21. Who I Used to Be

Who I Used to Be

It's 11:00 p.m. when I get back home, and the light is on in our bedroom.

I open the front door and put down my bag, get a glass of water from the kitchen, sit down at my drafting table. I start going through the emails from the day, replying to any that seem urgent. I reset a few meetings, calming a few clients, as much as a late-night message can.

I am careful to move quickly. But as I head up the stairs, the light in our bedroom goes off. And by the time I walk in, Jack is lying on his side, facing away from me.

I tiptoe into the bathroom and wash up. I take off my clothes. I slip into our bed, beside him. I'm relieved to be in from the cold. I'm relieved to be beside him.

I know he's still awake. I can feel it, in the space of his breaths. I can feel it on his body. Maybe he is trying to give me a break from a conversation neither of us feels good enough to have. But it feels more like a check-in—a final check-in—to see if I'll be the one to do it. For the first time in a long time. If I'll cross the divide.

Even in the beginning, I crossed the divide without equivocation. Like an instinct. I just wanted to be closer to him. I still want that, except not enough to overcome it. The part of me that insists on keeping still.

I don't like that I'm thinking about the beginning. In my experience that usually happens when you are approaching an end you don't want. Why are beginnings and endings so intricately linked in that way? Maybe because they aren't the opposite of each other. Their DNA is actually the same. They are the two things we all try to fix.

Either way, I don't move toward him.

Either way, this is how you begin to fail.

I dream of my father.

If I believed differently—if I would allow myself to believe differently—I would say that it was less a dream and more him visiting.

I can smell him. The blend of him. Peppermint and fresh coffee and forest, courtesy of the soap he always used. In the dream, he is wearing jeans (which he rarely wore), and he has grown a beard.

I reach out and touch it. It's scraggly and soft and very long. It doesn't feel at all like it belongs on him. But he gives me a kiss on the forehead. And it's him .

Hello, my love , he says.

I think we are on dry land, but then the water comes in fast, covering our ankles, moving toward our knees. We are on the cliff together. Windbreak's cliff. And my father takes my hand and starts walking toward the edge.

Dad? I say. I'm pulling him back toward me. Dad, don't.

Too close, he says. That was too close.

I say, I'm so happy that I didn't miss you.

He says, Almost, Nora-nu. You almost missed me.

He says, Don't miss this too.