2007 - Vol. 4, Issue 4

Some years winter sneaks up like a small child; other years it rolls over everything in its path and blows the cold air so hard into the spaces between the windows and the wall that I think it will surely break the entire pane of glass right out. This year, winter did a little bit of both. The first few weeks were glorious and warm. The sun danced, and I walked my child to and from school every day. The baby, strapped in his stroller, reached his hand out to grab falling leaves. He squealed with delight when he saw his brother running down the gently sloped pavement path from the kindergarten doors to the street where I stood, waiting. We talked all the way home, laughed at the other children, and arrived home with rosy cheeks, ready for an after–school snack and homework.

Then, a few days ago, everything changed. The wind is blowing; rain, hail and snow partner up together, doing a square dance with the cold hollowness that inevitably is winter. The howling sound of frozen air is behind me at all times. Our old windows invite every season in for a visit, and as I change the baby's diaper I can hear old–man winter walking through the hallways. I hear him as I try to prepare a useless dinner that will likely end in anger. He stalks me as I bathe the children, clean the house, and fold laundry. He wraps icy fingers around my arms and legs as soon as I step from the shower, and no matter how high I set the thermostat, I wake up folded around myself, shivering, in the middle of every night.

If not the cold, then the dreams wake me. Awful dreams of severed limbs and predators who wait in darkness for me to pass with no one around to protect me. I have not slept through the night in months, and when I wake I look up to the ceiling, watch the reflections of the street lights and the moon. I stare, sometimes for hours, at the same spot. It is a square of light that forms on the ceiling, and the shadows of branches jump and weave in and out of the frame, as though I am looking through a very small window in a black–and–white film. I like to pretend, some nights, that I am alone. Even though I frequently cry in panic over the thought of being betrayed, cheated on, or flat-out abandoned, on some nights I play a game with myself, to see if I could keep going were I really alone.

I lie very still and watch the shadows, telling myself that there is no one else in the world I have to worry about besides my sons and me. I make up simple stories of going to the grocery store and only buying the boys' food because everything I see for me, I remember eating with someone else, and it makes me sad. I imagine I have a full–time job and have to put the baby in daycare all day, only seeing him for an hour every night and on weekends. I pretend to be lying in bed all by myself; I scoot as far over as I can so none of my flesh is touching the man beside me — even the blankets are not being shared. Then I watch that window and try to sleep. I know I will have to do this for real someday so I need the practice, but I can never last into a return to sleep. I get so cold, I ache from the inside out, and I can feel my chest closing around the emptiness I have intentionally inflicted. Finally, I roll up in a ball and press myself against my partner, leaching his body heat, and feeling his breath through my own lungs, making them release.

In the morning, I do not speak of such things. I get my son ready for school and blast the heater as I drive him to the front of the building. I watch him hop out and join a group of friends. I return home to listen to complaints about money, bills, bosses, dirty clothes, dust, dishes, dinner, pain, pills, life, and me in general. I hold the baby as we kiss and wave goodbye to Daddy who promises to come home again tonight, as he has every night for so many years. He does not realize that he stopped coming home a long time ago. He pops in for a quick one–night stand sometimes, he has even stayed with us for several days at a time, being dad and friend and lover. It never lasts though. All it takes is one late notice from the credit card company, running out of socks in his drawer in the morning, or running out of pain pills over the weekend, and he is gone.

His body moves through the house like it is occupied by the rightful owner, and I want to hit it. I want to shake that body, scream at it, and tell it to stop walking around like it has fooled everyone, because I know. I know that it is empty and mean, it has not fooled me, and all I want is for it to go lie down and be still, hide itself from the boys and me until their Daddy can come back and slip inside his skin again and play. I tried one time to tell that walking zombie skin that I missed its owner. I begged and pleaded with it to bring him back; I kissed it, held it, stroked its cheek, and wrapped my fingers in the hair on the back of its neck, swirling circles with my fingertips and whispering how much I loved its owner. That skin lay with me for a night, letting me talk sweet and make it feel good, then it got right up, turned to me, and told me I was crazy and far too needy. The only thing worse than trying to love a zombie is fighting with one, because it is already dead and ruthless. I am the one who fills it with food, dresses it up, and follows it around trying to make it happy. I reminded it that long ago, when its owner always lived inside, it was happy almost always, and we used to do things together: go to dinner, the movies, or the park. We used to make love like two crazed teenagers, then collapse into each other and eat spoonfuls of ice cream over mounds of pillows and damp bed sheets.

The zombie body becomes enraged when I tell it stories of how happy it used to be, back when it was occupied. It hurls insults and threats at me until I finally break like a thin crystal vase shattering over floor and furniture after a careless bump from the mantle. Once the mess is made, I have to clean it by myself, and some nights, I just don't have the energy. So, I follow the zombie stumbling up to bed. I lie down and tell myself that tomorrow will be different. I imagine the owner returning to fill the skin laying beside me with the gentle sweetness of the days before the pain.

I hate the pills that carry my love in and out of existence, yet I beg God to let him find more after he leaves in the morning so that the boys can play with Daddy before bed, and so I can see the man I fell in love with one more time. Seeing him makes it so much easier to glue myself back together, and the pieces that have been left missing don't seem to matter as much.

I do not even try to sleep tonight. I roll over onto my back and wonder why there is not a little white or green or purple pill to take away my pain like those yellow ones do for him. I wonder why it is so much more difficult to find the right ointment to soothe inflammation of the soul and why I cannot stop the terrible burning that seems to radiate out from my very center with a spoonful of foul–tasting liquid or a tiny, powdery pill that I could throw back with my morning coffee, the way the zombie does when he has them. Then I wonder how long it would take before a pill like that would turn me into a zombie, too. I stare up at the ceiling and look through my small window, waiting for the shadow of the man I love to cross in front and smile again.