Message to Amber (Draft)

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Amber.

I hate using the name your mother (God rest her soul.) gave you. Très formál.

I guess six years after the divorce, I shouldn’t call you < babe > .

Certain your new husband would not appreciate it.

You will always be mine.

Anyway, the point of the point is, I’m drinking. Thinking about you as always. Trying to decide if I should get one more from Rachel as I finger-tap this out to you.

No, that’s not quite it. The point of the point is that…so…I saw your Facebook post about your loser ex-husband (Guess that's me.) living with his parents after the break-up. Six years after the break-up, to be exact.

Oh, and all the comments that followed were lovely as well so thanks for that.

To be honest, because honestly, right now, why not, on some nights when I come for what passes as "home” these days, if the bedroom door to Mom and Dad is still open, I check on them. They are usually asleep, like last night / this morning / whenever, but sometimes Mom is awake and I do my best to act like I'm not drunk or occasionally, if Rachel and I took a break together, like I'm not high (Jumping Jack Flash is a gas gas gas.) and we have a brief conversation.

I realize how strange this arrangement is for a grown-ass man. But the truth is, Amber, I like seeing them, however briefly—you know, just before the ghosts come. And they always come. They always come—you, Alicia, Macy’s lost child—no matter what I consume. I walk across the hall to my bed, close my eyes, and they come.

I dream my grandfather dying in that musty nursing home, watching all that he stood for, his honor and dignity, his logic, his slow thoughtful cadence, peeling away, day by day, layer by layer, until he’s dead on that hard mattress on a rainy Austin afternoon. Then my grandmother not long after, finally losing the belongings of a long marriage: the car, the knick knacks, the house and of course the pictures, the frames and glass grown dusty to where you can’t even see faces anymore, without meaning.

I'm glad I have this time following our divorce, Amber, as messed up as it is, with my parents. Whatever time remains, it is short. But you go ahead and have your Facebook fun. It’s on me.

I'm sorry if your latest husband doesn't get that I still talk to you. Or try to, anyway. You know what? Fuck him. I'm not sorry. (One more, Rachel-babe.) Fuck Paul if he doesn't understand. Fucking hick. I'd tell you to let him read this but I'm pretty sure he can't.

Here's the deal, babe. Just between you and me, the real deal.

Soon, it will all be over. I will bury my parents and then my siblings because I am the youngest. All that will be left is the remnant of decisions I have made and choices I failed to make, the detritus of coin tosses.

As death comes, my spirit will find its voice. One day it will quiet me and I will say in silence BABE, our wedding ring dangling from the chain around my neck.

My regret is brick.

I hope I don't die thinking that some good has come out of what a shit I was to you / trying to convince myself that we just weren't meant to be together—that it was all for the best…that….that God or Karrma or The Universe was looking after us and it all worked out for the best.

Fuck that. That’s bullshit.

I messed up on you. You and Paul are okay. Me, not so much. (Sure, Rachel, another Shiner for last call. Thanks, hon.) Sheila was meaningless. I know that now.

No. No, that’s another lie. Sheila was meaningless. I knew that then.

You, Amber—always my Amber—you are my sine qua non.

Now that I think about it:

I am not sure about sending this message to you. I don’t trust you with us.

Maybe this one is just for me.

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