Solace

Twilight Moments

I hang up the phone and sit there for a moment. Waiting for something to happen; for some feeling to overcome me, an emotion to sweep through my body. For anger. For sadness, for regret, for something. But nothing happens.

The only thing that washes over me is the heat. A fresh wave of mugginess blows through the open windows. A fan whirls at high speed with perfect uselessness.

I look back to the phone. It's quiet now, almost innocent, as if it hadn't just housed a voice that spoke of death not as a prognosis but rather a prophecy.

The sun is creeping down outside. The sky turning vibrant colors of purple and orange and red. Though the sunset's beauty was in the reprisal, in sparing those of us without air conditioning of the relentless heat.

I pick up the phone again, the dial tone impatiently sounds back into my ear. I start to dial Theresa's number, but only get halfway through before I realize I've forgotten the rest.

Outside, kids are just beginning to come out, to brave the outdoors now that the oppressive sun sank beneath the covers. This small moment, minutes in which the heat disperses but the light is still present, are magic.

I get up from the La-Z-Boy and walk to the window. The phone is still in my hand. I want to put it down, but I felt connected, like a child does their teddy bear. What was the point?

I look at my hands again, as if I'd be able to see something in them.

But they're just hands. And I'm just a man. So why don't I feel human?

#####

We never got along. I don't think I have a single memory where the two of us are smiling in the same room. A clash of personalities maybe. More likely I was too much like my father. Quiet, simple minded, outwardly emotionless.

I place the six-pack in the fridge, and pry a can from the bundle. It's cold. Inviting. Unlike the last time I relapsed, I don't hesitate. I pull the tab to the can and take a long, greedy gulp.

What's odd about my mother is—quite frankly—everything. While my sister and I would eat in the kitchen, she'd take her plate to the bedroom, or the backyard, or sometimes the bathroom. Somewhere away, usually behind a closed door, in front of a TV or both. I thought this was normal for a long time, for parents to be away from their kids. It wasn't until I locked myself out of the house in the fourth grade and had to spend the evening with Richy's family that I saw something else entirely.

At Richy's, it was very different. They sat around a table, food sitting in the center, in each other's company. Sure, it wasn't all rainbows and puppies, but they engaged with one another. Had a conversation. Asked questions—asked me questions. Questions about my day, about my family about my favorite thing to do in school. I was dumbstruck. I stuttered my way through it and hoped I hadn't made it painfully obvious that I had no idea what I was doing.

The next day, after Mom made us dinner and plated it for us, I asked her why we didn't eat as a family. Like Richy's family does.

She looked at me, a face of perfect indifference, then looked right through me and walk off to her bedroom, plate in hand.

I don't know what to call it. She wasn't abusive, she didn't drink, she paid for our clothes and kept us fed. Nowadays they're calling it neglect, but I'm not even sure I'd call it that. We were her children, and so she had to feed us. She had to clothe us. She had to care for us.

But love was something else entirely.

I'll never forget that evening at Richy's. It was like an awakening. A click in my mind where I saw a world not devoid but full. That's when I started putting up my wall.