Fifteen
By Seán Connelly

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From wall to wall she walks, eyes to the floor. Haggard and sleepless. The wear shows. Not a hint, like a secret coming to light, but a truth written in blazing letters. No disguise. In a voice that is soft in volume, but textured like broken glass, she counts:
One-one hundred...Two-one hundred...Three-one hundred...Four-one hundred...Five one hundred...Six-one hundred...Seven-one hundred...Eight-one hundred...Nine-one hundred...Ten-one hundred...Eleven-one hundred...Twelve-one hundred...Thirteen one hundred...Fourteen-one hundred...Fifteen-one hundred.

I don't dare to speak to her. As if I have lost my place in the world and the microcosm that, to me, is the world: My family. My touch would cause her pain. My image, my presence, my breath, my voice, my warmth. She doesn't know that she resents me, but her eyes are careful to avoid mine. There is no opening.

One-one hundred...Two-one hundred...Three-one hundred...Four-one hundred...Five one hundred...Six-one hundred...Seven-one hundred...Eight-one hundred...Nine-one hundred...Ten-one hundred...Eleven-one hundred...Twelve-one hundred...Thirteen one hundred...Fourteen-one hundred...Fifteen-one hundred.

I stare into her face, shutting out the rest of the world. I draw her with the sound of my voice. We are a world all our own, fighting for a new beginning. For a life we do not yet know. Her eyes are caught in mine and I see her trust. Her need. I can feel myself falter. Pull away. I cannot bring the joy--the hope that my child needs. I am afraid to let go of my grief. Afraid, or unable. I try. I push. I dig. I am empty inside. I pray she doesn't see it in my eyes. That she doesn't hear it in my voice. I cannot summon my heart, but I stay with her. I have to stay with her.

Memorized. At night, I dream of him, tight within my arms. I recall every inch of his body. The weight. His hands pressing me to him. The smell, so familiar that I only note its absence. A grip almost desperate to express, in the physical, what we both feel inside. We cry together and he gives me a sheepish grin. Sorry. But I am not angry.
James Taylor sings and I cry. Not the fire or the rain, but the expectation of a conversation that will never come. The inability to recognize the last time until after it has passed.

I know it wouldn't be so strange if I could touch him. Stroke his hair. Cry with him and gently lift the hurt from his mind. There are things he did not share with me. One thing. And I can't understand it. Why did he leave me?

In my head we talk about nothing and I do not miss a beat. So much a part of me that I know his response to every query. I avoid the questions I cannot answer. Why? How could you? These things I cannot voice, but, in a broad, peaceful sense, I think I know.

His handwriting comes back to me, though his face is gone. I remember his letters. Graceful. Ornate. "Ambrosia," written across a page. The design of each word as much as the words themselves put the taste to my tongue. I believe.

She screamed and I thought I wouldn't be able to take it. No woman that I know will let me get away with saying it, but it's true. It's hard to say with any credibility, but I would much rather that it were me instead of her. I know that I could take it...

I cannot imagine that she is meant to stretch that way. I can see his head, pushing. Her pain is drawn in low, guttural tones, like a jungle cat. She is not to be pitied, but feared. For a moment, I imagine the cord wrapped around his neck and I'm trapped between worlds. Tears burn at the corners of my eyes and I wonder if I can recover. It is time. No more choices. I tug and pull.

I think that it should bother me, but it doesn't. Like a cloud of locust, a gathering of buzzards, a body fresh to the worms. They hover, descend, burrow. I watch as the things disappear. I am relieved. A body of memories dismantled piece by piece. Who gets which moment? They scatter like time at the inception of the universe, creating a new future and a past that has never been. I am glad. Glad to see the desire. The hunger to possess. To be relieved of all those moments. She (one-one hundred, two one hundred, three-one hundred, four-one hundred...) asks me what I want for mine. I want to know where the moments go. I want to dig them up years from now and relive them. I want to see how they change with time and to relish how they stay the same. I want a map to an explosion of moments in a flash of time that was him.

I am surrounded by voices. Familiar voices that have grown strange through time. Altered in their tone and content. In their meaning and purpose. In the single clarity that escaped so many chances till chance won out. In this instant of finality- this thunderous crash that will one day be no more than a period, he explodes into an infinity of possibility. Limits are unbound and the stick with which we measure our success is put to rest as we resurrect our colored memories of his work in black and white. I listened to all the voices around me. I listened to his youth and talent; his promising future, come to life in the voices of the same people that had long ago given him up for dead. Now, without reason.

I think of her, but I am afraid to call. For my own sake as much as hers. I cannot exorcise him from my mind, nor the memory of the policeman's voice on the phone 200 hundred miles away. I don't ask questions, but I see him. I know what he has done. My mind is caught in panic. Helpless to undo what he has done. Helpless. A pain so deep and full that I cannot release it. I feel myself separating. Unable to grasp the totality of it. Unable to pull my mind out of the eternity I will spend without him. I sob, in sudden bursts. Gasp. My body is choking me, expressing what I cannot think.

I see her from the corner of my eye. The worry--or fear that I will not be back. I see the swelling of her belly and I am torn. I watch my heart fade as I push myself back to be with her. To be with my unborn child. I do not have the luxury of letting go.

She drove down to see him. Held his broken body. Kissed his lifeless limbs. There is no doubt of the fact; only the cause and she finds herself behind every door of possibility. She counts, like a mantra, preserving the anguish with every beat. Sadness is a mother's duty and she is afraid to forget the pain.

Like a dam, breaking, her voice high, sharp and relieved. I see his face, his body still inside her. He is mine. Not a sound from his lips, his features twisted with confusion and pain. So new. I want to reach out. To comfort him, but he has a journey to finish. I can only wait.

Fifteen seconds from the moment his belt tightened around his neck, snapping the bones, choking the oxygen. Fifteen seconds until his body surrendered to the reality of his death. My body has not surrendered. I still hurt. My stomach fights to change what has happened. My head does not accept the knowledge that it is done. That he has made his choice and there is nothing I can do.

He tears free, her chest heaving. The struggle is over. His tiny hands flail to find her breast, his mouth open in expectation. I wonder if I'm breathing. Frozen in a moment. His moment. And then I move to her side. To his. I, too, make my choice.

Fifteen By Seán Connelly

Printer Friendly Version

Fifteen
By Seán Connelly