Twisted String

In the spring we woke up early. You for dark roast. Me for you.

You spoke French to me. Used the most delicious words: Bonjour. Croissant. Baguette.

I returned your affection, nodding my porcelain head in your direction. Wee wee, mademoiselle.

Often, I tried to say thoughtful things. Kind things. Anything that might sound inspired. Perhaps, Have you seen my yellow umbrella? Or, entre dans l'appartement, s'il vous plait. But my words came out a jumble.

My pull string was broken. Knotted. Stuck in time. You never seemed to mind. You still loved me.

Together we listened to the rain as the jazz slipped through the iron gates along the gardened corridors beyond our balcony. We supped sweet jasmine tea, our pinkies upright, and we dreamed of standing atop the Eiffel Tower.

During the last cruel days of winter, David had decried your inattention. Raised his voice and hands to you, for having kept me all these years.

“You’re not a child!” he scoffed. The crack chilled me to the bone.

He tossed me, naked, into the neighbor’s bricked-off garden. I landed face up in blue hydrangeas. Humiliated.

He stormed off, cracking thunder.

I mouthed good riddance. You couldn’t hear me. His uppercut had landed. Such force had befallen you, you'd fallen somewhere short of heaven.

I thought I’d lost you.

Your eyes circled wild, one pupil ballooning like a donut. What? ... was I? You doing...

You nearly caught the phrase you chased, but it leapt off the tip of your tongue.

It seemed everything was leaving you behind. David. Your words. Me.

Where's daze? Tell me! Happened? Did I do?

I could read between the lines.

But your mumble scared me more than the Silvies’ tabby cats, Hell's Belles.

I'd never heard your words tumbling out like this before. Your pull string had been broken. I didn’t mind.

Can you love me anyway? Your eyes mouthed to me, your bruised hand smoothing my bangs as you pulled me from a thicket of woody branches.

Wee wee, mademoiselle.

##

Summer we slept in. You for rest. Me for you.

You drooled, readjusted your shoulders as you slept, and you slept soundly. You were lovely. Graying curls and thinning eyelashes melting, lost as snow, just as the long thaw settles in. So many snowflakes came to rest atop your soft green cotton pillowcase. I could almost picture Lapland.

I sat tall, attempting pretty, posed beside your bedpost. I stayed right where the night nurse put me, in the curved arms of your walnut rocking chair, the one Papa Daddy built his bride so long ago. You could not recall their faces anymore, Mae Mae's and Papa Daddy’s, but traces of their baby girl could find a foothold in the mirror once in a while.

I tried to recount our stories, the adventures of our life, to jog your memory. I tried every language I could think to conjure. In the end all I could muster was that one familiar refrain.

##

Winter came and we were parted. You for treatment. Me?

You'd wondered off again, the way you sometimes do. This time you used your feet, bare and blistered, to chase ghosts that danced a waltz. You joined the commotion. I thought it would be good for you. He was a fine someone, anyone who wasn't David.

We waltzed, you and me and the ghost of someone new, until we vanished. You inside yourself. And me, right where you left me. Beside a road that had no name. Sandy banks and whooshing waves.

I whispered soft and low, I'll wait right here for you. I know you'll come for me. A tear betrayed my confidence as it rushed straight for the coast.

Anything you need, I swore. Wee wee.

##

On a Wednesday you returned, and all too soon departed. This time something big was different. You felt cold.

You’d stayed out late the night before. Somewhere I couldn't follow.

I overheard an angel saying you were with Papa Daddy now, on Canal, where the navy uniformed nurses work slow hours, til the night train's whistle sings the blues.

You held my hand. I couldn't feel you.

##

A tanned body with see-through braces wearing an orange jumpsuit picked me up by my right arm and lobbed me deep into a dark green plastic bag. I was petrified. Très mal, I protested. You put me down, right this instant!

No one understood me like you did.

Silence closed in around my plastic heart. I sobbed and sobbed. It hurt my face to miss yours so badly.

Surely you had a plan? An au revoir.

You owed me that much, didn't you?

##

March marched in heavy, its third trimester belly about to spring.

I popped my head up out of that green plastic bag and twisted my blue eyes toward the door. Risky business, I know.

"What’s life without a little risk?" I’d heard you say to Papa Daddy a thousand times when you were 13 going on 25. He always bopped your nose and smiled, incredulous, knowing then as I know now, you are -were- most precious.

I took my chances. Bolted for the door. Nothing could stop me now. Except the lack of a sense of direction, bus fare and a plan, and any way to reach you where you lived now.

I slumped atop gray-blue linoleum and dreamed a little dream of you.

When I awoke, grooves of grout had left an impression.

##

Saturday was worst. You stayed away.

A laundry hamper contained me, prisoner to scents distinctly unFrench.

I held to hope we’d reunite.

In the basket with me were several old softies, all named Teddy or Theodore or Bear. They argued over one another, over bowtie etiquette, over knots and whatnots, not that it mattered.

I’m not myself without you.

I don’t belong here.

##

Sunday surprised me.

A squat bald patron of questionable taste waddled over to thumb my belly button. “Dis one? Not da Crissy dahly wif da long ‘air? Dis no good.” He set me down. Hard.

I didn’t need a translator to say thank you in five romance languages.

Night approached without incident. I was tuckered out. From the hamper I looked to the stars and counted the lucky ones. I had been yours. You would come find me. In a clothes bin. With the teddies.

I now have adventures to tell you all about, adventures I've had without you. Is that what you needed me to bring to the equation?

##

I don’t know what day it is. But time, she's moving.

A small, sticky hand is clutching me by my roots. That giggle of his is most distracting.

I’m on a mission. Why can’t he see that?

He speaks Spanish like a Big Boy. Pouts to Madre and Pedro, he’s not a baby anymore.

Oh, no, he isn’t, replies the eyes of the calm brunette stood holding diapered babies in her swinging arms. She carries a swollen belly behind the short stack breakfast bar. A hotel is our locale. By the bay. I see the dock and suddenly feel I'm wasting time.

A moss-green soldier swallows hard. The toy is trapped inside an armpit. The sergeant’s face is turning blue. No one else cares. My life flashes before my eyes. Is this my fate?

Big Boy is counting every stitch that you once gave me. Uno, dos, tres...

Remember how you repaired my sleeve? You'd just turned 12! I remember it like it was... Oh! I can use his preoccupation to my advantage. Break free while he’s distracted. Make a run for the border before he's old enough to chase me very far.

I envision what I want: pushing those pudgy fingers off of my perfectly molded frame and stylish pony, tied in ribbons of blue and gold.

But he won’t let go. Everything in him is screaming, stay with me. Choose me. Love me, please.

I understand.

Letting go. It’s difficult.

I feel a tug against my shoulder, and a snap against my spine. My voice box marvels. I clear my throat. I can’t believe this! A donde te gustaría ir hoy?

I speak Spanish?! What in the world? I didn't even know!

Did you?

##

Big Boy finds me with those eyes, the ones that sparkle like the night sky, only kinder. Closer. Here with me. Cuddled up atop his spaceman pillow.

His smile is gentle. His love is true. He’ll make a home for me, and for me and you.

I don’t know where I want to go, I hear my mouth reply. How’s about we let you decide?!

***

Copyright © 02/07/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.