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Dear Dad,
There's something calming about the distinct impersonal nature of a skeleton laid on a steel table. It's clean, unbridled by the flesh that makes it complicated. There's an ease in piecing it together. It has the same parts each time, an easy and direct layout. The ulna and radius both combine to make the forearm. There are three easy tiers for your fingers: proximal, middle and distal. The same for your toes. Bones are sturdy. They're constant. They're strong. Maybe not unbreaking but something close. Ounce for ounce, bone is stronger than steel.
Though, I don't know how much I believe that anymore.
Do you remember when I was little? The city always felt so big. It wasn't the same as Glasgow. Paisley isn't quite comparable to Harlem. When my body was still insulated by baby fat and the dark purple jumper of nursery. There, I was a Thistle. Or I might have been a Unicorn. I don't remember. These are the blanks that you could fill in. The time before we moved. The time before Ma died and we had nothing left in Scotland. Before I became the girl with the strange accent and a dead mother. It was such a tender age. I wish I'd kept more of the accent. The last thing I have of the two of you is gone.
School was never complicated. As high school began you and I were separated from 8:00 to 3:00 by only a few concrete blocks. I was still insulated by my baby fat but I was starting to grow into it. Your beard was starting to go grey. You started at Roxxon. My favourite colour was purple and your lab coat was white. My favourite colour began to change.
The internship was a dream come true. We were finally on the same team.
I felt a sense of relief when I received my I.D. card. I did it. I was just as good as you. Maybe even better. Quietly, I worked. I put my head down and I worked.
Like I said before, There's something calming about the distinct impersonal nature of a skeleton laid on a steel table. It's clean, unbridled by the flesh that makes it complicated. You were complicated. The fractures in your bones were like webs, fracturing beneath my fingertips as I scrubbed them clean. It was obsessive, an impulse to put back together the pieces. Maybe. Just maybe, if I could figure out the details. Every injury. Every crack. Every second of the moment where your body was almost destroyed to a point where not even I could put it together.
I still can't figure out where it went wrong. You took all the steps right. You checked every note and pencil line 3 times over. Nothing should ever have gone wrong. Of course, there's a distinct inability to see the inevitable coming. It's definite. There's no mercy. No failure. It has a 100% success rate and your success rate is down to 99%. It didn't hold you, cradle you in its warm arms. The inevitable is cold. Unforgiving.
But so am I.
That experiment wasn't unstable when we left it. I see that now. There's something strange afoot. (Are you proud of me? That's something you would've said.) I am different now. My baby fat is gone, replaced by a white lab coat still embroidered with your name and title. I can read your injuries now. The almost completely missing ulna and shattered radius. I can read their thoughts.
After the experiment, something changed in me, Dad.
They never accounted for that in their equation for their experiment.
