Infertile relief
A short story, part two.
In October, I published a short story titled The Encounter. Several of you liked it and wrote telling me you were eager to see how it would turn out. Today, I have a second installment. Read on.
It was as she feared but did not want to acknowledge it: unsolvable. After hours in the restaurant, it became quite clear that any shred of hope had vanished. She was devastated but relieved. Thinking of the conversation on her way back in the Uber, two words came to mind: infertile relief.
Her mind continued to recreate the conversation. Their words were deflated of empathy. In contrast, their silence was oppressive. There was no reasoning good enough for them to see their part. How can this be? She kept asking herself over and over. How can they not see it?
Her questions grew with despair. Anxiety started creeping in and she sensed it. Yet, she was delaying her medication. Not yet, she kept repeating to herself. She needed clarity to think and the medication usually put her to sleep.
Finally she grabbed her journal, put on some Coltrane as loud as the headphones allowed, and started writing. Her writing was jarring, erratic, disjointed. Her nerves were taking a beating. She felt it but she pressed on.
A knock on the door woke her up from having fallen asleep, head on the table. It was her father. He had been calling her. She had put her phone on silent. Not that it made a difference since she had decided not to answer. Worried, he showed up. Not surprising in many ways. They were close and he remained relatively close to her geographically because of these episodes. He was not wealthy to move around but he had made a decision early on to always be present in her life.
When she opened the door, she collapsed. The weight of it all came crashing on her. He asked her about the encounter. “How was it? The conversation. What was said?” She mumbled. He thought, she needs to eat.
At the diner, she started to open up. Her efforts were fruitless, she said. The thoughts overwhelmed her. Can she still say it? Can she still refer to her as a family? Biologically they are related, of course. But now? What happens now? Her father waited for her to decide how to tell him.
With lips trembling she started to tell her Dad. “They picked me up and we went to this restaurant. It was a nice place.” One wonders why they had picked such a nice place. Maybe to ease up the shock? “After ordering the meal to be served, we chitchatted over nothingness. It felt like the kind of warming up one does for a calisthenic routine.”
“Finally, she tells her Dad, when it was time to start talking, I jumbled up the words. Nonetheless the words started to flow. I said that I had wanted to talk for a long time but did not have the courage before. They got tense. They started to sit straighter on their seats. With much trembling and quivering, I said it. I recounted what they did to me. I was not mean or insulting but I was clear. The manipulation, the lies, the stealing, the gaslighting, and the name calling on top of the beatings that left me marked. I knew, it did happen, and it did occur. As if I had crashed their most precious vase, they silently contemplated me with incredulous eyes.”
“The food came. I could barely eat as the butterflies in my stomach were engaged in a war.” And just like that, it was like time had never passed. The difference was that we were older.
To be continued…