Between Octobers

Notebooks

Evan—Notebooks

"She wrote down every detail," Noah sets the box on the bed. "Her work schedules, doctor's appointments, everything."  

My wife has always had a very fixed method of thinking, focusing on one matter at a time. It seems, through these last eight months as she went about her sorted routine, she was focused on me. She's filled hundreds of pages with her thoughts, ideas, things she'd say to me if she could. Journals, letters in sealed envelopes, and diaries.

I want to read them all, soak up all her words, but it hurts too much.

I shove the container back beneath her side of the bed. As my arm comes away, the corner of a small, burgundy book catches on my buttoned sleeve and flies onto the floor. Open, calling to me.

When I was fifteen years old, I found a box of letters whilst nosing through my mother's closet. Love notes, they were, from her estranged husband—the delinquent, adoptive figurehead of what manhood was supposed to be, though he never got 'round to teaching me anything except what not to do. I counted and there were thirty letters he'd written to her and she hadn't opened a single one. I read through them, though. He mentioned me twice, both times in reference to how he was unable to pay her maintainance. Right bastard, he was.

Ronnie and his family, Maria and her sister, Marcus and his new fiancée, Lily, are in the living room with Noah and Caleb. I hear them talking. Some murmur weepily, others recall stories. Nigel barks from time to time for attention.

I take the journal from the floor. The date in the top corner is the day we met at the museum. I move across to my side of the bed, nearer Ethan, sleeping in the bassinet she picked for him.

He's eaten, had a clean nappy, been burped. He's sweet and contentedly sleeping and I can't even appreciate him. All I can think is how much he looks like me and how much I love him and how I'm supposed to do this alone. I know nothing of babies. I'm all thumbs at preparing bottles. I can't change him without gagging. I barely know how to put myself to sleep and I'm so selfish.

I clutch the aching in my chest as the room shrinks. My heart burns, a shrieking fear. It digs deep into my bones, reminding me what a shit I am. How am I supposed to be a father?

The room distorts as I force air in and out. Leaping to open the French doors, I step into the back garden. Breathing in the nose, out the mouth, my head bobs like a balloon in the cold air. I'm the boy who let go of the string ribbon to watch my inflatable fly away. Now I'm crying because I can't get it back.  

I concentrate on slow, deep breaths—it always worked when I got too high—and feel my way back to the bed. I set my head down between my knees for a few minutes, until the dizziness settles. But the knots are still in my stomach.

All my issues might be resolved with a single solution—I stop the thought right there. I don't do that anymore.

More fixed breathing, in slowly, out slowly. My heart calms, but my head aches.

I'm a grown man, having a panic attack over a baby—three harmless children, two of which already wipe their own ass. People have kids every day. And many are born into much less fortunate circumstances than ours has been—though I can't actually think of anything worse—but there's plenty of money and I can take time off.

After a bit more deliberation, I decide I'm not afraid of being a dad, just doing a shit job. Growing up without my own father left no guideline to gauge an appropriate course. The only thing I'm sure of is that I love these boys and I can't walk away.

Opening the book again, I read over her feelings, her first impressions. She describes me, a handsome Brit wearing too much cologne. I flip a few pages ahead to find the way she felt when I kissed her. I'm putty, it reads, I want to be with him every minute.

I was mesmerized, watching her with her family. Every part of her day centered on them. She treated her children's every word as if they were the most important words in the world. She explained things to them, answered every question they had, no matter how ridiculous. They ate dinner together every night. My mother cooked for other people's children while I waited at home, alone.

I decided I was going to marry Grace after that first night I spent at her house. It was the day Lily told me Grace was too religious to engage in sexual-congress outside marriage. I think she was hoping I'd leave her be, but it had the opposite effect. Something carnal reared and I imagined a hundred different ways to seduce her over dinner that night. The ideas became more explicit as we played Quarters.

My silly girl, she thought I'd never heard of the game. Of course I had. I played it, rather successfully, for years.

I knew Grace wasn't ready for what I wanted, but I also knew I was willing to wait and that surprised me. I'd never waited for anything, especially women. Then, I got thinking on how our lives might work together.

It's a strange thing, to realize your life is not your own anymore. By virtue of her existence, she'd turned me upside down. From that point on, I couldn't imagine myself without her; and contrary to the way things have turned out, I still can't.

I'll have to make do with the parts she's left behind.

It's a tragedy that so few people actually knew her. Many knew of her, but as Grace so skillfully pointed out, knowing things about a person is not the same as knowing them. Knowing what a person might do is different than knowing the why. It's the whys that makes them interesting.

I knew Grace's whys right off. She is–was the opposite of every other person. She lived in the same world as me, yet had no calluses. She couldn't get used to seeing people in pain. Whether self-inflicted or not, she couldn't stand by and watch. She wanted to heal them all.