| |
An isolation I chose wasn’t any easier to endure than one I didn’t. In either instance, I was left alone in silence. And it was the silence that proved to be unbearable. It only took a couple days for me to hit my breaking point, when the buzzing in my head and chest grew so unbearable that I desperately pawed around for some way out. Texting Chris crossed my mind, but then I tossed the idea out. Calling Ellie also came up, but I reacted in much the same way.
Finally, I checked my fellowship handbook to see if sleeping in my office would–in any way–be tolerated. To my surprise, the answer was unclear. Instead, the handbook talked about a semi-formal building closure: when the doors locked, when the cleaning staff came through, etc., etc. But there was no line saying, “you better be out of here at this time or else.” Presumably, no such clarification was supposed to be necessary. This wasn’t the sort of question a sane person would ask, but on October 23rd in the year of our Lord 2018, I was not a sane person and needed that clarification. Or the discouragement, really. The idea was horribly unwise, but I still found it tempting. It meant I wouldn’t have to go to the empty and silent house I was supposed to call home.
It wasn’t really home, was it? It had been. Or rather, it had felt that way once. But now, it didn’t feel anything like what I would imagine home to feel like. Instead, it was a haunted attraction of some kind. Actually, it was haunted. It was haunted by the mistakes I made. Chris was gone. He took a hint I never meant to leave and left. Ellie’s life had moved on without me once I forsook my position in it. Professor Evory had a new class of students to help without the burden of one who could never get her act together. The same could be said of Sr. Agatha. And Erika was knee deep in the tidal wave I had sent her.
Amidst all of that, the memory of my father’s funeral also lingered in my mind. But it was always there, even when things were going okay. It was partially from the embarrassment of the botched eulogy I tried to give, but on the other hand, the empty pews also haunted me. The lack of company, the lack of friends or people who wanted to be around him in those final, final moments was burned into my mind. It wasn’t just an observation I made in the moment. It wasn’t just the sense of overwhelming loneliness drawing power from my grief and sadness. There was a foreboding quality to it, as if I was catching a vision of my future as well. After all, I was my father’s daughter in all the worst ways.
Dad was clever, humorous, and quick-witted. I didn’t have that. There was a twinkle in his eye that could charm almost anyone. Meanwhile, my eyes were dull and lifeless brown orbs shoved into my head. My dad was effortlessly brilliant at math and philosophy. Meanwhile, I sometimes tipped 300% on a bill because I couldn’t handle calculating the tip and forgot there was a calculator in my phone and couldn’t commit to an original thought without adding a thousand clarifying addendums. He was also tall, and–to my dismay–I didn’t even have that height advantage.
Those thoughts lingered in my mind as I looked in the handbook for some line of text I could misinterpret as a sleepover invitation. But there wasn’t one. Some lawyer had likely gone through every paragraph with a fine-tooth comb looking just for that. And good for them, earning their salary and all that. Life is hell when everything is unearned.
As the evening crept up over me, I set the handbook aside and pulled out my phone. The notification bar was full. That in and of itself was not all that noteworthy because my phone was full of apps that were so worthless that they needed to be uninstalled but used what borrowed time they had to frantically beg for my attention. Even then, I didn’t uninstall them. I just cleared through the bar with numerous flicks of my thumb.
But as I did that, one notification caught my eye. I had a message.
“Stephen,” I whispered to myself in disbelief as I stared at the name attached to the message, but the pixels didn’t waver in their testimony.
I didn’t open his text. I could scarcely imagine why I would need to. Instead, I expanded the notification just to see the message preview. And that told me plenty.
I just wanted to reiterate that I want to be in your life. I picked up a copy of your book today.
Attached was a picture, the notification said, but the preview of that didn’t load. I didn’t need it to. I didn’t doubt that it was a picture of my book now in his possession.
Most people would have thought that was sweet, but instead, I felt a creeping sense of dread at the thought of his thoughts on my work. And he was the type to be vocal about said thoughts. We hadn’t talked about whether or not he subscribed to the “Death of the Author” argument or anything similar, but I had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t. Or rather, he wouldn’t offer me that luxury. After all, I was his goddaughter, and he said he wanted to get to know me. The argument for his analysis was there. He’d take it. And in doing so, he’d run right over me.
He’d leave too, I thought. And I likely shouldn’t have cared about that considering he rubbed me the wrong way in the brief time we spent together. But a loss is still a loss, especially when it is further evidence to a pattern you are so desperate to deny.
Even if I was bad at maintaining contact or holding a conversation in any form or medium, I knew I was duty bound to respond to him. At the very least, I owed him some thanks for the coins he put in my pocket with that book purchase. At the thought my mind tried to find an exact figure. It didn’t matter. I was comfortable financially, but it was something I thought I should know. And yet, I didn’t.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, unsure what the gesture would do but hoping it would give me something to think about or some sort of lifeline. But really, all I could do–in so many ways and in response to so much of what I had going on–was to go back to the house. I grimaced at the thought and cast a glance at the fellowship handbook only to remember that even if I could justify sleeping in my office, I would be the only person in the building. When that happened, the silence of my office would mimic the silence of my home. The only thing that would set it apart would be the ghosts of all the conversations Professor Evory and I had shared still lurking beneath the fresh coat of paint and new carpet.
In some ways, that emptying process had already started. I no longer heard scraps of others’ conversations seeping in from the hallway. Classes were done for the day. Students had moved on to their social lives, centered in other buildings and spots I could scarcely remember. Faculty and staff had cleared out to go home, being unafraid to do so. They didn’t dread it like I did, after all. They had places to go where they wanted to be and where people wanted them. I couldn’t say the same. Even the sun was setting, which might not have meant anything since it was getting to that season where the sun clocked out fairly early in the day, but I still felt that loss in the chill in the air all the same.
I took my sweatshirt off the visitor’s chair where I had chucked it and slipped it over my shoulders. The gray material was close enough to white that it might as well have been a white flag, a gesture of surrender in some ways. And in light of that, my movements were slow and reluctant. But I was also waiting for some sort of divine intervention, some alternative route to open up to save me by giving me some other place to go. But I knew nothing was coming. I knew there was no way around this. I wasn’t going to be able to escape the night at the cottage. I could technically check myself into a hotel or go back to Chicago, to the condo I had been neglecting, but that wasn’t a real escape. It was just a relocation of my problems.
I wanted to avoid the silence. That was my main priority. And there didn’t seem to be anywhere for me to go where it couldn’t follow me.
Once I accepted that, my step was a bit quicker. I grabbed my messenger bag and left the office, then the building entirely. With the first crack of the heavy building door, the crisp fall air raced in and greeted me. That season was coming to a close though. October was almost over. When it ended, it would seemingly take fall with it, and the holiday season would begin. Which wouldn’t be winter, per say. It would extend into winter, but in many ways, it stood as its own entity. And with that entity came another reminder that I was alone.
I suspected it was too early to think about holiday plans. Or maybe it was too late. After all, there wasn’t an obvious place for me to go for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I spent the year before with George’s family. And that certainly wasn’t an option anymore.
If Chris and I were still together, I started to think, but I hurriedly shook my head. I didn’t want to have that thought. I was scared of where it was going to lead.
I raised my gaze as I walked to the parking lot, taking a survey of the few people lingering about. In the distance, I could see students in pods walking towards one of the dining halls. Or maybe that wasn’t their destination, but I was free to assume as much. A few other individuals milled about. They were all younger than me by a fair bit. Or rather, they were the right age, and I was somewhat too old to be hanging around a college campus.
Overhead, the last rays of sunlight lingered in the sky and bathed the campus in an almost surreal light. There was a warmth to it. In fact, it had an almost divine quality, as if the warmth I was seeing was the light that reflected off of God’s smile.
And it wasn’t meant for me. This wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was supposed to have moved on by now. Erika was right in calling Stella Maris my figurative womb. It was the place that had first held me and nurtured me. It was the place that helped me grow into the human I had become, but in that action was the expectation that I could grow into someone who could be on their own and have a fulfilling life. I hadn’t exactly done that. I was just going through the motions before crawling back here and somehow still messing up my life even more.
That shouldn’t have happened. None of it should have happened. I should have been better with the life Stella Maris had given me. But instead, I had squandered it.
The weight of that realization caused my legs to buckle. And I drifted towards the first bench I saw. It wasn’t a new bench. The wood was chipped in places, and the plaque was discolored, but I could still read the dedication carved out in the metal.
With love, for Mia, it read.
Needless to say, I was not that Mia. I was not the Mia that someone left a bench for, that someone proclaimed love for. I wasn’t the Mia that gets forever or eternity. I was the Mia of the moment, for however long that moment lasted until it crashed and burned. I struggled with that. It was no more or less true than it had been earlier when I was sitting in my office, but the bench was not a reminder I had been expecting. It offered a foil that I didn’t need. That Mia–the person who shared my name but not my problems–seemingly was everything I was not by sheer virtue of her deserving a bench. She was loved. She could love without complications which made the first thing possible. And even if I knew nothing else about her, that was enough to be envious.
So I would never have a bench dedicated to me, not that I wanted one, but what would I have? I had the moment and nothing more.
I pulled out my phone again. Stephen’s message was still unopened. It hadn’t been that long since the message was sent, but it was long enough that I knew he had to be expecting some sort of response by then. There was a ticking clock over this exchange, and I was wasting minutes. Despite the delay, I still wasn’t sure what to say. I only knew that I had to say something.
Let me know how you like it, I said, as if his opinion didn’t scare me or wasn’t something I dreaded. But it was something I could ask or, words I could say, regardless of whether or not I meant them.