05/23
Teddy,
It's been a year since you left and I'm just now learning how to press you into the shape of your absence. How to peel the memories of you from me, the way I crack my thumbs (like you taught me) and the cornballs I still eat every morning, the ones you always hated. You've turned me into the ghost of your presence, love, and I really truly hate it (although not enough to stop wearing your dumb, oversized shirts to bed at night.)
I'm lying flat on my stomach in the scratchy grass near the old pond. The ducks are quacking wildly. My nose itches. There's a thin bead of sweat lazing off my leg. It should be miserable, but you know I was always less affected by these things, willing to scrape my hands climbing trees or shingled roofs. From here, if I lift my head slightly, I can see the kitchen window of the burrow, Grandma spelling the washing. Now more than ever, I keep returning to our summers here: the wild potential of them, each day rolling into night like a gaping mouth. Our whole lives stretched out before us, each hour and minute so slow and previous that sometimes they felt infinite. You always did that for me: slowed the anxious battering of time down into a set of quiet moments and laid them out before me like gifts. Calmed me down to rile me up again, electric.
I don't know if anyone realized it's been a year since you left. Dad gave me a hard, appraising look this morning over toast, asked me what I was planning to do today, and when I said something short like, go down to the pond, maybe, he didn't chide me about how I planned to fill the rest of my life, which, I admit, I neglected in a scourge of searching for you and self-pity. He just kind of nodded, staring intently at his toast-his greasy forefingers-as he bit into it. So maybe he realized, or maybe he's finally given up on me, maybe the story about the brilliant tragedy of my wasted potential has finally lost its glisten-If guess if this past year has proven anything it's that we can get used to any set of realities, really.
I'm still not used to it, thought. I'm still sitting here, my wet heart in my throat, wondering why you left. It's almost a tragedy but I'm not sure either of us are sympathetic enough characters for that. My narcissism, my compulsive desire to be loved; your temper, your prickly pride. But I can't wait for you anymore, Teddy, and I can't search for you anymore either. So I'm going to write everything down. Everything I remember. It struck my this morning, walking to town, that this was the only thing left to do. And If I finish by the end of the summer and you're still not back I can set all of this parchment on fire or bury it deep, deep below that oak tree and maybe then I will be free. At any rate, it's worth a shot.
Ever yours,
Victoire