Yoke:
I know I’ve said the wrong thing the second the words are past my lips. The apologies spill out like buttons from an overturned jar, but it’s too late.
His mouth sets in a thin line, and his eyes go flinty dark. The storm rushes in. Pulls the breath from my lungs. Wind scours my cheeks; the crackle of electricity dances in the air. I want to run, but there’s no way to escape, and if I try, it will only make things worse.
The first rip comes fast and hard, so quick it takes a moment for the pain to catch up. And again, the fabric splits with an ugly sound. I fall to my knees and pray this storm will have a quick end. I smell a sharp tang of metal and salt.
“Why do you make me do this?” he says over and over.
But we both know why. If my lining were made of denim, not lace, this wouldn’t happen. Maybe if I’m torn apart and stitched back together enough, I’ll be strong enough to make him happy all the time. I know he doesn’t want to hurt me, not really. He wants me to be strong.
After the shriek of the wind dies down, he goes to fetch the needle. His hands are gentle, and when we kiss, I taste a ray of sunlight on his lips.
Maybe one day I’ll be his sun.
“I love you,” he says.
I know he does. I have three new sets of stitches as proof.
§
In the dark, I run my hands across my lining. Trace one fingertip along the new stitches. A part of him, now a part of me. I wonder if there are other women with threads of him still inside them, but I push away the thought before it can take hold.
It doesn’t matter anyway. I am his everything.
§
“You shouldn’t have to work so hard,” he says one night when I come home late from the office. “We don’t need the money anyway. I make enough for both of us.”
My boss doesn’t say anything when I tell her I’m leaving, but her eyes show disapproval. Or maybe it’s just jealousy because she doesn’t have anyone to take care of her.
Binding:
“You don’t need anyone but me,” he says.
“I love you,” he says.
“Promise me,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” he doesn’t say, but the needle and thread says it for him.
§
He takes me shopping.
He picks: a red dress, a black dress, a nightgown trimmed with pink ribbons.
I pick:
§
Renee calls. I reach for the phone, but he kisses me until I forget about everything and everyone else.
§
I cook his favorite foods. Pour his favorite wine. Breathe him in. Trace the stitches in the darkness. His. Mine. His. Mine.
§
Renee calls again. I don’t answer.
§
“I don’t need anyone but you,” I say.
“I love you,” I say.
“I promise,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Facing:
He presents the ring one night after love. I hesitate a moment too long, but I don’t mean to. The word yes gets caught in my throat, all tangled up in the want and the need and the thought of forever.
The storm blows in and out again, leaving behind a neat line of stitches below my right eye. The first I won’t be able to hide. But it’s okay because now everyone can see that I belong to him.
§
I sneak out to surprise him with coffee and bagels, and as I walk in the café, Renee is walking out. She stops. Pulls me aside. Touches my face.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “I bumped into—”
“Stop this,” she says.
“What are you talking about?”
I step away because I need to get back before he wakes up. I should’ve left a note.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing, he did nothing. It was an accident.”
She shakes her head. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
I need to hurry. I wish she’d shut up. When I take another step, she grabs my arm. Sees the ring.
“I don’t know why you stay with him, but this isn’t love. This is something perverse and broken. You are better than this.”
I wrench my arm from her grasp. She doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t know the shape his mouth makes when he says my name, the spark in his eyes, the way I feel his touch on my skin for days, the way his stitches are making me whole. Of course it’s love. If she were truly my friend, she’d be happy for me.
And she isn’t right.
(Is she?)
I’m not broken.
Overcast:
“For always?” I ask.
“Of course.”
I touch the ring to my lower lip. Gently, so as not to tug on the stitches there.
§
When he comes home from work, I see the gathering clouds. I keep my voice low. Tiptoe through the room. I don’t ask him what’s wrong. He’ll tell me if he wants to, and if he doesn’t, it isn’t anything I need to know.
After we eat, I put on the beribboned nightgown, tug my hair from its ponytail, and give him the smile he likes best.
The clouds swirl anew. For the first time, I scream. He covers my mouth so no one will hear. One, two, three tears, and I feel the rips deeper and wider than ever before. He plucks threads from himself with a grimace, slides the needle in. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t kiss me when he finishes, just tosses the needle aside and glares at me with empty eyes. No storm. No sun. Nothing.
The stitches are crooked, and I find a piece of lace on the floor. I hold it in my hand. This is the first time he’s torn a piece free. I replay the night, trying to figure out what I did wrong.
When he falls asleep, I reach out my hand. The burlap is so rough, my lace catches. This pain is new. Different. But I don’t make a sound. I know better.
§
“For always?” I ask.
“Finish your coffee,” he says.
Tension:
I sense, not see, the clouds almost every day. His words hold the echo of thunder, the weight of a tsunami. The house fills with a hush. It hurts, this waiting.
I find strands of burlap on the counter. Entwined in the carpet. Stuck to the shower curtain. I collect them all and wish I could thread them back in while he sleeps but I’m afraid to try. I twist them together and tie them around my wrist instead.
I find bits of lace, but I throw them away.
§
He reaches for me in the night. I taste the heat of ozone on his lips. He pushes my face in the pillow, and we pretend to make love.
In the morning, there’s a new tear in my lining. He sees the rip, I know he does, but he doesn’t pull a strand of himself free. He doesn’t get the needle. I don’t know how to fix it, so I cover it with a scarf.
§
I remember our first date—wine and roses. A perfect cliché. After dinner, he walked me to my door, brushed my hair back from my face, and kissed me. He left so quickly, I barely heard his footfalls on the pavement.
He brought me a single rose on our second date. And on our third and our fourth. I don’t remember how we went from there to here. I don’t remember who I was before I met him.
(Would she recognize me?)
§
I call Renee, but when she answers, I hang up. She calls back, but I pretend not to hear the phone ring.
§
When the storm finally comes, there’s no warning. There are no words. He pushes me to the floor and rips and rips and rips. I can’t cry or scream, the pain is too big. I’m drowning in the waves and every time I come up for air, the wind pushes me back down.
I beg him to stop, to let me go. I hate the sound of my voice, the taste of my tears. And I go under again.
When the water recedes, my head is in his lap. He touches my cheek, my lip, brushes my hair back from my forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
But it’s
too late. I see pieces of lace caught between his teeth and under his nails. I pull free and try to crawl away, but he won’t let me go.
He brings out the needle.
“No,” I say. “No.”
“Shhh,” he says and plucks a strand free from his arm.
I stare at the wall as the needle slides in. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.
I didn’t know it would be like this.
But I love him
(Don’t I?)
Hem:
He kisses me on the forehead before he goes to work. I curl up in the middle of the bed and trace my fingers over the stitches. I can’t even see where he ends and I begin.
I pluck one of his strands free, and it leaves an ugly mark behind, all twisted and uneven. Maybe love always leaves scars. I reach for the needle, but my hands are shaking. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to fix me. Inside, I am cold, so cold, as if a blizzard blew in when I wasn’t looking.
I pull another strand free. Then another. And another. Snowmelt blurs my vision, but my fingers don’t stop. His strands aren’t strong, they’re sharp, cutting the soft pads of my fingers. The pain is bright. Hard. My mouth works, but not a sound emerges.
He would be proud of that.
The bed is littered with a hundred pieces of him and a hundred pieces of me that broke off in the process. My lining is full of holes, like a dress left too long in an attic trunk.
I climb out of bed. Arrange all the loose threads in the shape of a woman. She has no voice, no opinions, no needs. I slide the ring from my finger and slip it on hers. Maybe he won’t even notice the change.
I wipe the tears away, but they won’t stop, and my heart is a tangled knot. I struggle to catch my breath. Stumble as I try to walk. I think of calling Renee, but I’m afraid of what she might say. I’m afraid she might want to help, and I don’t want her to see who, what, I’ve become.
Threads are still unraveling, falling to the floor in a trail of broken. He can have those, too. I leave the front door open behind me because if I touch it again, I might change my mind, and I know I can’t. His threads were never meant to hold me together.
The clouds outside are grey, like my heart. I turn my face up to the sky, and rain mixes with my tears. I make it to the end of the street, turn right, and keep walking. More threads drift free. Am I a patchwork doll leaking from the seams or a snake shedding the old to reveal a new?
I don’t know how far I’ll get before my lining gives way completely. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to face a sun. I don’t know if there’s anything left of me at all.
Like Origami
in Water
Johnny is angry again. I hate this part, but I won’t try to stop him. I would feel the same way, too.
“It’s not fair,” he yells, spit flying out of the corners of his mouth. “And it’s not right. Why can’t they figure out what this is? Why can’t they fix it?”
Music blares from the speakers. The walls are paper-thin, but our neighbors aren’t home, and Johnny shouts over the lyrics, demanding to be heard. He paces back and forth in our tiny apartment with its drafty windows, his walk an awkward, lurching stumble. He only has one toe left, the baby toe on his left foot. And in the space where his other toes used to be?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
“Eventually you won’t even remember what I looked like,” he says and sinks to the floor, holding his hands around his head.
I shut off the music and sit next to him, breathing in his scent, a soft, musky smell with something new hidden underneath, a smell like charred wood in a long dead fire. “That’s not true.”
“I’m only twenty-six years old. It’s not fair.” He holds out his arms. The inside of his elbows are marked with swirls of purple and yellow. “I’m not going back to the doctors anymore. What’s the point? They don’t have any answers. They’ll just stick me in a corner room and stare at me like a circus freak.”
I take a sheet of paper, the surface slick beneath my fingers, and fold it until a dragon appears. I learned how to fold paper from my mother, as she learned from hers. She told me her mother learned from Akira Yoshizawa, the great master of paper folding, when our family still lived in Japan. Washi, the traditional paper, is the best to use, but I make do with what I find in craft stores, even though it tears easily if I’m not careful. My mother says the best origami holds something inside—love or anger or hurt. Something to make it real.
I set the dragon on the floor next to my feet. Johnny saves them all, even the ones that turn out wrong. He lines them up on the windowsills and calls them his gargoyles. They’re not watching out, but watching in. Watching him.
“I’m glad my parents are dead,” he says. “So they don’t have to see this.” He grabs my hand and gives it a tight squeeze. “Will you stay with me all the way to the end?”
“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
He leans over, rests his head on my shoulder. Tears burn in my eyes, but I hold them in. Johnny hates to see me cry.
§
A week later, his feet are gone.
§
After his legs vanish from the knees down, I make a red army of paper swans and set them on top of the refrigerator. He’s sitting at the table, ripping paper into tiny shreds, and from where I stand, I can’t see the missing parts and can almost pretend everything is fine.
I don’t watch when he crawls to the bedroom, but the sound echoes back.
§
His knees disappear next.
“It hurts when they go,” he whispers. “And even when the pieces are gone, I still feel them. I know they’re gone, but I still feel them there.”
§
Johnny’s reading in bed when his fingers go. One minute he’s holding the book; the next, it tumbles down onto the blanket, landing with a tiny thump. He gives a little grunt, and his mouth twists down. I know what I’ll see, but I look anyway. His fingers are pale and vapory, narrow ghosts fading fast, and then they’re gone, leaving behind a little more of that old wood smell and a little less of his.
“It was a stupid book anyway,” he mutters.
I scoot over, not touching close, but close enough. He turns to me and presses his lips against mine, offering up what warmth he has left. He hasn’t kissed me since he lost his feet.
In his kiss, I taste oranges and despair.
§
“Turn on the music,” he says. “Please.”
I do.
“Louder.”
I turn it up until he nods. He shouts until the neighbors pound on the walls.
I turn the music down and make a bird, another dragon, and something that’s supposed to be an elephant. A baby’s wail creeps in through the plaster followed by the muted tones of an argument.
“Can you put that one on the nightstand?” he asks, his voice scratchy and dry, nodding toward the not-elephant. “That’s my new favorite.”
“But it doesn’t look like anything.”
He smiles, the first smile I’ve seen in weeks. “It does to me.”
I put it next to the alarm clock.
The rest of his hands are gone. His wrists, too.
§
“Please don’t forget about me,” he whispers.
I wonder if there’s another room somewhere, with someone like me, waiting, and another, like Johnny, going away.
I hold in my tears and pour my sorrow into a paper crane the color of a summer sky.
§
A week later, his arms vanish. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t say a word. Instead, the silence hovers, a sharpened guillotine waiting to strike.
I make another elephant; this one turns out perfect. I unfold it, rip up the paper, and throw the pieces away before Johnny can see.
§
When there’s nothing below his waist but air heavy with the scent of char, I sit in bed and he rests his head on my lap. I play with his hair and run my fingertips across his eyebrows. There’s a knot inside my che
st; with every passing moment, it twists a little more.
“I’m afraid,” he whispers. “There won’t be anything left to bury or burn. It’ll be like I was never here. Say you’ll remember me. Swear it.”
“I won’t ever forget you. I promise I won’t.”
“Can I have the elephant?”
I set it on his chest.
After Johnny falls asleep, I touch the empty space where the rest of his body should be. The knot inside me coils tighter. I stay awake for hours turning paper into shapes while the not-elephant moves up and down as he breathes.
“Zou-san, zou-san,” I sing, keeping my voice feather soft. The words are part of a song my mother sang to me when my fingers were still too chubby to make paper animals.
But I can’t remember the rest, no matter how hard I try.
§
When the end comes, it happens fast. I sit by his side, talking about nothing until a lump in my throat steals my voice away. I kiss his forehead, and he closes his eyes against the pain. The air shimmers like crushed pearls caught in moonlight.
“I love you, Johnny,” I say, but he’s already gone.
His voice whispers from the weightless spot beside me. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Then that, too, disappears.
And all the paper animals, the stupid folded pieces of paper that mean nothing, nothing, watch from the windowsills.
With heavy steps, I go from room to room, stuffing them by the handful into a bag. Even through the plastic, I feel the weight of their gaze, straining to break free.
But I know how to make them stop.
I carry the bag down to the bridge where Johnny and I shared our first kiss, the best kiss. The river underneath, brownish-green in the fading light, rushes by; the muddy stink crawls inside my mouth and lingers in the back of my throat.
As the sun sets, I throw the paper animals into the water one by one. They bob on the surface, turning end over end, bright specks of color in the fading light, until the water swallows them whole. The blue crane, with its secret heart of sorrow, is the last one to drop out of sight.
Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) Page 18