She left me once. It wasn't all roses. In fact it wasn't ever roses. I tend towards practical gestures rather than the beheading of flora. After an argument in Paris she forgave me because I de-iced her car, left the heater running and slipped handwarmers in her coat pockets. She ran back up six flights of stairs to tell me I was ridiculous and that was forgiveness. Back home it was checking her shoes for scorpions, the eaves for snakes, brewing tea and spending two hours a week painting every crack with roach repellant. It took us a while to fit together like that. What seems mysterious and intriguing in a stranger isn't quite so fascinating when you have to deal with his silent grouching twenty four hours a day.
She left because I could never find the words. A recurring problem for me. She told me she loved me first, of course. I'd already loved her for weeks, assumed she knew because I already knew she loved me before she said a word. After a few weeks of waiting for me to realize that sometimes words are required she was gone when I came home from University. I had no way of calling her; we had no cell phones, no landline in our shabby little apartment, wasn't even sure where she'd gone. I didn't know what to do. At the time, I wasn't even sure why she'd gone. There was nothing to tell me what she was thinking. I'd like to tell you that a bloody great clue finally slapped me upside the head when I was so confused at her lack of communication, but it did not. So smart in some ways and so very, very dense in others.
She came back, of course. It was a week later when I tripped over her backpack as I came through the door. She was curled in her chair, asleep after her flight. She looked like hell and I finally realized how upset she must have been (that clue finally arrived, heralded by a sonic boom) paler, thinner, dark circles under her eyes. That was my fault, God, I loathed myself. Knelt in front of the chair, knees creaking on the floorboards, rubbed my hand over her thighs, watched her wake slowly. Always a struggle for her, a gradual shaking off of dreams; scared the hell out of her when she first saw me snap awake, instantly aware and grabbing for whoever woke me. The first thing she said? "I'm sorry. I didn't see it." Some things you can't see close up, some things need a broader view, a little distance to get them in perspective. To see what I wasn't saying.
Her hand was cold on mine, frowning, serious, nipping at her bottom lip.
"I need you to say it. Just once. Not now, just...sometime. I know you do. But just once, just this time, I need words."
I did say it. And I remember it so clearly, not just because it was the first time, but because it was one of only five times I told her. In the hospital, when the nurse asked me to talk to her (they're so convinced, against all evidence, that somehow talking will make a difference.) I still couldn't say it. It was reassuring to still be choked for words right at the end. A relief to know that I didn't regret being unable to say I loved her. She knew. For each of those five sets of three words there were countless actions, gestures and looks. She was an expert at reading me, always said it was that week away which brought me into focus. Not that being an expert ever stopped her from calling me ridiculous, or from introducing me to her best friend as a functional mute. She joked, when she found herself talking about 'forever', that she hoped I'd die first because I'd never find another interpreter if I lost her. She envisaged me living alone on top of a mountain, wearing a hair shirt and frightening off climbers with my inarticulate growling.
It's tempting.
She left because I could never find the words. A recurring problem for me. She told me she loved me first, of course. I'd already loved her for weeks, assumed she knew because I already knew she loved me before she said a word. After a few weeks of waiting for me to realize that sometimes words are required she was gone when I came home from University. I had no way of calling her; we had no cell phones, no landline in our shabby little apartment, wasn't even sure where she'd gone. I didn't know what to do. At the time, I wasn't even sure why she'd gone. There was nothing to tell me what she was thinking. I'd like to tell you that a bloody great clue finally slapped me upside the head when I was so confused at her lack of communication, but it did not. So smart in some ways and so very, very dense in others.
She came back, of course. It was a week later when I tripped over her backpack as I came through the door. She was curled in her chair, asleep after her flight. She looked like hell and I finally realized how upset she must have been (that clue finally arrived, heralded by a sonic boom) paler, thinner, dark circles under her eyes. That was my fault, God, I loathed myself. Knelt in front of the chair, knees creaking on the floorboards, rubbed my hand over her thighs, watched her wake slowly. Always a struggle for her, a gradual shaking off of dreams; scared the hell out of her when she first saw me snap awake, instantly aware and grabbing for whoever woke me. The first thing she said? "I'm sorry. I didn't see it." Some things you can't see close up, some things need a broader view, a little distance to get them in perspective. To see what I wasn't saying.
Her hand was cold on mine, frowning, serious, nipping at her bottom lip.
"I need you to say it. Just once. Not now, just...sometime. I know you do. But just once, just this time, I need words."
I did say it. And I remember it so clearly, not just because it was the first time, but because it was one of only five times I told her. In the hospital, when the nurse asked me to talk to her (they're so convinced, against all evidence, that somehow talking will make a difference.) I still couldn't say it. It was reassuring to still be choked for words right at the end. A relief to know that I didn't regret being unable to say I loved her. She knew. For each of those five sets of three words there were countless actions, gestures and looks. She was an expert at reading me, always said it was that week away which brought me into focus. Not that being an expert ever stopped her from calling me ridiculous, or from introducing me to her best friend as a functional mute. She joked, when she found herself talking about 'forever', that she hoped I'd die first because I'd never find another interpreter if I lost her. She envisaged me living alone on top of a mountain, wearing a hair shirt and frightening off climbers with my inarticulate growling.
It's tempting.
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