I had a dream once when I was staying in a hotel in Prague. I spent the evening in the company of two very lovely ladies and a bottle of well aged scotch. I had fucked them both and then watched while they fucked each other. I got bored halfway through the encounter and left them to their own devices for a while. I took a shower and later they joined me.
It was about a year after the encounter with Ana in the bar. I was at my worst then, truly my worst. Looking back I can see how bad I was. Nothing was ever enough. Nothing ever felt good enough, hard enough, long enough. I couldn't be dominant enough. I couldn't get drunk enough, I couldn't fuck enough. I was always left feeling empty and hollow and blank.
I went through the motions, every day just existing, just barely breathing. I had no time or energy or niceties or kindness. Not that I ever really did but before Ana I was able to fake it when necessary. I couldn't stand the sound of my own voice and chose to communicate via text and email whenever possible. Music was my usual refuge was also lost. Every song and chord reminded me of two women who represented everything I wanted in life and could not have. My mother and Ana, with whom I was irrevocably connected. It was a year of silence. I year of ball gags. It was a year of isolation.
You can get addicted loneliness. You crave it and when you start to feel the uncertain presence of another being you retreat back needing a fix of your invisible drug. I had always been a lonely lost soul, always had that feeling deep in side (a place so dark and entrenched in mud) that I was meant to be alone. That being alone was the antidote to my pain. To not only inflict it on others but also that I was simply not worthy of company and consideration.
I often had nightmare and night terrors but this was more of an apparition. This dream is more vivid than any actual memory, more real and more tangible than it had happened yesterday.
In my dream I was fifteen, and I had just been expelled from my third high school. I was sitting in my father's office staring out a small window. I was hot in my dream, sweating profusely as if the sun was beating down on me. My father was seated at his desk, hands folded in front of him, his mouth was moving but I could not hear him. It was like his words were being captured by the air in between us. I wanted to stand up but my wrists and ankles were tied to his leather and wood banker chairs. The rope was nylon, white and blue twisting together. If I close my eyes and I can still feel the rope pulling the hairs on my arms. I tipped my head back, and struggled against the ropes yanking and pulling but I couldn't free myself. The air in the room went wafer thin and only then as I gasped for breath could I hear my father yelling at me. Screaming over and over again how I was nothing. When I looked up it was not my father at all but a man smoking a cigarette putting it put on to the leather blotter on my father's desk. When the cherry of the cigarette touched the fine leather the flesh on the top of my hand began to burn and a small round red raised mark appeared. I gritted my teeth as his cigarette became an endless source of heat, and the scars on my chest began to burn. In my dream this torture went on forever and then the room turned cold, all the curtains closed and the man disappeared. A woman appeared before me. Naked and unashamed. She leaned down and whispered in my ear three words.
"Bright Morning Star"
My eyes locked with hers and the woman was Ana. She smiled sweetly and then disappeared. I woke covered in sweat and most likely tears, strangers beside me in a bed that was not my own and that lonely feeling I crave deeply rooted in my soul. That feeling has followed me my entire life but somehow seated here in this tiny shabby kitchen eating a simple meal of pasta and sauce from a jar, Ana beside me talking about our son – the feeling is gone. The need and craving for the feeling has vanished and been replaced with this calm. I am almost afraid to call it contentment but that is exactly what it is.
I watch her carefully. I can tell she is nervous. She swirls the long strands of pasta on her spoon into perfect tiny nests and delicately eats. Every so often she takes a bite of garlic bread or a sip of the horrible acidic wine she has served. I eat more ravenously, I realize that I am starving and because the meal has been made by her hands it is the best I have ever eaten.
"This is quite good Ana." She smiles allowing me to appreciate her. It's a small step in the right direction.
"Thank you. It's was nothing really. But thank you."
"So tell me about your life Ana. Now in the present not in the past." I know everything I need to know about her from the file but I need to know how she feels about it. Before I move forward with buying a bank I need to know that he likes it there. Somehow I don't think she does.
"Well. I work in a bank now. It's nice. The people are nice. I'm good at it. And I still bartend a few nights a week. Dad or Jose watch Leo."
"What about your books and school?"
"You remember about the books? "
"I remember everything." She sighs at my words and shakes her head while furrowing her brow. "Books... School?"
"Um, yeah. I still read a lot. And school well, I always think about going back but there is never time really. Or money. So maybe one day when Leo is in school and things are more stable."
"Ana I can make you life..." My words are broken by a shrill cry and Leo calling out for his mother. Before I can even react Ana is already half way up the stairs. I am not sure what to do. Should I stay put or follow. My usually dead on gut reactions are failing me. They always have when it comes to Ana. And I fear they always will.
"Fuck it." I mutter to myself. I am half way up the stairs when I hear it. And it stops me dead in my tracks.
E… E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E…E… E…B…E…B…A…F# minor, E…
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Day is a breaking in my soul.
The notes that have haunted me for nearly every day of my life. Only now, they are accompanied by the words that have eluded me for just as long.
Oh where are our dear Fathers
Oh where are our dear Fathers
They are down in the valley a praying
Day is a breaking in my soul
Everything starts to fall out if focus and yet it is all so very clear.
Ana is singing my mothers song to our son and then his sweet voice joins in by the time I am standing in the doorway.
Oh where are our dear Mothers
Oh where are our dear Mothers
They are gone to heaven a shouting
Day is a breaking in my soul
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Day is a breaking in my soul
His room is light and cheerful. Bright shades of blue and green. Large stickers of fish on the wall. There is a bookshelf loaded with books and a chair overtaken with stuffed animals. It is a room that every child should have and you would only understand this if you didn't have it.
Their song ends and Ana whispers to him, words of comfort and kindness I cannot hear. They embrace, he clings to her shirt and she smooths over his hair.
The back of my throat begins to burn and my eyes get blurry. I wipe them with my thumb and forefinger and I have cried twice in a matter of hours. More than I have in years.
I want to sit beside them on the bed and wrap my arms around then both. I want to create this memory for my son, I want him to remember this forever because I know that I will. I know no one will ever understand how much this moment has meant to me. How much I have waited for all the pieces of my life to snap together. So I want a witness to it. Someone to testify that this happened and that I was here. And I want Ana to be that witness and Leo too.
I know I have not earned the right to be apart of their happiness. And for that reason alone I turn away and make my way back down stairs.
I have ignored my phone all day, it's the first time in years that it hasn't been firmly planted in my hands. I have no clue what is going on in my life right now, and I realize how little I care. I have achieved all in business that I ever dreamed I would and have achieved so little in life. No friends to speak of, my family is a passing thought that I have always seen as more of a nuisance. My relationships have been purely sexual and dominate ones at that. I wonder if I am truly capable of change. Is it possible for me to repair and rebuild all I have neglected. If I thinking it as a failed business I have acquired maybe there is something I can do.
Ana returns and I am seated at the small table where she left me. I cleared all the dishes from dinner and put on another pot of tea. She smiles at me and I swear to God what I feel cannot even be captured by words. Maybe not even music.
"Is he alright?"
"Yeah. He has really vivid dreams and I am sure the fever didn't help much."
"But he is okay."
"Yes Christian he is fine. Already back to sleep." I feel my shoulders relax and it must be a visible change because Ana smiles and rests her hand on my shoulder. "You could have come in and said good night."
"You knew I was there?"
"Well yes. The stairs creak and you have a very heavy presence. I think I will always know when you are close."
"What was that song you were singing?"
"Bright morning stars?" I nod yes. "I don't know, he just started singing it one day and it sang it so much I learned it too."
"Where did he learn it from?"
"I don't know really. Maybe TV. My dad is always watching old movies." I nod, finding the circumstance to great to be a fluke or even serendipity. But I guess the origin does not matter. We make our tea together in silence, the calm before the inevitable storm. I notice that we both take our time, enjoying the silence together.
"We need to talk about out future now. We have covered out past and our present."
"I knew this was coming. Okay Christian, say what you need to say."
"Well things are going to have to change. From a security standpoint once word gets out that I have a son. Leo would be a prime ransom target." Ana's eyes grow wide with fear and she wraps her arms around herself
"Then no one needs to know!"
"That is unavoidable. The press will see you and I together with a child. They will figure it out. I would be best for you and Leo to move with me I to be city. I can arrange to have your things moved by weeks end. There is plenty of room in my apartment."
"I will not. We have a life and a home here. Family and friends."
"You could have a life and a home with me Ana. I could keep you safe and happy."
"I am already safe and happy!"
"Ana, maybe I am not being clear. I want you. In my life. Everyday. I want Leo the same way. I want to love the both of you and I want to do that where I can keep you safe."
She looks at me with a new eye. I could see her resolve and her inner battle.
"Ana. I love you. In all forms. In all thoughts. I love you. And I plan on loving you for the rest of my life and maybe even beyond that. You love me too so don't try to convince yourself otherwise."
She is a complete and total contradiction, torn between what she wants versus what she believes to be possible. She sets down her tea cup and pushes herself slightly away from the table, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders. I see my words have shaken her and that was their intent but I was hoping for a different reaction all together.
"If you loved me, truly loved me then nothing could have kept you away. Nothing. What you feel has nothing to do with love. I was a distraction for you. And you were a rock I could beat myself against. I'm tired of being angry with you for not loving me. I've given it so much energy. So much time. It's kept me from loving anyone else and maybe even myself. The truth is I'm better without you. These days since seeing you again have proven that. So, you should go and I should let you leave." She stands up from the table, placing her dish and cup in the sink. I have all these things I want to say. But there is a part if me that knows she may be right. She is better without me. She turns to leave the room but before she does she looks down at me and rests her hand on my shoulder. I wrap my finger around her wrist and feel the quickening of her pulse.
"You can always see your son and we will have to figure out all of this together in time. But what you want from me, what you think you want. What almost happened here today. I won't allow it to happen Christian. I just won't."
"You are trying to convince yourself more then me Ana. "
"Perhaps that it true. But it does not change the fact that our time came and went. It's sad but it's true. And you want me to fit into your life and give up the life I have created. I won't do that. My life is not perfect or easy but it is mine. And you cannot ask of me what you wouldn't give up yourself." She leans down and gently kisses my temple, the tender touch radiates through my entire body and the feeling of safety I have enjoyed all day is now nothing more than a memory.
"I'll miss the idea of you more than anything else." And then she is gone, all I hear is the softness of her footfalls up the stairs.
I have done my best to control the need deep inside to be in total control. I know that in this situation that will never be the case and the more intro to exorcise my control over Ana the more she will pull away. But I also know when I am right and Leo and Ana blowing in the wind of my life will make them unsafe. Ana is only seeing this from her small section of the world. She is right she has created a life for herself. A life of total isolation. I love of quiet desperation. A life that feeds into every feeling she has of inadequacy, the feeling I am fairy certain I have created. No, the feeling was there the night that we met.
I am torn. I know I should just leave. It would be doing what she asked and not pushing to hard but I worry that if I leave now she will never let me in again. Ana has changed more than I even realized. Years of lies and keeping secrets from her family will do that to a person. I know that all too well. You isolate yourself emotionally and and put up walls so tall and strong that no one can break through. These last few days have weakened her slightly and I think that is the only reason she has let me in at all. If I leave now and give her space and time, I could lose her forever. She will allow a relationship with Leo, of that I am sure. Her heart has not hardened yet. It is still as soft and tender as the day we met. But she will never allow it to love me. Not truly, she will deny herself. And I can't allow that to happen.
I climb the creaky stairs and find her bedroom door open. She is on the bed curled up on one end. The light from the hallway highlights her figure. She knows I am there watching but she does not move. Instead she waits for me as I have waited for her. I ease beside her, the bed shifting under my weight. Her body conforms to mine as mine conforms to hers. This is our compromise.
She was right I would not give up my life if she asked me to. But then again she hasn't asked. I only know that I will give it up willingly if need be.
My arms envelop her, my hands finding hers in the darkness and our fingers entwine. We don't speak, there really is nothing to say we simply are what we are right here in this moment and for now that will have to be enough.