quintessence. (5 page)

“Yes, Maggie just took her first shot,” Hannah yelled. The scene was comical—her holding these plastic things up to her breasts and laughing. It was as natural looking as she said. She was a mom, and it suited her. She never spoke of being one when we were kids, but seeing her now, it was right.

“You’re fuller now,” I said to Hannah.

“Well yes, that’s what happens when I go three hours without emptying these babies,” she said, nodding at her breasts.

I laughed. “No, I mean
you
are fuller all around—like your spirit is no longer deflated.”

She smiled at me. “Thank you for saying that, Maggie. I’ve been thinking about Lily a lot the last few weeks. It’s been three years now and I don’t remember the bad as much anymore. I remember the happy times more from when we were kids.”

“That makes me happy to hear that. That’s what is different; the guilt isn’t there anymore,” I said.

“It isn’t. Since having Smee, I’ve been thinking about innocence more. He’s so fucking beautiful, sweet, innocent, and he’s perfect. I know he will fuck up someday, just like every other person on this planet. He’s perfect in his imperfections. We all are. So, if I can love him with that kind of unconditional love, I need to share some of it with myself,” Hannah said.

“I’ll drink to that,” Brecken said with a wink and took Hannah’s shot.

I stood and leaned over Hannah to kiss her head. “I will too, but first I need to get another shot to do it.”

I walked from the room and joined the guys in the living room.

“You ready to take a shot with me, Karl?” I asked, nodding my head toward the kitchen. “We have to drink to innocence.”

“I wasn’t planning on drinking much this evening, but that is a toast I can drink to,” he said, standing from the couch and following me.

I poured our shots and handed his to him. We lifted our glasses to toast, and as we took our shots the warmth of the alcohol didn’t overpower the warmth Karl brought with him.

“I don’t want to drink a lot either,” I said.

He lifted an eyebrow in question.

“I mean, I want to drink just enough so I don’t feel as much, but I still want to think. Is that possible?” I asked.

“I think it can be possible, yes,” he said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms.

“So why was innocence a worthy toast to drink to?” I asked as I lifted myself onto the counter to sit.

He leaned toward me and I couldn’t help but lose myself to his words as I watched his lips. “Innocence begins and ends everything. We come into the world innocent, and in that last breath we remain so. It depends on what definition you use for it. On one hand, innocence can be defined as the freedom from moral wrong or sin—if you want to think about it in a religious sense. But, another definition is simplicity, which means the art of being simple—not being artificial or intricate. Death isn’t artificial. So you see, innocence can be found at both the beginning and the end of life. That makes it something to drink to.”

“Wow,” I said, curling in my lips and biting them to capture my laugh.

“I’m a walking trivia game,” Karl said with a smirk.

He pulled his hat from his head and ran his hand through his crazy hair. I didn’t notice its length earlier. It was past his shoulders, and his beard was bushy and unkempt. He wore a flannel shirt buttoned to the top button.

“You’re a fun person, Karl. Why did I miss it before?” I asked.

“You want me to answer that?” he asked.

“Of course I do.”

“Because you looked one and a half feet around you,” he said and I gave him a “what the hell” expression. He stepped from the counter to stand in front of me to explain.

He smiled before continuing, “That’s our level of personal space in the United States—one and a half feet around us on all sides. I’ve seen it time and again. Most people don’t look past that space. Everything outside that circumference is out there, not part of you. I wasn’t part of your personal space so you didn’t see me. Pay attention next time you’re out in public, and even think about it with acquaintances or close friends.”

I sighed and studied the detail of the cabinets as I thought about what he said. He was right.

“I will pay attention to it.”

“Once you realize it, come back and let me know what you noticed,” he said with a wink and scratch of his bearded chin.

My phone rang from the other room, and I jumped down to answer it. I walked into the living room and my foot dropped more than usual from the alcohol. It made my foot even lazier and more stubborn. My brain gave up on raising its demands.

“Hello,” I said as I answered the unrecognized number.

“Hey, Maggie!” Toby said.

“Toby?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s me. How are you?” he asked.

“I’m good,” I said and knew I didn’t sound convincing.

Gabe gave me an annoyed glance. He told me over and again that I needed to be honest with Toby, and tell him what was going on with me. But, I didn’t want to tell him. I still loved Toby, and I wanted him to have this time.

“How is your trip going? Where are you anyway?” I asked, walking back into the kitchen and taking a seat at the table.

“I’m in Minnesota. I’m getting ready to go back to this cabin I’ve been staying at. I can’t get any reception up there, and there’s no landline. So I had to call from down here at the gas station. It’s been kind of cool being up here all alone and just being. It is quite a change from being in Boston and Detroit. But I needed the decompression after those two cities. I get why Karl does it now,” he said and the mention of Karl made me look over at him sitting with our friends and laughing.

“Yeah, it sounds like it. Karl does a lot of things that make sense,” I said.

Toby laughed. “Well, that’s a change of tune. I didn’t think you liked Karl.”

“I’m learning to move outside my personal space.”

He laughed again. “What does that mean?”

“You know how we have our personal space? I’m trying to move outside that and look at the world around me outside that space. I’ve focused too much on myself.”

“Aren’t we something?” Toby asked. “Here you are trying not to focus on yourself as much and I’m trying to focus more on myself. See, this time apart is helping us. I’ll come home in a month and we’ll be renewed.”

“I think you’re right,” I said. “That makes me happy, Toby. And I needed to feel happy.”

“I’m glad Maggie. I’ve been thinking about you a lot and us. I’ve been searching for answers, and I’ve found some that I look forward to sharing with you someday,” he said with a light laugh.

“I look forward to it. But, I have to let you go now. I’m at Gabe’s with everyone.”

“Oh, let me talk to Gabe,” he said.

I walked into the living room and handed the phone to Gabe, “Toby wants to talk to you,” I said and sat on Gabe’s lap as he hugged me. I’ve always loved Gabe hugs. I rested my head on his shoulder and listened to his laugh through his chest. It reminded me of when I was a little girl and I’d sit on my dad’s lap. Gabe made me feel safe like that. He made everyone feel safe.

That’s what the warmth I kept feeling was—safety and surety. There was a surety in knowing they weren’t going anywhere. There weren’t any ulterior motives with my friends, and there was safety in that.

I laughed and threw a pillow at Blake.

“What was that for?” Blake asked.

“Just because. As much of a turd as you are, you’re still a good friend, Blake.”

“You’re crazy, Maggie,” he said with his brow raised and a crooked grin. “Crazy for not admitting that sooner.”

Brecken backhanded his shoulder and shook her head before kissing his chin.

“It’s true. I love all of you,” I said. “Even my new friends.” I smiled at Brecken and Karl.

Maggie took two more shots after the first few. She kept her nerves to herself and let her laughter take over. I saw the shadow of fear in her eyes and knew she didn’t want to let anyone approach the subject of her health issues. She just wanted to be herself again.

“I want to go for a walk. Karl, will you join me?” Maggie asked as she put on a long, thick sweater. She wrapped it around herself and pulled on her stocking cap. Hannah gave her a smile with a raised brow, and Maggie shrugged as she put her gloved hand in my direction.

My response was to follow her and grab my jacket before heading outside. We kept our hands together. It was wholesome and felt pure. When we reached the sidewalk, I let go of her hand and put my arm out for her to take.

“Why, thank you, sir,” she said with a smile. She tilted her head to the sky and breathed in deep. “I love the smell of winter just on the horizon.”

I followed her lead and did the same thing because I loved the cold smell.

“It feels cleaner, doesn’t it? Like the air is so cold there’s no room for the bad smells and chemicals we smell in the city,” I said.

“Yes. I love winter and I can’t wait for it this year. You know some people hate it. I love it. My favorite thing in the world is a full moon in the middle of nowhere on a winter night. The ground is covered with snow and the moon is so bright, it makes the nighttime light up. It’s magical,” she said as she looked at the waxing moon hanging in the sky.

She walked again, and I switched arms I had her hold onto.

“Hannah, Lily, and I used to sit out in the field behind their house and watch the night sky, waiting for falling stars. That was during the summer, but during the winter we would sneak out at night and run through the field and twirl under the moon. That was amazing,” she said and closed her eyes, breathing in the night air again.

“Why did you ask me to join you and not anyone else?” I asked.

“Because, you understand what I’m going through better than anyone else. I don’t know why, but you do,” she said with a squeeze to my arm.

I stopped our walk and turned to her. I put my hands on the tops of her arms and met her eyes. I liked the smallness of her and it made me feel even more protective and watchful. “I think it’s because we’re both wounded. So I see that in you, and I understand it. When people know you’re wounded—whether in battle, from disease, or by your own doing—they see you in a different way. It’s as if that is how you’re defined from that point forward. But, that isn’t you and it’s not me. We aren’t our disease or wound. We may not be wounded in the same way, but we both have wounds. So I understand that and I’m not looking at you different.”

“What happened to you, Karl?” she asked, and it wasn’t the way others have asked me. She didn’t have the questions on her face like she did the first time I told her I had been in the military. Now she just wanted to know me and my story. We were two human beings connecting on a walk at night.

The needle threaded once more. I tried to stop it. I knew if I threaded that needle now, there would be no going back. My heart felt like one of those empty pockets my grandma made. I couldn’t be more than a friend to her. She wasn’t mine to have. But that needle pulled the thread as soon as she asked the question.

“You want to know?” I asked, and she nodded. “I will tell you part of it at a time, but you have to share some of yours, too. But we also have to tell one part of the wound and then a part of the healing. We can’t focus on the wounds. Deal?” I asked.

“Deal,” she said as she pulled her hand from her glove and put her pinkie up.

“You want me to pinkie swear with you?” I asked on a laugh.

“Of course I do,” she said, wiggling her finger at me.

“Okay, then.” I grabbed her finger with mine and we kept them held for a moment as she gave me a soft smile. She pulled my hand up by our little fingers and lifted them until they were between our faces. She kissed my knuckle and dropped my hand.

The thread pulled through the needle and a knot formed on the end
.

“I served active duty and had a couple deployments. Regardless of where I was, I spent a lot of time being bored, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. It was boredom most of the time, with the occasional high points. But any wound I received while in the military is internal,” I said as I waved my hand in front of my face.

“Okay, now a healing one,” she said with a smile.

“A healing one—well, that would be Bob,” I said.

“Bob?”

“Yes, Bob the squirrel. He’s a friend of mine at my spot. He’s always there and guards the place while I’m away.”

“You have a guard squirrel?” she asked, pulling her lip in and trying not to laugh.

I nodded. “Yes, he’s great. After I came home, I spent a lot of time in the woods near my spot. I had to decompress and reconstruct who I was. Not in the way of finding myself or anything, but in aligning who I was before the military, who I was in the military, and then figure out who I wanted to be in the future. Then the
me
of now came to light. I met Bob, and he helped me find my present tense. Here was this squirrel—a wild animal— that came right up one day. I had been out there for almost two weeks, and I think he just saw me as another being in the woods. Which I was, but having him see me as another creature made me realize that that is how we have to look at each other. We’re all so afraid of each other anymore. I was afraid of myself and everyone else, and I knew when Bob came up that first time that I had to embrace that and show people something different—something authentic. Now your turn,” I said as we rounded a corner toward the park.

“Well, I used to be a dancer,” she said.

“Used to be—like when you were a kid?” I asked.

“Yes and no. Used to be, before all of this happened,” she said as she waved her free hand down her body. “That was one of the first things I saw as something being wrong. My leg was bothering me and I thought I just worked it too hard. Then one day I went to go up on my toes and do what’s called
chaines
turns. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get onto my toes and it was the scariest thing in my life. I became trapped in myself and couldn’t control my body. The class instructor said I looked like a scared dog. She had never seen that fear on someone’s face before,” Maggie said with an attempt at a smile. “But there’s the wound. How about the healing?”

I envisioned myself gathering my pieces of fabric and putting them in a pile on the table at my grandma’s house. I smiled to myself as I hadn’t thought of that table in forever.

“So the healing—I’ve become a fan of horror movies. I used to be scared of them; now they’re less intimidating, because they’re so obscure and out of reality that I find them amusing and distracting.”

I guided us to the playground and took a seat on a swing as Maggie sat on another.

“What do you love most about dancing?” I asked, keeping it present tense in my question. This was something that made her light up and I wanted her to remember it didn’t have to be in the past.

“I loved spinning. I always did.” She looked up the chain of the swing and wrapped the chains and herself up in a circular motion. “Like this,” she said, as she let her hands hang free, outstretched to her side as the swing unwound itself in rapid succession. “That’s what I loved about it; that freedom it brings when the whole world around you spirals. I used to imagine that’s what the little helicopter things falling from trees felt like. They had that one amazing dance as they fell to the ground to start a new tree.”

“I’m sorry I judged you last year. I wasn’t in the right place yet. I hadn’t met Bob,” I said.

She laughed. “Well, I accept your apology and I hope to meet Bob one day to thank him.”

“What made you want to work in advertising?” I asked.

“It had nothing to do with the graphic design or selling products and everything to do with the psychology behind it. The influence—I know it can be bad, I know that. I’ve seen it. Some people can use it to sell crap to people, but I want to focus on products that are useful. There can be good in everything, right?” she asked as she wound her swing up again to spin.

“I suppose you’re right. It just depends on the person’s intention. If someone does something to help people or to lead them toward growth and not to use them—then yes, that is what’s important no matter what you’re doing. But, the flip side is doing something for your own gain. I saw the same thing with people in the military. There were those of us that joined because we wanted to help people; we wanted to defend our country. Then there are those that yes, they wanted to defend our country, but they wanted to just shoot at people. Any chance they could get, they shot. They made the rest of us look bad and unfortunately, those are the ones you hear about in the media most of the time,” I said, spinning my own swing around.

We sat in silence for a time as we both turned our swings around. I stopped mine and just watched her. I watched as she pulled my pieces into alignment, waiting to be sewn all the way together.

“Come here,” I said, putting my hand toward her as I stood from my swing.

I walked us to the merry go round and climbed on it. I stopped her in the center of it. “Okay, wrap your leg around there to balance yourself. Does that feel okay?” I asked, and she smiled at me with a nod.

“Now, just yell if I need to stop,” I said.

I jumped down and started to spin it. I didn’t run with it; I used my upper body strength to get it into motion. I didn’t want to go too fast, because I also wanted to watch her.

She began with her hands on her face and her head tilted back, closed eyes to the sky. “I love this feeling,” she said and her voice became muffled by her mittens. She laughed into her hands and it was the most breathtaking thing I’d seen.

“Put your hands out, Maggie,” I said, and she laughed louder as she dropped her hands to let them trace across the air that spun around her. Though the bottom half of her didn’t move, she let her hands dance through the wind.

As I slowed the motion of the merry go round down, she stilled her hands. She kept them out stretched, her fingers spread wide, and then dropped her chin, giving me a majestic smile.

“That was so much fun. Thank you.”

“You are most welcome, Maggie.”

“I think that’s a healing moment,” she said, as she unwound her leg from the center bar. She stepped to the edge by me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Yes, this is a healing one.”

She breathed in and let out a deep sigh and I heard the tears in the sigh. “I just want to find my present tense, too,” she said.

“You will—be patient. Let it happen and stop resisting it. That’s something I learned. Remember what the Borg said about resistance on
Star Trek
, right?” I laughed.

“It’s futile, I know,” she said with a laugh as she released our hug, but kept her hands on my shoulders. “I will stop, and just let it happen. I will allow my present tense to come. That’s my homework—present tense and personal space?”

“Yes, that’s your homework. If you can’t do what you’ve always done, you just try something new. You try doing it a different way. Get creative. I know you can,” I said with a pinch to her chin.

“Will do,” she said, and leaned in and kissed my cheek. She breathed in deep when she felt me tense at the motion. My fingers tightened on her forearms as my eyes closed. It was the closest I had been with a woman since I was home after my second deployment. I forgot what it felt like to be touched and intimate with another person. I had kept it at bay, scared of how I’d react.

She let go of me and smiled. I read in her smile that she didn’t feel the moment or the intensity I did. She looked at me with the innocent smile a friend shares.

In my mind, I set the needle on the table next to my pieces and decided I needed to stop. She was ill and needed an understanding friend. That is what she saw me as and I could live with that. Maybe she’d help me heal too.