It's a myth that God only gives us what we can take. Or maybe God is a myth. Either way, my life is about to break me. If one more person asks me for one more thing…
It's Thanksgiving, and I find that I am thankful for odd things. I was visiting my mother, and work called. I argue about going in, but I am thankful to be called away. I'm at work, and my mother calls. She's refusing to talk with the doctors. She's threatening to refuse treatment. She is calling me back. I'm thankful that someone can't literally rip in two. I slam my things off my desk and stalk off toward the elevator.
It's a myth that people get what's coming to them. I've been a cop for fucking ever, and I think that it is rare that people get what's coming to them. I wonder what's coming to me.
"I'm sorry about your mother," she says to me, her words take me aback, they are out of the blue. She knows my mother is ill, she knows the prognosis, when I mentioned it the other week she simply nodded and let it slide away from conversation. My mind skips to walking into the room where Virginia Harrington convalesced. Who treats their mother that way?
"Thanks," I say, my answer is weak, my voice is weak, my heart is weak. I'm tired.
"Did you see her yesterday?" she asks, again surprising me. She doesn't exactly press me for personal details. She rarely presses me on anything. I watch her push her hair behind her ear. I watch the thick strands stubbornly spring free.
"Yeah," I say, and I reach out and secure her hair behind her ear. She moves her face against my hand and my knuckles slide silkily along her high cheekbone. I think about what she said, about being sorry about my mother. I wonder if I am sorry about my mother. I think that if people get what is coming to them, then what does that mean for my mother. I find myself running my fingers across her full, wet lower lip, gently pressing her mouth slightly open. I could lose myself in her.
It' a myth that good memories replace bad. Kind of like it's a myth that a good grade replaces a failing grade. For most people it is more about averages. Just like at most schools, grades average, test scores average. I want to tell her that I ran into Frank today.
I'm in her bed, in amongst her sheets, tangled in her smells, watching her as she sleeps. I run my fingers down the bodyscape of her back, in the valley of her spine over the rounded swell of her backside, down the strong length of her thighs. Her skin is a cast of shadows in the early dawn light. I can tell my touch is interrupting her sleep, I can feel the shifts in her breathing.
I smile at her as she looks at me through a tangle of her hair. She smiles sleepily in return. Bobby. She murmurs my name. I like the way my name sounds when her voice is still thickened with sleep, with sex.
I like being entwined with her. But my here and now does not erase my then. It helps the average, but does not come close to evening it.
"I should go." I say. I'm always going. She touches my face, but does not protest. She knows that I'm always going.
Love at first sight is a myth. Perhaps it's attraction so electric it fries your common sense. I think of the astronaut and his wife.
Love is something that enters over time. Do I love her? I don't think so. Do I love to be with her? That much is true. Do I love things about her? Definitely. I love her laugh, I love her intellect, I love the curve of her full breasts and the way they fill my hands.
"What?" She's reading the newspaper, her bare feet tucked up close to her as she sits on the sofa. She's looking at me.
"Nothing." I say, I take a sip of a red wine so dry my tongue feels the bite moments afterwards.
"Bobby." She smiles, setting the paper aside, "you were watching me." And, she is right, I was watching her. I was studying her fingers, thinking about the way her nails scrape softly along the flesh on my back. I was contemplating her toes, thinking about how they curl at certain moments and flex in the next, and then relax.
"Are you finished with the paper?" I ask as I set the wine aside. I stand and shake off the pleasant buzzy feeling in my brain.
"What'd you have in mind?" She smiles, sultrily, and I know that she knows exactly what I have in mind. I love that she knows what I have in mind.
Unconditional love is a myth. Everything has conditions. Everyone has conditions. I want to share with her that my mother is dying. When I visited today, she was pale and grey, and I could see it in her eyes, her life slipping away. A life fraught with conditions.
Maybe love is a myth. I'm at her place, so tired I knock softly by banging my forehead against the door. Do I love her? Again, I don't think so. Just as well, I convince myself, for I don't think she loves me. Does she love things about me? Perhaps. Does she love the way I often show up in the middle of the night unannounced? She always opens her door to me. Does she love the way that sometimes I'm shaking so hard for the warmth of human touch that I begin undressing her before I begin speaking to her? She yields to me. Does she love the way I leave before the sun kisses the sky? She smiles at me as she watches me get dressed in the darkness of her room. I wonder what is between us. She does not seem to have conditions for me. I think this is because she does not love me.
End (game)