I want my grandmother’s eyes on me. I thought unseeing would be a cruel game to play with myself. But now I am reading the dark and knowing how my feet drag on every inch—feeling monstrous and tired. I’d like to have familiarity back, but all I see now is my father’s body over my mother, whose body is boneless like a rabbit’s. I’ve descended into my earliest memory. It is too horrible to know, and no work of unseeing will remove him from me, or turn the lights on in the kitchen. How could someone like you ever be on the other side of the door—on the other side of this?
4
in a pecan field
I wrote like I had something to prove to you. The stories were about the Indian condition alongside the mundane. Most of the work felt like a callback to traditional storytelling. Salish stories are a lot like its art: sparse and interested in blank space. The work must be striking.
It was spring, and I hadn’t stopped wanting you. I sent you letters. I bought a tripod to take pictures of my body and my loneliness.
I told my therapist that I felt no purpose without you.
“What about your children?” she asked.
“I believe purpose extends beyond family.”
“It’s been months, and he hasn’t reached out. Do you think we’re at an impasse?”
Leaving her office, I thought most people would have walked away with the realization that it was over. With the knowledge of what a normal person might do, I tried to enact it all. I went wherever I was invited and invested in my friendships. My son and I had long discussions about family and what he might want in the future.
“I think Casey would be a good dad,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Remember that guy who got me a PlayStation?” he asked.
“Chris.”
“Why isn’t he your friend anymore?”
“He was my boyfriend, Isaiah.” He looked shocked. We laughed. He has given me so much laughter. “I would not be able to live without you.”
“I know,” he said.
Isaiah has always known his brother. We made frequent visits. Because I was Canadian and a flight risk, I had supervised visitation only.
I remember one visit at the YWCA. Isadore was three, and he hadn’t yet learned how to sit properly or hold a conversation. I gave him a grin and tickled his tummy. He crawled underneath the desk and I followed. There was so much laughter, and then the supervisor asked us to be quiet. Isadore sat in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
“Do you need something?” I asked.
“Grandma,” he said.
I held him, and we cut our visit short an hour. The supervisor wrote a lot in her notebook. She shook her head at me. I asked her what was wrong.
“It’s not a good sign you don’t want to spend the full two hours with your child.”
“I did,” I said. It was all I could say.
Visits went like that, and I didn’t want to put Isaiah through it. I let Isaiah go with my ex-husband and his family to spend time with each other as often as I could bear. Vito never asked to visit, and I wondered why, never out loud.
Through all of this, I believe Isaiah learned that I needed him. Things were so complicated. I think he felt compelled to need me more than most children need their mothers.
With my son in mind, I decided to date men who I couldn’t see a future with—men who would never meet him. He had been exposed to so much with his brother and his father. I couldn’t just move forward in life with another man, but I didn’t want to be lonely.
Eric looked at me a lot on our dates. It was a focused stare that made me forget the abandonment I felt. We had an English class together a long time ago, and he had gone away to study abroad in London and then to L.A.
The first time Eric and I sat down together he asked me what I wanted to drink, and I asked for a Michelob ULTRA. He scoffed and said he hadn’t ordered one of those in years. I didn’t leave then—it was an indication as to my state.
I asked him polite things: what is it like to be back? Will you go to grad school? Can I taste your beer?
“You’re ethnically ambiguous, and I feel like you should be capitalizing on it,” he said.
“Oh no . . .”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Are you an ethnic enthusiast?” I asked.
“What?”
We asked questions we shouldn’t have. I revealed I was still in love with my ex. He told me that his ex couldn’t deal with his bipolar cycles.
“The pendulum swings—like a motherfucker,” he said.
I told him I was bipolar, and he already knew.
“I walked into traffic, and then I was taken to the hospital. I decided that when I got out I’d move somewhere there was less shit to do—focus on me,” he said.
“I was in the hospital. I’m not really sure I’m better,” I said.
“The pendulum.”
We went to his place and drank beer and watched stand-up until he asked me what we were doing. He held his face with long fingers—I peeled them one by one until he opened his eyes.
“Nothing,” I said.
With someone to talk to, I started to enjoy myself. He introduced me to his friends, and purposefully said I was brilliant. He barely touched me or told me I was pretty. He weighed less than I did. He didn’t mind anything about me. He was enamored with the convenience—we were both ill and alone and intelligent.
I remembered what it was to be desired, if only for my mind. There was a man just before Casey, who had arranged fireworks on our first date, “in case it didn’t happen on its own.” It felt obligatory to kiss him—to reject him soon after. And Casey, in his boxers, once answered the door to a fruit basket the man sent me, asking for another shot. I watched Casey’s large mouth, full of pineapple, smirking at me—almost angry. Another man, he came to my door with cookies, and one man sent me a puzzle I didn’t put together, with some latitude and longitude for a restaurant he wanted to take me to, all while Casey was there, witnessing, and maybe it was seeing this that made him so resistant to me—to wanting or needing.
Eric’s arms were never heavy when he held me in bed. He felt like a thin blanket. He held me before I left in the morning and told me we could make pancakes. We could do anything, if I had time. He was unafraid of me, in the daylight, at any time—I felt enough.
Eric and I occasionally cried or sent each other long tangents about things we were only momentarily inspired by. It was good to be given every benefit of every doubt. I had composed two packages of work and applied for an M.F.A. program at our college and at the Institute of American Indian Arts. The latter was a long shot. The flyer had a picture of Sherman Alexie on it—low residency and expensive. Some professors at our college had never found my work sophisticated enough. I lacked form and technique.
I emailed you that I was applying for an M.F.A. You responded with an exclamation mark or some well-wish.
I enjoyed the M.A. at our college. I went to class every Tuesday and Thursday, and sometimes we’d be crossing the parking lot at the same time. Sometimes you hugged me.
A professor told me that I was to be accepted into both programs, and he was close to both institutions. He told me that whoever offers me the most money should be my choice. He promised that he would spread the rumor around that the university needed a writer like me.
A few days later, a professor asked me to stop by his office to talk about the program and my potential.
“You are a champ, Terese,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“You’ve taken feedback and come back harder. You’re just an outstanding student.”
“Thank you.”
I had never felt sophisticated enough at the institution, and in my creative writing classes, I only felt like I was seen as the graduate student Casey had been with.
“Have
you seen Casey around?” he asked.
“Yes. He could be more miserable if you ask me.”
He smiled.
“Our breakup was hard for me,” I said.
“I’ve seen you around with a new guy,” he offered.
There were multiple guys. I had made a point of spending time with a few of the writers on campus because they provided free editing and feedback.
“I’m just rebounding.”
“Casey was always a serious person. He’s sad. It would be unpleasant to be around, I suppose?”
“I think I was the difficult one,” I said.
“He said you wanted too much.”
I don’t remember following up with a question or if I used those moments to sell myself as an M.F.A. candidate. I just wanted to leave.
I drove straight to your house. I was angry. I knew that I wasn’t too much. A man had shown me that too much could be managed through kindness and recognition.
You opened the door with a goofy smile. Before I said anything you asked me to come in for a beer.
I sat at your kitchen table, and you spoke to me while you put a pizza in the oven, and you cut cookie dough. Your house was clean for a writing man’s home. You had new furnishings, which, no doubt, your mother bought you. Still, I cared what you thought about me.
“I make pecan sandies now,” you said.
You looked content. You moved with certainty and were familiar with your kitchen—cooking was your new hobby.
“Is this what you do to get over me?” I asked.
“Yes.”
You fed me and were forthcoming about adjusting to being single and missing my son. We sat across from each other. I let you tell me about other women. Time had passed, not long, but enough.
“She’s just nice,” you said.
“Yeah?”
“She puts the toilet seat up when she’s done peeing.” You seemed like you were bragging.
“Who the fuck would do that?” I said.
“Are you going to stay at the university here?”
“I don’t know. I’m working on a Preparing Future Faculty application to see if they’ll pay me to do my work here.”
“With Lily?”
“Yeah.”
Lily was my academic adviser, and she was priming me to be under her instruction. She had sent me her syllabus for a class in speculative fiction, and she wanted me to eventually work for the university.
“I was just out with her,” you said.
“Oh?”
“She was a little drunk and asked if I wanted to cuddle.”
“Wow.”
You laughed. “You’d be happy to know,” you said.
“What?” I asked.
“None of these women hold a candle to you.”
You drank your beer and smirked.
“I still want you,” I said.
You didn’t look shocked, but you looked concerned. You put your hand across the table, and I put mine on top of yours. We were both impressed with how comforting it felt to touch each other.
“Mountain Woman,” you said. My Indian name.
I let go and stood up. Not to threaten that I might leave, but I wanted you to see me. “I’m regulated now,” I said.
You approached me, and we made love on your counter. My tailbone bruised. Passion seemed so endless when we were in it. It seemed like, in those moments, we could have pushed each other into anything—into saying anything.
I told you that I loved you numerous times, and you reciprocated. I had forgotten the man you were before you saw me out of control. You had loved me like a man with the capacity to keep his promises and sacrifice for his family. You loved me completely, with a type of trust I didn’t realize was rare.
You were so different from Eric’s aimlessness. You were so different from the men who have cowered from me. You were different from the men who made a challenge out of hurting me.
We had full hearts for each other, still. While you were sleeping, I considered that I might tell you it was my entire fault. How could it be yours? When you’re like this?
We got up for class. Before I left I hugged you. I looked up and asked if we could be a family. You said that we couldn’t be a family, and you didn’t look at me when you said it. You told me you loved me. We both started crying. I thought you were being careful with me. I thought that you were guarding yourself—what pride you had left was worth a lot. You had a human being who put the toilet seat up for you. You had a person who wasn’t “all consuming,” like a black hole.
I went back. I went back more than once or four times or five. Every time, you were baking, or enjoying your quiet life alone. Once, you had a woman there. I still went back, later. You let me in every time. Eventually, I stopped asking if we could be together again.
Eric became less appealing, but we became more comfortable with each other.
“You don’t need to make noises,” he said, on top of me.
“What?”
“I just don’t want you to perform sex for me.”
And yet I did. He wrapped me in a Star Wars blanket and stared at the ceiling. We were both manic and unable to sleep.
“Do you want to drink?” he said.
He talked about his ex-girlfriend, and he said that he felt like he was going to have a breakdown. I talked about you, and he said that I wouldn’t ever be sane enough. He said that there was nothing I could do to convince you that I was not crazy, and why would I want to?
He asked me about the future.
That was our last night together, because it was enough. I realized that love can be mediocre and a safe comfort, or it can be unhinged and hurtful. Either seemed like a good life.
My therapist wasn’t disappointed in me. She congratulated me for analyzing my situation with you and considering how I was accountable for your mistrust.
“I am worried, though,” she said.
“I’m not going to break down again.”
“Not that. I’m worried that he’s using you.”
“It’s much deeper than sex. He tells me that he loves me and explains carefully why he can’t be with me. He considers me.”
“You’re in a vulnerable position. Months ago, you were in the hospital with suicidal ideation. He should consider how telling you that he loves you could make you feel. He should consider how having sex with you, and then explaining why he can’t be with you, is manipulative.”
I defended you. I knew that you did love me and telling me about other women was hurtful, but I stayed with you those nights on my own regard. If you were hurting me, I knew it was not intentional.
“I’ll give him a timeline. After three months I will begin to see other people seriously.”
My therapist was impressed with my solution and worried that I was giving you three more months than you needed.
The Institute of American Indian Arts offered me a scholarship. I accepted. The program was designed with a renaissance in mind. Sherman Alexie eventually told me that he said those words first. When people were trying to conceptualize a program for Native writers, he said it would be a renaissance.
I met with Lily briefly just to see the status of our efforts, to see if our college would compete with IAIA. I sat with her at a café. She was in the middle of a stack of papers. She was sweet. I told her, because I had nothing to lose, that I had been wearing the same shirt for three days. I was busy with my son and writing and the last of my classes.
She told me to look at what she was wearing: floral shorts and a mustard brown shirt. She shrugged her shoulders, and we laughed. She began to tell me about a man she was seeing, long distance, and that he was brilliant, and she was a mess.
“I’m still a mess with Casey.”
“I didn’t know you were still seeing him,” she said.
“Casey is so cool.”
“I believe you’re my mentor. I want to say that you knew Casey and I had broken up recently, and asking him if he wanted to cuddle isn’t okay with me.”
“Oh, god! No! I have very different relationships with my friends. This is a misunderstanding.”
“I just don’t want to talk to you about this.”
“When you guys broke up he was heartbroken.”
“Did he talk about me?”
“Not much.”
She started to talk about other writers we knew and who was incompetent and who was going to do nothing with their MFAs. I drank piñon coffee and laughed at her jokes.
“I just want to say—I don’t know why Casey would have told you about me asking him that. Why do you think he told you?”
“He’s stupid. He’s always been thoughtless.”
She consoled me about you. She says that you love me. She wants to believe that you love me, I can tell. Romantics can be comforting.
You started to hold me more, and when I brought Isaiah to your home, you both rejoiced.
You made him his favorite meal: macaroni and cheese. You invited Lily over and she sat next to my son and complimented his manners. I was nobody to tell you who you could ask to your house. Isaiah had just got a haircut, and I dressed him up to see you. We all sat at the table, and then my son got quiet.
“What, baby?” I asked.
“Just,” Isaiah said.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
Lily excused herself from the table to smoke outside.
You observed my son and I, and by your face, I knew you didn’t know to be concerned for my son when he sunk down the way he did.
“There’s crumbs on it,” Isaiah said.
The macaroni had breadcrumbs on the top of it.
Heart Berries Page 5