A picture forms in my mind—of my stern grandmother in her kitchen, messing around with some of her mason jars.And at her elbow is this boom box, playing the voice of the daughter who left and never looked back.
How lonely must she have been?
And I wonder if it was anything like when I lived on my own for the first time.
My first semester of college.
The memories don’t come to me as individual days.They all flow together.
When I first left for my East Coast college, I was excited to strike out on my own.To show that I could do just fine without my family.
The first few weeks were okay, but at some point, everything shifted.
Living started to feel like a long, cold stream that dragged me along, keeping me on the edge of drowning.Floating always in the middle, where I couldn’t grasp anything to stop a forward progression to nowhere.
In the beginning, I made it out of my room, attended classes, wrote words that resembled notes.
But near the end, I couldn’t leave my bed.
And I couldn’t figure out why.
In my mind, I would tell myself to get up, to function.But my limbs were heavy.Waterlogged with depression.
I didn’t have that word then.
The only word I had was drowning.
Someone had to jump in after me.Someones.My brothers drove hundreds of miles when I stopped returning their calls.They found me in the cold river of my misery, dragged me out, bundled me up, and brought me home.
I didn’t save myself.
That’s something I’m working on.
Can I survive here?Can I survive anywhere that’s not right next to my lifeline?
Or will my head slip under the surface again?
I glance over at the bottle of pills on the nightstand.They help.I can take my medication without my brothers.I can talk to my therapist without my brothers.
But can I build a life?Make friends?Fall in love?
Terror that the current will drag me under again has me wanting to get in my truck and drive back to Denver.This experiment could be cataclysmic.
And that’s all this is.A test.
Anything I build here, I need to be ready to leave behind.Like a temporary structure in a flood zone.
11
WARNER
The rusted boltcomes loose easily for me.
“You keep helping me out like this, I’m gonna have to put you on payroll.”Harvey, owner of the mechanics shop where I’m working, glares at me.But that’s normal for the man, so I’m not concerned.Plus, he’s spent the last twenty minutes cursing at this bolt, trying to get it off without damaging anything.
“Don’t worry about it.You let me work on my bikes here.We’re square.”
The gray-haired human huffs and holds out his hand.I drop the lug nut into his palm and move on to the next one on the wheel.
