Knots

"Im Sorry, but Goodbye."

05. "I'm Sorry, But Goodbye."

"Anyone with a heart, with a family, has experienced loss. No one escapes unscathed. Every story of separation is different, but I think we all understand that basic, wrenching emotion that comes from saying goodbye, not knowing if we'll see that person again - or perhaps knowing that we won't."
-Luanne Rice

9:00 A.M

KU PILLAI

That gut wrenching moment Ku stepped into her apartment felt like the least appropriate feeling her body could possibly contribute. Her knees instantly betrayed her as she allowed her hands to slowly close the front door behind her and in another moment fell to the carpeted floor below her with a violent series of laughs. Somewhere between the first drink at some dead bar, and the twelfth, she had lost herself in the constant stream of time and its whims. She didn't have a person to come home to, she didn't have a care for the next forty eight hours, and for some horrible reason she was thankful.

Now, after allowing herself to laugh for a few more minutes, she crawled into child's pose; ripping off her scrubs in exchange for the feel of cool air against her bare skin. The sun peaked through the early morning's horizon, and she was certain that if she sat there for another handful of moments she'd see the rise of the celestial body above the horizon. These were moments she didn't appreciate too often, moments she'd usually be forced to trade in for wet towelettes and aspirin.

Was I really so selfish, is this selfish of me?

She knew the answer to the question plaguing her mind, but she wouldn't dare confirm her suspicions. The conversation echoed in her head, the relief splintered throughout her body in live wires.

"I just need you to keep him until Monday alright, the doctor Home Health is sending will be here on Saturday, but I just really can't do it on these days. I really need these days," she had whispered into her cell phone, about four drinks in at the time.

"Fine Kumudavati, but this is the last time, you know how Jim gets around him."

"I know."

She had known, known that her own mother's boyfriend couldn't stand the very thought of her father's condition, known that this decision wasn't practical, known that this was even more selfish than keeping him here under the impression of her disgust, but knowing was different from actually doing.

"I crossed the line," Ku noted aloud, her legs dragging themselves to a stand; while her arms scooped up the dirty laundry: she tossed them in the hamper and proceeded towards her bedroom. Upon entering her room Ku flipped on the lights, popped in a Jimmy Ruffin c.d, and threw herself along her medical jargon filled mattress; the jargon itself either crumpling or falling amongst other things on her floor. Ku took a breath, another, allowing herself to fall back into a state of tranquility she hadn't seen since the better days of her father's episodes. Slowly, and without rhythm, she sang along to the dainty tune she recognized so well.

"What becomes of the broken hearted, who had love that's now departed?"

Words and memories danced around the scope of her eyelids like kaleidoscopes of color, bombarding off of her brain and landing in the pits of terminology she had scarred into her psyche. Even now, she could see their faces, the better days of her parents marriage, the swing her father would rock her back and forth on, the sayings of the life before her mother would whisper into her ear.

"I know I've got to find, some kind of peace of mind."

The bad memories were there too, like improperly stitched wounds that wouldn't close. There was too much blood, not enough suction, little experience to know what to do.