I went home and decided to skip the shower. Instead I found an old Sinead O’Connor cassette, covered the top hole with tape, stuck it in my father’s ancient stereo, got a microphone, and put it next to the piano where I composed, then recorded, the saddest piece of music I’ve ever heard. I timed the song “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and recorded my wretched song right over it. I thought Sorry, Sinead, my sorrow knows no depth; my song is so much more pitiful than yours. My song is so pathetic; there is only one suitable title for it… “Hell.”
Having spent almost every day at the Kell’s for an entire year, I started declaring Sundays as my official day off. Although my hope was that I would use my free days for some form of self-improvement, either exercise or composing more pieces, I did neither one of those things. Instead I slept away nearly every moment I wasn’t at the café. I lost weight and felt exhausted all the time. There was a growing distance between Jenny and me. While she worked on starting a family, enjoying her marital bliss, I was focused on surviving a monumental heartbreak. Because Will stayed away and avoided me, I felt robbed of the opportunity to right my mistakes, which made me grow angry toward him. The memories of him were so heartbreaking, I couldn’t bear idle time in my apartment, so I would just sleep, or sit at the park and watch the children play. I envied the simplicity of childhood and let my mind wander to memories with my father in that same park. That was my only solace as the anniversary of his death passed along with my twenty-sixth birthday and Will’s thirtieth, all events that I essentially ignored. I got a few “Happy Birthdays” from people at the café. Martha made me a casserole, insisting that I eat half of it in front of her. Jenny made me a cake and Tyler did a comedic birthday slam for me on poetry night. On Will’s birthday, Jenny asked for the night off but didn’t tell me why, not that it wasn’t obvious.
When I did make an attempt to write music, the notes would inevitably turn dismal and monotonous, so I gave up playing the piano and writing music. I put all the other instruments away in closets and bought myself a nice flat-screen TV and would watch hours of meaningless, shit programing in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.
I woke up one Sunday morning months after that fateful night in LA. It was spring and the new warmth in the city came flooding through my windows, providing me with a modicum of energy, just enough to get out of bed before noon. I finally addressed the mountain of mail building on my countertop. Sipping coffee while I perused one of the many New Yorker magazines in the pile, I got lost in a modern fiction excerpt, particularly a few paragraphs from the novel by author Lauren Fuser-Biel.
Isabelle watched the majestic creature pensively as he paced behind the ironclad fortress. His captivating beauty drew her closer, her eyes locked on his. She began mimicking his movements with acute precision, back and forth, forging a new path in the unmarred earth on her side of the bars. They studied each other with determined stares; her mouth fell agape. Faint whispers escaped in haunting tribute as she fixated on the beast. “Wolf, you are beautiful, admired because you are flawless, adored because you are predictable, envied because you are cherished… empty because you are caged.” The beast stilled. Isabelle, like a dammed river, slowed with a lingering motion as she appraised her counterpart. The trepidation in his sharply angled eyes, blue as the glacial depths, bore deep into her mind. She discovered a weakness in the magnificent and mercurial vision in front her, simultaneously revealing her own. Protecting the flesh that was her only possession, she recoiled into herself to examine the surroundings. Where would she go for escape within the confines of her cage? As if the answers were predetermined, she stood and began pacing once again, for the worn path had become a familiar and safe refuge, the bars her warm blanket, the ferocious animal her protector. Tormenting whispers echoed with the beast’s penetrating gaze. “Back and forth, beautiful creature. Back and forth, Wife.” I pondered the meaning and wondered if the author was speaking of herself in it. Was it a warning about marriage or life in general, or was it simply a statement about the traps we make for ourselves, the walls we build, the prisons we are comfortable within? Was I guilty of choosing safety over happiness and freedom, like the character in the book? I wondered if anything mattered at that point. It was all in the past; I was left with nothing but regret now and no power to change things.
Flipping through the stack, I came across a birthday card. The front was Van Gogh’s Irises; when I opened the inside I sucked in a breath at the sight of Will’s handwriting.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
HOPE YOU’RE WELL