Me:Any chance you have that Airbnb free soon? Like, for a few weeks?
I’m not sure who invented goddamn text bubbles that let you know someone is typing, but I hate that sadist right now because there are bubbles and then no bubbles. A number of times.
This was a mistake. I took the vacation fling too far, and Dave is trying to figure out how to reply. He’s hesitant to say anything, right? But he volunteered his Airbnb info, suggested that I might like it there. Although that was more for wintertime. Belatedly, I recognize that it’s prime rental season and that he must be booked up.
Twenty minutes later, a text comes through.
Dave:Sure thing.
This seems curt, but I take him at his word because I need to.
Me:Thank you.
Yet I want to share that I need to run away, that my life is falling apart. ThatI’mfalling apart. That I need to escape all the things. That I want to scream, and cry, and make everything that’s happening untrue.
He sends me the address, and then after a few exchanges, he vehemently refuses to let me pay for even a month. We can argue about that later, I decide.
Before I go to bed, I check on the cats. Going back to the alley is giving me flashbacks to my wrist snapping, back to the scene of the crime. After I set down food in multiple spots, I very, very carefully take a seat on the steps of the fire escape and watch as that little gray striped kitten shares food with a raccoon, eating side by side. Slowly, I inch down the stairs, cupping my cast and sling in my good hand, and walk over and talk to him, using a silly high-pitched voice and baby words, as one does with cute animals.
And while he perks up, it’s then that I learn that I was wrong. His mom didn’t love him the most.
She hated him the most because an absolutely horrifying and feral howl comes from behind me, and I turn to see a cat who is clearly this stripy baby’s mother. His spitting image, just larger. She is pissed I’m feeding him and caring for him, and I realize that whileIthink he’s tiny and cute, she sees him as the runt of the litter. She doesn’t want me anywhere near him, and she’s been pushing him away from any food resources. Her continued wails give me chills, so I back off, afraid that I could make this situation worse.
I crawl back up the stairs into bed, and RobBob and I voice message for hours, reminiscing, laughing, and sharing all things Patrick.
We are both alone and destroyed in our specific kind of loss.
We were eachjusta friend. Like, nobody feels the need to reach out to us, to check in, to do much of anything.
We share a unique and lonely kind of hell because people don’t understand that our worlds have also been shattered. Losing a child, a spouse, a parent? Those are at the top of the pain pyramid. But the lower hierarchies hurt in their own ways.
Katrina’s loss is tremendous—toppling ours by miles—so I almost feel guilty for hurting as much as I do. It doesn’t feel right to claim any grief when mine is nothing compared to hers. To the heartache she and Tommy will feel for years.
Granted, nothing feels right. I fling a pillow over my head and toss and turn until I am so worn out.
I know I won’t sleep until I send one text.
Me:That bald guy from The Princess Bride, Wallace Shawn. He was on SVU. (Can’t believe I know his name.)
My phone dings almost immediately with Dave’s reply.
Dave:Yes, that episode was also with Judd Hirsch. Didn’t take either of them as serious actors until then. Just brilliant.
I actually smile for the first time in days.
Fucking make me fall in love, Dave. Again.
Chapter 10
The regimen my nurse friend helped me out with is good, but my arm still hurts like all hell. A simple online search tells me that this is my lot in life for however long. Yeah, not surprising. Bet there are a bunch oflots in lifeI’m about to deal with.
Trying to process physical pain and emotional pain is clearly too much, so making the decision to just completely deal with neither seems reasonable. Maybe not responsible, but I’m happy to do so. It’s hard to reconcile that I’m not crying or screaming, and I feel like a bit of a monster because I should be doing both. But nothing is happening. My heart is empty of even basic emotion. The only feeling parts of me are soundly telling me to get the hell out of here.
Megan Madonna is again a lifesaver, and after balking at the state of my wrist, she questions this Maine trip and helps me pack. She agrees to watch over my place for however long I’m gone, and I’m hoping she’ll have some fun here in this Newbury Street spot. I do laugh when she presents to me a pair of pajamas with polar bear prints. This girl knows I’ve been following the San Diego Zoo cameras for ages and that I’ve been obsessed with these gorgeous animals. How I cried when one of the bears died. I laugh harder when she gives me a matching fleece wrap with a hood, complete with cute bear ears.
“Should you find yourself somewhere colder after this trip.”
We shoot a post about my arm and all the surgery details while I’m slumped on my couch. But only after she’s pointed out my hair situation and sort of fixed it. Bless her.
