Swing set

“Do you think this is the last time we’ll sit here together?”

I was staring at my untied converses flayed in the sand. They always untied themselves but that’s because I couldn’t stand anything else.

“I don’t know, what made you think that?” I replied.

“Well, you’re going to take the job aren’t you?”

“Well, I mean, it seems pretty inevitable. There aren’t jobs around here, and I can’t stay at home forever.”

Looking up from my jeans so I watched her stare at the night sky.

“We don’t have to be all wistful about it, you know,” I chided, and she snapped around with the meanest scowl I ever saw.

“Fine! Leave! I don’t care!” she scathed and launched out from her side of the swing set. There was a bench for the mothers and she huffed on over there. I was feeling guilty about it but I wasn’t sure what else to say. I never was good at these things.

Times like these I’d get all choked up — not something emotional, but something rational, and I hated that. But it was rational to let the silence heal the wounds opening. That’s what goodbyes are anyway. Desperately needed silence.

After a five minute stand-still — a sourness radiating from the picnic corner, some atmospheric static built — I figured I’d be foolish enough to try. I waited until the gentle sway I built through the twenty minutes prior lumped into a fulcrum center before getting up. With a hands stretch and a jacket readjust I sauntered on over to the bench. Getting close enough in range, so I started speaking.

“Look, who knows what’ll…”

Clouds parted and the moon lit up her face then. I’ve never seen her so upset before. Ruddy and running tears, snot and I got all locked up again. It took twenty seconds before I realized I was just standing there and staring at her.

“Look, Jess, I’m—”

“You’re such a jerk!” she forced out and then pushed me aside, ran toward the exit.

I should’ve called out to her then. But I was already feeling defeated. Especially by the part of me that knew no words would fix anything. She made a tight turn on the stonewall corner and made way toward our home, and I probably should’ve ran after her, but I didn’t want to sell her lies. Nothing changed the fact I won’t be here anymore.

Our father would do the same when we were growing up. Jess was ten years younger so she didn’t remember much. But he’d always come home for a couple of weeks before going back abroad, and the first couple of times where he’d make a grand dinner outing and our chronically tired mom looked so bright about it, with the chicken alfredo you could mimic the same with double the butter — the first couple of times I believed it. I’d believe it all, everything he’d say. That maybe next year he’d be around all the time; that maybe next summer we’d go daily fishing. I was smitten. And then I learned that’s what adults do.

They hide behind words. They say things to make themselves feel better. To patch up all the wrongs prior. To make the moment feel substantial and wonderful before the morning after. After three years more of twirling the same alfredo I came to accept that maybe alfredo is alright, and several years later I realized that he wasn’t just fooling me: he was fooling himself most of all. I couldn’t begrudge it, especially because he kept our home floating.

Truth is, it wasn’t only him. I’d do it too as I got older, and maybe it’s in the family, in the world, but I’d justify it thinking people loved promises more than their fulfillment. Where they’d get to roam around that possibility and picture perfect palisade along the river.

So I’d promise a plenty, and play up all the plans whether from neighborhood kids or classmates pending. Evanescent sleepover dates or zoo visits and carpulling. Yet with swift execution I’d always come up with something last minute and eventually we’d never speak again. I’d kid myself that’s how it is. But it didn’t have to be, maybe: I was just saying things to make myself feel better.

I rarely felt that bad in the aftermath though because I’d pave over the side-effects, but there’s one pained line that always circles a couple times. We were hanging by the convenience storing railing and he turned to me unprompted.

“You know, I just don’t think you ever gave anyone a chance. I invited you to the group chat at least five times, and you always have some sort of excuse. You could’ve joined us to Barcelona last year, couldn’t you? I don’t know.”

I remember feeling like I was finally caught, like I was finally about to be hung. But before I could fake a defense he changed the topic.

That was one of the last conversations we had, true to form, but for the scoundrel I paint myself as, we can’t necessarily say others are saints. Everyone lies to each other, expedited with texts. Yes, maybe I am horrible, but at least I am not pretending I’m in your life. I’m not. Who knows, maybe I’m saying things to make myself feel better again.

Staring up at the night sky I curled in my jacket pockets wondering if there was anything I could do about Jess. I may have turned into my father, but I always held one strand distinct: I’d lie, but not to Jess. Within reason, of course, within reason, and it’s also because if I did I’d have to feel the smouldering down the hall.

It was a bitter wind flowing through the roadways back. Though only a ten minute detour, weaving through alleyways and that’s part the charm of growing in an older municipality. Our home was right along the railroad crossing, though trains rarely crossed anymore. All the industry went abroad with my father.

And of course the front door was locked out of a spite, but I always made sure to carry a key. Our mother was rarely home most days, so you learn the importance of keys after your first rainy lockout. It’s no fun sitting on the porch for seven hours shivering.

With the habitual click and steady side drift in its heavy frame, so I saw her shoes kicked off and her jacket thrown on the ground next. I felt like an intruder at that moment, as though every step more I entered so I am ruining something. But it didn’t seem right to leave and swing in the park for another hour.

Quietly as I could so I untied my laces and slipped out of my heavywear to hang. There was the familiar purple light radiating from her room, so after a moment’s rest I ascended the stairs. Slightly ajar with a One Direction poster smiling at me, I creaked the door further and saw her hugging knees up against the wall square on her bed surrounded by plushies.

Three steps more I took to the center of the room, and started carefully.

“I’m sorry Jess, I’m just not good at these things. Who knows what’ll happen next, maybe I can find a way to have a home around here, or something.”

It wasn’t spectacular but I thought it was heartfelt enough. But she wouldn’t look up at me. I thought she was just real mad.

“Okay, okay, maybe you can come live with me in the city for summers or something.”

But she wouldn’t acknowledge my presence. It was starting to concern me, and she buried her face in her legs more.

“Jess, Jess, come on, it’s not that big of a deal, we’ll figure something out.”

I reached out to her shoulder in an attempt to offer comfort, but my hand went right through her torso. Reflexively I recoiled, and felt a bleakness and a dawning dread I didn’t want to acknowledge. Right then there was quite the shuffle downstairs, so she got up and walked right through me. And with a loss of words I followed her, on down the stairs toward Mom and Dad.

“Hey Jess, how ya been?” my Dad asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” she flatly replied. As though all the tears evaporated right out of her. It’s like she was never upset. And my mom gave her a nod and smile.

“Well, you should’ve came with us. The alfredo was amazing, I got some for you to heat up,” my mother said.

I tried alerting anything to them, waving my hands, standing blankly on the third step, talking at all, but my vocal chords offered nothing. They all went into the kitchen; I no longer existed to them. It seemed like there was only one thing left to do.

I slipped my shoes back on, went through the door, and left my house key on the mat.