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My aunt’s offered to come and help, but she can’t get over here until early April. And even then, she can’t stay for more than a couple weeks.
It’s looking like I’m going to have to head back to the States.
7.26pm
Had to just pause and stare at those words for a few minutes.
I’ve given it a lot of thought. What’s best for the boy, and what it is I want, myself. I think it makes the most sense. If I go back, my aunt can help long-term, part-time, instead of just for a couple weeks around the clock. I mean, I couldn’t afford a visiting nurse here for long.
It’ll take some time to move. Not stuff-wise—I hardly brought anything over, and the flat came furnished, so it’d just be my clothes and the boy’s things, the car seat, and maybe the stroller.
Or maybe not the stroller. Maybe fuck the stroller.
But the boy will need a visa or passport or however that’ll work. I’ve only taken the very first steps toward proving he’s entitled to dual citizenship. I hope I can finish sorting it out by the time my aunt has to head home, if she does come, maybe pay through the pee-hole for expedited processing if I can.
That brings me to the one thing that does give me pause, that keeps the thought of moving back to New Mexico from feeling like the massive relief that it frankly ought to.
And that’s you.
I was too much of a coward to come out and say it the last time we spoke. I teased you with it. Teased us both with it.
But I love you.
Are you there, reading every one of these messages as they ping or buzz, I wonder?
I love you as much as one person who’s never actually spoken aloud to the other person can. As much as somebody can love after just a couple weeks. As much as he can, based only on what the other person’s chosen to reveal of herself.
But it’s true. I love you, Maya.
And so leaving’s going to hurt. So much worse than my body already does.
It seems like such a strange thing to hold me back. I mean, we’ve never even met. You’re wherever my phone is.
Until my phone was suddenly gone, of course.
Not that it has to change anything, my going away. The time zones will be weird, but we’ve nearly always written like we were sending letters, haven’t we? I hope you’ll want to keep writing. There’s not a lot waiting for me back home. The help of my aunt and hopefully my dad, maybe friends, maybe not. But I’ll have you, still. I hope.
I hope.
Are you there? I don’t think you are. I hope you’re curled up watching a movie or going wrinkly in a lukewarm bath, lost in a book.
Anyhow. I’ve said a lot. My shoulder’s sore from holding my good arm just so. The other one’s screaming loud enough to drown out the painkillers, but only just now—for as long as I was writing to you, it was silent. You’ve always been your own kind of magic.
I’m sorry for whatever you may have gone through when I disappeared on you. I hope you didn’t worry too much. I hope you didn’t doubt me, doubt us. I hope you weren’t too sad or too angry. I wish I could protect you from anything that feels shitty, me with my shotgun laid across my lap, but I guess I can’t.
The truth is, I’m not much use to anyone right now, and I won’t be for a few months. Not until the shards strung through my arm start to resemble a bone again.
Hope to hear from you soon. That’s about all I’m looking forward to, honestly. That and this new thing the boy does where he fetches my guitar and sets it carefully on the coffee table, then strums the strings, one at a time. That explodes my heart as well, but you … I miss you.
All the time I was stuck in the hospital, I’d think, this would be so much easier if I could just text her. The hours would’ve been so much shorter, the pain so much easier to take.
I missed you. I didn’t miss whiskey, and I’ve been without that for a week, too. I only missed you.
Okay, I better go. Dinner’s about ready. Later, stranger.
I hope.
18
