by Kate Manning
But how will I tell her this truth, if I don’t know it myself?
I need to know for myself.
What I remember and don’t remember is now druggily mixed up with what I’ve been told. What I feel, what I know, what I wish, what really happened, are all hopelessly pickled in my thinking. You can try to be truthful. Good luck. Anyone who’s ever been photographed knows you can’t fix reality. A photograph is just a version of truth, just some photographer’s version. You see what you want to see.
For me, truth has always been in the eye of the beholder.
Milo, though, says it’s in the eye of the beheld.
I have read his letter so many times now.
Dear Charlotte,
I would not hurt you. I would not do this. You have to believe me. Please come here. If there were some other way to convey what is in my heart to say to you, I would do it. But a letter is not adequate. They tell me you cannot speak on the phone. If you will come here you will know. You will see the truth. I know you will. You have to. Please. It’s all I ask, that you look me in the eye.
Love, Milo
I don’t know. I don’t know if I can see him.
What I wish is that we were blind. I wish I was. This is a child’s wish, but still. I’d rather it had been my eyes poked out. I don’t want to see his orange prison jumpsuit. I don’t want to see any shackles or locks, barbed wire or bars. I don’t want to see his eyes fill up with tears. Or not. And I do not want him to see me, with red snakes of scars around my neck and arms. I don’t want him to see I am not what I once was, or was made out to be. Not kissed by the sun, as they wrote about me once.
I’m frightened to see him.
Frightened I’ll fall for him all over again.
And where will I be then?
Behind a glass wall. I have seen these in the movies, a glass wall with phones attached, for speaking to your loved one when you are separated by the law. Hello, Charlotte, he will say. I will not be able to speak, but will put my hand up to the glass, and he will put his hand up, matching palms misting on the glass.
For your own protection, they will tell me.
Why, then, knowing he is there, do I not feel safe?
Even here I do not feel safe. I feel exposed as bone in a wound. I am here in my house with doctors and I do not feel well; I am here with servants and I do not feel rich; I am here with the glittering blue sea below my windows, and I do not feel surrounded by beauty. Only by longing, longing, longing. For something to lift us right up out of here, an eagle ride like the ones I imagined in church with my sister and brothers, singing out in our pressed clothes and white ribbons, He will raise you up on eagle’s wings, hold you in the palm of his hand; knowing all the words and the rules; having them be true and right. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
If only we could be saved like that, in a twinkling, with the trumpets and the band playing, the tickets free, the wand waving and the flags fluttering; all the colors new.
But we can’t. That’s not how it happens.
So I will go see him. I have to. I’ve decided now. It’s up to me. Whatever happens, him or not him, to tell Hallie as much of the truth as she needs to know, to find it for her. Just to find out. So I will get up out of this chair. I will brush my hair and put on earrings. I will go see Milo.
The truth will set me free, as they used to teach in Sunday school.
If you come here you will know. It’s all I ask, that you look me in the eye. So I will. Right in the eye. What I find there, lies or my own reflection, will finish us off or set us free. When I see him then I’ll know. The true truth. It’s in the eye of the beheld. What happens is up to me. Him, or please, not him. It’s in the palm of my hand. I’m holding it there, a wish like a bird, a dove or an eagle, a prayer for a phoenix flying; for a girl, running across the grass, twirling in the sun; for me singing to her at nightfall; for her father hurtling down the mountain, racing across the snow and the ice and the danger toward home, where he will come through the door beaming, his eyes lit by the sight of me, and scoop us up, our arms ringing around, all of us whirling and hurtling onward, me and Milo and our children, on and on, forever and ever. Amen.
Acknowledgments
First grateful thanks must go to Roberta Baker and Amy Wilentz, for their many wise and patient readings of these pages. Others whose insight, encouragement and experiences have helped me are Benita Watford and Bob Raleigh, Khairah Klein, Diane McWhorter, Bobbie Smith, Barbara Jones, and Sally Cook. For excellent baby-sitting I am beholden to Teresa Mason, Victoria Pisos, and Rita Grant. For their expertise, I am grateful to Tia Powell, Jim Wilentz, Dr. James Thomas, Camilo Vergara, and Robert Lipsyte. The books that helped me are too numerous to mention, but I am especially grateful for Black on White, edited by David Roediger, Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness, by Jane Lazarre, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and a book about the US Ski Team, Right on the Edge of Crazy, by Mike Wilson. Many many thanks to my amazing agent Wendy Weil. My patient, exacting editors, Susan Kamil and Carla Riccio, have my respect and heartfelt gratitude. For my beloved parents, Joan and Jim Manning, thank you is all but inadequate, having to cover as it does my lifetime of love and gratitude to both, for everything. To Jim and Rob, Melissa and Kim, Wendy and Mike, Pat and Rich, my appreciation for all your support. And finally, endless thanks and love to my children, Carey, Oliver, and Eliza, and especially to my husband, Carey, for sustaining me.
About the Author
KATE MANNING is a former journalist and television producer. She lives in New York City.