Lost in Hotels
Page 33
“No, not really. Just did some Christmas shopping. Oh, and we had a playdate,” he says with brief eye contact and a passing smile as he reaches for my hand that stays limp. Then he returns to silence as I wonder if maybe he is just acting as if nothing happened, and he’s simply trying to hold on to whatever it is we have. My agitated heart wants a confrontation with him; I want to tell him that this is no longer working for me and that I can’t stand another day of this life with him. I gently pull my hand away.
“So I didn’t really miss anything?”
“No, not really,” he says.
“It’s amazing that you can have this long journey and then return as if you were never even gone,” I say in resignation.
“Oh, but we have a new neighbor. If that counts.”
Yet another conversation that ventures no farther than this building’s gossip and this apartment that suddenly feels like a cell. I imagine Christmas immediately before us that will be free of work, shopping, and friends to distract my broken soul as I’m forced to wait out the endless hours of these days that will pass in a dawdling pace.
“Do they have kids, pregnant wife?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask,” he says in typically Matt fashion. “But he’s a real sharp guy, probably gay, or maybe it’s just that he’s English or Irish or something.”
With those words and the naivety of his impression, my heart sinks as I realize that David was actually here. I want to know more, but I hesitate, before the sheer desire to know all is too much to bear.
“What apartment? Where’s he from?”
“He didn’t say; he just asked my name and said he was introducing himself to his new neighbors.”
“Did you ask him in?”
“He came in for a minute as Billy was being a terror, but that was it. He was real dressed up, kind of a snobby kind of guy. Didn’t mention his own kids.”
My soul collapses as I imagine his steps on the floor just feet away from where I sit. His eyes gazed on these endless taupe walls and rental innards littered in family life like the unkempt closet of my soul ripped open. I try to imagine the conversation in an instant, his face upon realizing this great lie that I’ve been living. Did he touch the table? Did he lean against the wall? Despite the hurt and pain he must have felt, he sought no comfort in the tale that would yield my demise.
I repeat the story through my head, trying to imagine why he did not spill the pain that’s been caused to him by a woman who seems to fail all the men in her life. Instead, he simply left as he left me, unwilling to stoop to the level of confrontation or more disruption to his life than has already been caused. There was no manly brawl or fight of words; not even something subconscious that lingered with Matt to warrant a mention. There was nothing, saving me shame and instead, leaving me to rot in this life of my own making.
As I see the good of David, I feel even more paralyzed in this life. How will I recover? What is to become of me in these next days? I gaze at this charade of a life that I sit rejoined in and wonder how I will possibly endure the next day, let alone years, in this prison of my own making with David now lost.
As the sight of Nemo is simply too much to bear, I look down the couch at Billy’s little feet kicking in idle as he takes in the movie. The sight comforts my heart as I study his little body that gets larger and larger by the day. His little eyes glance away to the windows and the solid white sky that has taken away all neighbors, buildings, and life outside this room.
“Billy, come let Mommy tell you a story,” I suggest.
In the midst of such despair, the only solace is my son who has had an absent mother for far too long and perhaps the only relationship in this house not beyond saving. Billy takes my hand as we make our way to the kitchen table, leaving Matt behind to paw at the remote control.
Billy climbs atop the kitchen chair and sits attentively as I struggle to find our drawing journals out of one of three junk drawers. I place before him a box of crayons.
“Will you help me write a story? We’ll draw it together,” I say as his small hands grip the paper, and I pull a few colors out of the box. His hair still smells of baby as I stroke his warm neck that’s piercingly white.
“What kind of story?” he asks.
“You tell me. It can be whatever you want it to be.”
“What about a fish? Let’s make fish story,” he says with a nod. He grabs my hand and traces a fish as best he can.
“Did I ever tell you about the fish I swam with in Rio, swimming in the water between my feet and around all the people in the water that hot summer day?”
“No.”
“Well, it was my last day in Rio, and I didn’t like the city very much.”
“It was yucky?”
“Yes, or at least I thought it was. But then it became the most magical of cities.”
“Magic?” he asks.
“All of a sudden, one afternoon I saw it completely differently. I swore it was the most beautiful place I had ever been while swimming in the water with the most beautiful fish I’d ever seen.”
“What did he look like Mommy?”
“He was very large and so handsome with these incredible blue eyes that were the most beautiful color I had ever seen and almost glowed in the dark.”
“Were you scared?” Billy asks, looking into my eyes.
“At first, and then I was scared to lose him, so I kept swimming and swimming in the water so when I finally came up for air, I didn’t know where I was anymore.”
“And where did he go?”
“He swam with me awhile, and then I lost him into the deep blue sea. He was gone, and there was no way I would ever find him again even if I kept swimming and looking in every ocean in the entire world forever and ever.”
“Can I go with you next time, Mommy?”
“Absolutely. There’s nothing I would love more.”