Equations

It’s Monday at eight PM when I pick up the phone and dial. As the phone's ringing, I think of all the things to say. I rehearse the permutations in my head, playing out imaginary scenarios. If she says this, I will say that. If she tells me this, I will tell her that. Our conversation will be equal.

But it’s no substitute for when the ringing stops and the familiar voice says, “Hello.”

“Hi,” I say. I give her news about my girls and their progress in school, only to receive back updates on cat bowels and her latest vendetta with her neighbor. I hear the summations spew out in revolting detail, and wonder if I will ever be this unfeeling that I will give out the same details, endlessly.

Stories repeat. Lives repeat. This is repetition.

Count down the minutes. Finally, she takes a deep breath and I insert quickly, “Gotta go.” If she tells me she loves me, I must relay it back to her, so I don’t give her the chance. A brief spurt of guilt as I hang up, but really. Really, nothing there.

A return to functions. Six days of freedom before the next Monday.

It’s strange, isn’t it, that at one point, this was the bosom that nourished me, that I turned to for comfort. At one time, this was the world, the globe, the circle of constants.

Until the twistings began. Until the world fell apart.

I rework the equation. I change the shapes until they fit. The edges are clearly delineated, no longer an endless infinity spinning around and around and around.

As a mother now, I hold my children close. They are the diameter, the circumference, the boundary. They are 3-D.

The rolling around of minutes, hours, days. The numbers counting down.

Monday again.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Mom,” I say.

There are things I could ask her, of course, about the past. When ground zero changed between us, and at what point addition became addiction.

But what’s the point? She’s drunk again. I can hear it in the slur of words, the difficulty with the letter “s,” and I think about the three thousand miles that separate us. Her laughter is pitched high above the sound of static, and it hits me in the stomach like a punch, across the face like a slap, like nails dug into flesh and a line of bruises covered up in summertime by sweltering long sleeves.

When she pauses, I dive into the usual farewell. When the phone is down, I can't help it. The sequences are jumbled. I cry.

In the morning, I braid my oldest daughter’s hair and listen to her speak about the geometry of her dreams. "I am a pyramid," she tells me. "I am a cube."

As I run the brush through her hair, I smile at her little voice tripping over the numbers. I right-angle my hands over hers. "Like mine," I tell her.

She laughs. My heart is light. I have found the boundary again, and it comforts me.

Tick tock, and Monday is here. The clock calls the phone to my hand.

I say hello. I listen. I say goodbye.

I stumble without boundaries. I cry.

The shapes won't change, so don’t tell me this is excusable. Familiarity means nothing, unless repetition can be broken. I call because I have a choice. I don't always know who I am or what I will become, but I am certain of one thing: a negative.

The problem is extracted, and I have discovered the sum of subtraction.

I am not her.

The phone rings.

I focus on outcomes as I search for the boundary. The math falters. I cry. I hug my girls and rework the equations.

The phone rings. The phone rings. The phone rings.