A Window Seat Aug 28 '02    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Personal Care Kimberly Clark : WINDOWS® Smoked Gr From $20 Kimberly Clark Kimberly Clark Profession From $3 The Bottom Line this is part one of a short story. if enough people seem to care, i'll post the second (and final) part....but either way, criticism is welcome, encouraged and needed. These windows seem different, softer, fragmented. I look out them, through them, and see my reflection back. I used to sit here for hours, reading or just staring out into the distance. Michael used to ask me what was wrong, at first, but learned in time to let me have the space. He would rub my shoulders and tell me he loved me, moving back into the study to do his work. He was a writer, a good one too, but very little of what he wrote ever got published. I used to feel so lucky, being his one true reader, the one who read everything. Now that’s he dead – and somewhat in the public eye, in death’s cruel manner – I’ve been getting calls from publishers who never thought to bother before, turning down his query letters or manuscripts outright, sending generic responses through the mail that broke his heart. He had a big heart too, soft, but never pure enough for its own self. He always thought he should be better, as a writer and as a person. Writers, he would often say, they watch and they observe and they comment - if someone will let them - but they don’t do anything, or not enough anyway. He used to tell me how they were all cowards, and then included himself. I think I am probably still in shock or something close; I haven’t allowed myself to feel all the grief that I know is there. In only the small amounts I’ve let out I feel empty. I don’t know how much more I could stand to give up, so I try and keep it inside, just under the surface. Still, it can strike out of nowhere, as is its way, and I’m overcome by it, the weight of it, the feel of it when he’s not here to soothe it gone. And he never will be here, not any more; only in the past, in my thoughts, the ones that I chose to hold onto. It’s so hard for me to realize that he has said all he will ever say, written all he will ever write, thought every thought he will ever think. I loved his mind, the way it worked. He continually fascinated me with the way he thought about things, the way he perceived the world around him. Around us. And since he passed away these windows seem different - or maybe just indifferent. So much has changed around me, around them, that perhaps by staying the same they manage to look out of place. Pillars of familiarity in a forever changed world. My sister, Marilyn, claims to be my only truly honest friend. She tells me the things that she knows are hard for me to hear. She tells me this is why she is my friend and that this is what friends are really for, when it comes right down to it. But I’m not so sure that a good friend doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear, now and then. Covers the truth with a blanket of warmth that enfolds you because it is what you need. I bring this up because she recently told me that I glorify Michael a bit too much. It’s not fair to those still left in your life, she says. It’s been too long and it’s time you saw the good and the bad. All of us have that within us, she tells me, good and bad. It’s time you realized that Michael was a man, not a saint. That he drank too much, that he let his own lack of self-confidence keep him from becoming what everyone knew he had it in him to become. That he was haunted by a depression that sometimes kept him from being the father that his children really needed. That he settled rather than fought for his life. I nod my head, but more so that she will stop talking than because I think she’s right. Or maybe I know she’s right but I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to see the bad in him. There was too much good. The way he’d make dinner at night when I was tired or the way he’d do the dishes if I had a headache. The way he liked to hold me when I looked my worst and tell me I’m beautiful, even knowing that I look nothing like the woman he married, that I was run down by time and pregnancies and stress, knowing wrinkles don’t go away but increase. I always believed him because he said it like it was the first time. The way his pillow smelled when I rolled over in the morning and he was already gone, writing in the other room. The way his nose crinkled up when he was about to laugh. But there was the bad too, sure, and in time I might even admit it; not remembering but simply acknowledging that it was there, the way you remember something as distant as a first kiss or an old teacher, keeping blurry what can never be all clear. And the bad I saw in him, it wasn’t bad so much as just not what I was expecting. And the good so often covered it, like it never existed, or existed only to contrast. Without some bad then what can be any good - how can it be defined without an opposite to define it by? Still Marilyn tells me it’s time to move on. Not to be over him but to learn to live with him gone. But I’m not sure I have that kind of strength, the resolve to make a move towards faith in any one or anything. And it breaks my heart sometimes, because I want the kind of strength that is strong enough to echo in the eyes of those around you. I want to be a rock for others. I want my children to lean on me when the sadness overtakes them. And I don’t want them to ever forget Michael. Finally out the window I see the headlights of an approaching car. In the bright glare of the lights I think of killing Marilyn for putting me up to this, knowing already what I’ll say when I call her later. It’s too soon. It’s way too soon. I think of religion and what I believe, as he steps out of his car and walks to my door. If Michael can see this then I don’t want it. I wouldn’t want him to know I’m moving on. I’m not moving on, I think, as he rings the doorbell. Never, I whisper, never my sweet Michael; not from you honey. I make no movement towards the door. Instead I sit here, paralyzed and reflected, wondering again why the windows seem so different. * * * * His name is Alan and I barely even know him. This is what I think about as we walk towards the car, me slightly behind him. That I hardly know this man. I don’t know his middle name, I don’t know the places he’s been, or even the way, until now, he looks walking from behind. The things you ache for as a lover, memorize as a wife, and glorify as a widow. And I’m not yet sure how this beats being lonely. Alan is decent enough to open my car door first and watches as I step into the car, noticing its interiors and smelling its smell, knowing his smell is somewhere mixed in; wondering how you place smells in unfamiliar places and what your own smell adds to the mix. He steps in and adjusts the seatbelt over his narrow frame. I think he might be balding, but it’s cute on him, for now, and I don’t mind it. “So, then, I guess we’re off, huh?” “Yep,” I say as the car backs out of the driveway, bright headlights throwing beams against the garage and house, leaving odd shaped shadows behind us. I sat lonely at the table most of the night, despite him being there. We talked mostly as two people who didn’t know each other would be expected to, turning awkward pauses and sputtered sentences into an art form. We worked through our dinners anxiously, tried to laugh when the chance presented itself, and drank as much wine as we possibly could. Two empty bottles before the check even came, and an after dinner cocktail to further blur the night. I ordered a coffee with a shot of amaretto in it, the same drink Michael always ordered after a particularly good meal. It was masochistic, but I needed to feel him there in some way. “So, well, it’s been interesting, huh,” he said, as we left the restaurant, heading towards his car. “You gotta tell me though – am I that bad a date?” I smiled against my intentions and it felt good. I let the cool Seattle air blow against me, sweeping the shoulder length blond hair up against my face, feeling it in my mouth like a tickle. I looked up at stars that hadn’t changed since before I was born, loving how they looked, like an old friend’s worn face. Knowing I was sufficiently drunk. The best kind of beautiful. “No, you weren’t bad at all,” I replied. “Sorry that I wasn’t all…there. I’m just not. Still.” Tears began to form in my guilty eyes. “Hey, it’s okay. Hey…I know. It’s tough, it’s gotta be. I understand.” “No offense, Alan, but I really don’t think you do.” “I’m not expecting anything from you, Laura.” He paused and looked around, searching for the car. He must have been a little drunk himself, I thought. “All right though, fair enough,” he continued, looking back towards me. “Maybe I don’t understand.” He took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and offered one to me. I took it casually, as if I hadn’t fought wars to quit smoking just a few years back. I let him light it for me and watched as he lit his own. “But I do know what it’s like to hurt. To lose a part of yourself,” he mumbled, letting smoke spill out of his thinly parted lips. Suddenly I was all ears. Alan began to take shape as a person before me. I needed to hear other stories. I was so tired of my own. But he didn’t say anything. He let silence make the mystery deeper. I didn’t want to pry, as I hated it when others pushed themselves into stories they had no business hearing – but the fact that he wasn’t telling me started to drive me crazy. I almost understood the urge in others. “Can I ask, Alan?” “Ask what?” “I mean about what happened. About the reasons you said you understood.” “Everyone knows pain on some level, Laura. This life is filled to the brim with it. Especially if you’re looking.” He looked over at me with almost accusing eyes, and I was taken off guard. “What’s that supposed to mean exactly?” I asked with an edge, enabled further by the wine. “Nothing. Really, nothing.” “I don’t believe you.” (the ever enigmatic)....to be continued....

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