tattoo parlor and that he had been thinking about me ever since.
We met at a coffee shop near my dorm. From then on it was like every moment between classes, we just wanted to be together. It was two months later that he said he loved me and I said it back, which is not a thing I do, ever.
We started doing things couples do together. He met my father, who took us out to dinner when he passed through the city. We hung out with each other’s friends. But I never met his parents.
Three months later he went to a journalism seminar at Kent State with two other classmates. They rented a car and on the way back they were hit by a truck that had jumped the median.
I totally lost it. I cried for days.
I didn’t get an announcement about the funeral. His roommate told me when it was and we took a train together to Philadelphia. After the ceremony there was a gathering at his parents’ house. I didn’t want to go, since I wasn’t invited, but his roommate insisted.
His parents asked me how I knew their son. Before I answered, his mother reached out to hold my hands. She could see my sorrow, or see something, I think. As she held my hands, she looked at my left one for a few seconds. But I don’t think she figured it out.
I told her I was their son’s girlfriend and they both looked at each other awkwardly. Just then, a young woman came over to us. I recognized her. It was his previous girlfriend, the one he had broken up with to be with me.
His ex went up to them and they hugged her. She and I made eye contact and I just nodded and walked away while the three of them hugged and cried.
I started to leave the house but then I snuck upstairs and found his room. I saw the young him. I imagined we might have slept together in his teenage bed. I took this, this trophy, from a high school tennis tournament, and I put it in my purse.
If his parents ever come to the museum and say it’s theirs, you should give it to them. They knew him longer. Their tears weigh more than mine. Although I do think that waking up with him next to me and hearing him say he loved me means something. That gives me some rights, doesn’t it? Even if they don’t know who I am. Even if his mother didn’t notice how many fingers I have.
New York City, USA, 2006
-
Tyler
Tyler looked at the sleeping boys next to him. One shared his sandy blond hair, crinkly eyes, and surfer-boy softness. The other had wavy dark hair and dark eyes that reminded Tyler of the boy’s mother. When they were awake, it was all he could do to keep up with them. When they slept, he tried to pull himself together.
Where the Wild Things Are was open at the foot of Tyler’s bed. There were two matchbox cars on his nightstand. Sammy had wanted Tyler to read the story, while Joaquin had insisted on driving the matchbox cars over Tyler’s bed. Joaquin had pretended not to listen to the story but Tyler could tell that he had been fascinated by it. Before Tyler reached the last page, both boys were yawning. Tyler let them fall asleep in his bed, and then he took them one by one to their beds in the room they shared.
Before the boys came to live with him, Tyler had never felt time shift so acutely. This was the only moment in the day when his apartment was quiet. These two bodies of perpetual motion collapsed and a parallel universe opened up. In that space Tyler had time to think, to recollect, to regret. He felt relief when he, too, could sleep.
Most nights, as he crossed over into sleep, Tyler’s last conscious moment was one of longing—for warm skin touching him and a mouth close to his. It didn’t surprise him when a short time later his sleep was interrupted by one of the boys, or both, calling for a glass of water, or, more often, crying out for their respective mothers. He understood their cry, shared it even. Still, no matter how quickly he reached their room in response to their cries, he was an impostor parent.
This new life had started with a phone call less than a year before.
Tyler, it’s me. Melissa.
Melissa. It’s been a long time. How um … Where are you? Are you back in Austin?
Yes, visiting. I want to see you. I have something to tell you.
…
It’s not what you think.
…
I heard you made it back from Afghanistan in one piece. I mean, unless you have PTSD or something.
No, I’m okay. I think. But thank you for asking.
Can I come over? There’s someone I want you to meet.
…
It’s your son.
Jesus, Melissa. Shit, why didn’t you tell me?
And why didn’t you tell me you were joining the army, Tyler?
Melissa, you wrote me off long before I enlisted. If I had known …
Tyler, I told you I wasn’t looking for anything when we met.
And so you couldn’t even bother to tell me you were pregnant, and had …?
Look, Tyler …
Shit, I can’t believe you waited all this time to tell me.
…
…
You still with me, Tyler?
Yeah.
So are you back at being a cop?
Yeah. Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department.
You got a girl? Some good Christian lady you can take home to meet your momma?
No, Melissa, there’s no one at the moment, good Christian or otherwise.
Where are you living?
I’ve got an apartment in Bastrop. The county gave me one.
The county gave you one? What, are you on welfare or something?
It’s an apartment complex where battered women and their children live. County supports it. Run by the family crisis agency. They give me the apartment for free. Need a cop around. Makes the women feel safer. You know, just in case any of the guys try to come look for them.
Wow. There’s got to be a word for that. Lots of mistreated, lonely women and a hot, single cop. What would that be? Supply meets demand?
Can I meet him, Melissa?
That’s why I called.
It was Friday and he didn’t have patrol that weekend. As he hung up, the first thing he thought about was what four-year-old boys liked to eat. This was something he learned to do in Afghanistan. When that out-of-control feeling came over him, those moments on patrol when an IED or an ambush might be around the next corner, he learned to focus on something small, something obvious. A task to complete.
The next morning
