found some old dresses. I
stuck my nose in there and smelled the past. Sad and bitter memories danced around happy ones, and then more sad ones. I looked down, and hidden under some boxes and a blanket I used to take everywhere with me, I found some old flats. I held the flats in my hands and looked at them closely. Then I closed my eyes, and for a few moments I was back in time, back in that sewer.
I remembered. I had damaged the shoes when I decided to explore a sewer on my own during an excursion with my class. I loved the feeling of being there. Underground. And I loved that I had been brave enough to escape from the group and explore that sewer on my own. I fell into the water, broke an edge of my shoe, and damaged my dress. But I was able to pull myself out and return to the group. I said that I had fallen asleep. A little or big lie? Who would decide that if not me? I concluded it was a little lie, forgave myself for it, and kept the damaged shoe as a trophy for the courage and the successful completion of the mission. I placed the flats back and dug more into the past.
I moved some more clothes and shoes, and hidden in a corner, piled on top of each other, I found my diaries. I pulled them out and looked at them. I remembered their covers. A different color for each year. I had been very careful in selecting them. I even remembered my reluctance about the purple one. There was no other color left at the little bookstore, and I had just finished writing my green diary. I still had more to say, and so I bought the purple one. The only one left. That year wasn’t a particularly good one. I attributed that to the color. Of course it was the color. I looked at that rainbow of memories and laughed. And then there was another diary, but it wasn’t mine. I knew that because I didn’t recognize the cover. But it wasn’t unfamiliar either. I looked more closely and opened it.
To Jasmine, I hope you’ll keep on writing.
It was my mother’s diary.
The first entries were dated from September 1980, twenty-six months before she died. Her last entry was September 29, 1982. I wondered if she had written more after that. Another unfinished story, I thought. I leafed through the pages, and something resonated with me. I remembered reading that diary. But so many years had passed, and my memories were confused. I was probably in middle school. A flash of memory crossed my mind. I saw my grandmother talking to me about it, but again, that memory was fogged, I couldn’t see clearly. I remembered feeling sick one day and staying home from school. I was bored like I was now, and I was looking around the house to find some hidden treasure. And I found this one. It was in one of my mother’s drawers. My father didn’t know about it. By the time my grandmother caught me I had already read it two or three times and almost knew it by heart. Yes, that is what happened. I remembered that my grandmother panicked and asked me to return the diary to her. I hadn’t seen it since then. She told me the diary was a fiction my mother had been writing. I loved it and hoped I would be able to write one myself, one day. As I revisited my memories, I let the diary fall from my hands. Was my story similar to my mother’s? Were they both fictions? My grandmother said I needed to keep the diary and my discovery confidential, that I shouldn’t say anything about it to anyone because she might want to publish it one day. Yes, I was in middle school, and that is what she had said to me.
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