The Burning Side(33)

I notice, for the first time, her penciled handwriting at the bottom of the page. Greatest gift I’ve ever been given. She erased Graetest to fix it. She always writes in pencil so letter reversals won’t be permanent.

I flip through the pages and discover that her careful handwriting fills the margins, following Andre’s journey like this fictional character was a friend sending letters home. Like she hadn’t already read this five times before it took physical form.

When Andre splits from his traveling companions: I’m sorry they hurt you.

When Andre traipses through Cambodia and has a panic attack: Wish I were there.

When Andre discovers the seventh city and bathes himself in the riches he despises, longing only for the people he left behind: I see you in every page, Leo. You’re my Andre, my seventh city, and I’m so glad we found each other. She erased ohter and fixed it.

I sit, stunned. Not only by the fresh cut of her sincere love, but by the way she has transcribed me. Andre’s eyes are brown; mine are green. Andre is short; I am tall. I’m not Andre, am I?

I shake my head. Of course April saw what I didn’t. The veil of fiction is paper-thin, fooling only the author himself. My gaze drops to the bottom of the final page, where April has left a missive in permanent ink. Love you, L.

And the truth stains me: love cannot be reversed, cannot be erased, maybe cannot even be a mistake. It can end—and it does—but it is never undone. The book falls shut in my lap as I look up at the ceiling, toward where my wife lies sleeping between the two permanent marks of our love. I’ve been trying to erase what can’t be erased. I want April to be the woman who betrayed me or the woman on my heart’s pedestal. I want her to be wrong or right, good or bad, a liar or trustworthy. But she’s all of that, and I don’t know what to do with it—with a woman who both bandages and burns.

I want her to be gone, and I want her to be mine.

I think of her with Cody and curse her.

I think of calling the attorney and curse myself.

I think of going to April right now, up the stairs.

But then there is a clatter in the kitchen, and I frown.

Tossing my book onto the ripped plastic bag, I tug a shirt on and walk warily around the corner. My father-in-law is standing in the shadows, and a bowl is broken on the counter.

“You all right?” I step forward, but he backs up like a cornered animal.

I reach toward the broken pieces, tentatively. “I’ll just help get this cleaned up?”

A light switch is flipped behind me, shining light onto Billy’s face, which is tinted with fear.

Deb rushes in. “Everyone okay?”

“Deb.” Billy says her name like a pronouncement. “The plates weren’t in the right place.” He looks at me. “But this young man came to help.”

I start to clean the ceramic pieces, my brow furrowing.

Deb looks from me to Billy. “Let’s go back to bed?”

She ushers him toward their room, briefly looking over her shoulder. “Thanks, Leo. Sorry about that.” She offers no further explanation.

I carry pieces of the bowl to the trash, wipe the shards with a rag, and then bend level with the counter to wipe it once more. I get a sense of not being alone, and I turn to find April approaching, a scrunchie loose in her hair and her old T-shirt replete with the names of dyslexic celebrities. I could recite those names from memory. I swallow at the sight of her. You’re my Andre, my seventh city, and I’m so glad we found each other.

“What happened? I heard a crash.”

“Uh, I accidentally—”

“Leo.” Her face tightens. “Was it Dad? Tell me.”

“He’s fine, but he seemed…confused.”

She looks down at her own shoulder, a gesture I know to mean that she’s trying not to cry.

“Is your dad— I mean, do you know if maybe his memory—”

She’s nodding, yes.

Even though I asked the question, I’m shocked by the answer. I close the gap between us, pulling April into a hug. Her scrunchie drops to the floor. Questions line up inside me, but the expression on her face answers most of them: Billy’s diagnosis is fresh, and it is bad. I don’t know what it is or how long April has known; all I know is that he looked at me like he was in a trance.

This young man came to help.

But Billy is young. Not even sixty.

April hasn’t let go of me. I know so little about permanence, but I know there is pain here and now. So I hold her closer.

Soon, the ruthless memory of Cody slithers between us, and I pull away.





APRIL


2021

DESPITE TIGHTLY HELD HOPES, I have a second cesarean. Otto is asleep as I begin to bleed. As we try to get him to suckle. My son is minutes old, and I’m already mad at him. Why couldn’t he come out the right way? Why won’t he open his eyes or his mouth when they want him to?

They say he’s healthy. They weigh him and check his reflexes and put goop on his eyes. It just takes C-section babies longer to wake up, they tell me. I know that, I want to tell them. I’ve done this before. I’ve had the knife to my stomach, the hazy weeks in bed, the newborn who is somehow neither awake nor asleep when he should be.

A nurse carries him back to me with his chest in her palm, her thumb under one of his arms and her pinky under the other. His little body curls around her hand like a lion cub hanging from its mother’s mouth. I can see the beadlike articulation of his curved spine. I have another baby, vertebrae and all.