[This was my entry into the WORLDview Fiction Contest.]
He lay in bed motionless. The silent night air was warm, thick with the leftover weight of a humid summer day, pushed about ever so slightly by the slow turning of the ceiling fan above him. Though he was tired, he was unable to sleep, unable to slow his mind. He lay on his back staring blankly at the fan, the paddles outlined in shadow by the street light that peaked in past the blinds. As the blades slowly repeated their endless circle, his mind slowly traversed the same ground.
He lay there replaying the afternoon in his mind. He rewound it and revisited it. He studied each moment like an athlete studying tape, looking for any possible clue, some insight into what transpired, anything that would help him make sense of it. He turned the day’s event over and over, processing it, yet never seeming to get anywhere. The wheels of his mind just kept spinning like that ceiling fan.
The afternoon had crept up ever so slowly. With each tick of the clock, her arrival drew closer, and his anxiety built. Though the day had been marked on the calendar for months, he had ignored it. He had hoped that it wouldn’t really come. If he pretended it didn’t exist, it wouldn’t, right? That plan worked about as well as disappearing by hiding under a blanket. The day had come, and he couldn’t wait for it to end, for night to fall, for it all to be over.
He couldn’t really put a finger on the source of his apprehension. True, he hadn’t seen her in almost twenty years, since he was a child. That sparked a curiosity. He wondered: What does she look like? Will her voice sound the same? How have the last two decades changed her? He wanted to fill the gaps in his memory, but there was something more, some unnamed source of fear.
It surprised him that he felt so much ahead of this reunion. He thought that he had worked through the full range of his emotions toward her. There was a period, for example, when he had hated her with a fiery intensity. Every memory of her was colored by those last words she’d said to him before shipping him home. “I don’t like you,” she had said. From someone else that might not sound like much; but to him, coming from his mother, the thought of those words were a scalpel opening his heart and releasing a denied anger.
When the divorce was happening he had understood well enough the complexities of marriage to know that it had nothing to do with him. He was young when it happened, but this sort of thing has a way of forcing maturity on a child. His parents had simply grown apart, to use their own words. The evidence supported this, and he accepted it as fact.
For a time, though, his understanding didn’t matter one bit. Fundamentally, she had left his father, but she had also left him. She had left him without so much as a fight. He would have rather there been some sort of drawn out custody battle over him. Then, at least, he would have been able to look back at some evidence, some memory that said she loved him. Instead she left silently, abandoning him to a silence of doubt.
Nevertheless, that anger had passed. He had worked through it years ago, or so he thought. Anymore, she rarely came to his mind, and when she did, the emotion he felt was closer to compassion, or perhaps, more accurately, pity. How hard must her decision have been. How desperate must she have felt to leave her only son, to believe that a life without him was better than one that included him. He wondered how that choice weighed on her. He would soon know.
He sensed the gravity of the past even as she was getting out of the car. It wasn’t the sports car he remembered. That had been traded in for something more luxurious, something more befitting grandparents. The car parked, and she lingered before opening the passenger door, a brief moment in which she composed herself, steeled her nerves for what lay ahead.
He waited on the porch, watching her as she approached. The rhythm of her steps was familiar, like she was on a boat. They had spent many weekends out on the water in summers past. He remembered the sea legs, the broad stance and soft knees that kept you upright in the choppy water and wake of other craft. She approached in that same manner: cautious, wary, ready for the unexpected.
She smiled broadly, but something about it was off. It was the same smile he remembered, toothy and with a bit of a grimace to it, almost like pain; but was just a little too wide to be completely genuine. There was an effort behind it, forcing it to the surface. She was trying, and he couldn’t help but count it to her credit. After all, he hadn’t taken the first step, and left alone he probably never would have. She was the one who contacted him through the years of silence. She was the one who asked to meet.
Four steps up, and they stood face to face. In an instant, her reserve evaporated. Like a lightning bolt, his absence in her life ran through her. She seized him, pulling him close, hanging on as if for her very life. He could barely breathe. It felt as if she were making up the missed hugs of twenty years in one moment. She shook unknowingly. The past had been unleashed, and her body was wracked with the empty memories in which he should have been.
He said nothing, for he, too, was shocked beyond thought. He responded the only way he could manage. He returned her embrace, completely unaware of the power he wielded. In that simple act, enough forgiveness and acceptance flowed to revive her. As she clung to him, he grounded her, and the violent current of past regrets dissipated safely.
Finally, she released him. They made eye contact briefly, and then they went inside. No words had been said, but there would be time enough for that. A new connection existed between them, a frail suspension bridge supported by only a few cables. It would need to be nurtured carefully if it were to ever bear the full weight of a relationship, and he wondered if he were up to the task. He wondered if he could really begin again after to much pain, after so much silence. There would be time to think on that later though. Lunch was being served.
