Washington, DC 2018

It's been maybe three weeks and a new routine has emerged. You've taken the summer off, to help me you say. It is restitution. You left me alone with our baby for three months and now you'll come back, reconstruct what we lost. I'll forget. You'll forget. The children will forget.

I want to move to Cape Cod. It's absurd I know. Everyone -particularly mom- is concerned. No one wants me near the ocean and mom certainly not that far away. My sister Kate is in Boston. She'll be there if I need her. Less than an hour away.

"Cape Cod? In Massachusetts?"

"Yes mom. The Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Do you know of another? You know mom—near where we grew up—"

"Ok. Enough with the sarcasm." She says "No -it's not a good idea. Just the two of you and the babies?" Mom asks. Her silver hair making gray look fashionable, young. How is it so soft, still retaining the wave. Her face is free of wrinkles, her skin still taut. Young. Mom is iconic. I love her but what does she mean by Just the two of you and the babies?

"Just who mom? We're their parents."
"How will you afford it?"

"What?"

"I don't even know how you'll find—"

"Merri knows someone."

"In the middle of summer?"

"It's their family home-small. weatherized. They don't' rent it. They want someone to house sit."

"Where?"

"Dennis."

"Oh for God sake. You know how long it would take to get off the cape? What hospitals are there?
"What hospitals are there?" She repeats.
"Why? I'm not going to hurt myself. Edward isn't going to leave me there."

"What about—I thought you were going back to work."

"Why do you keep telling. People that?" Silence. Quiet. "Mom, Why don't you come with us at least for a while." A concession and it gives me comfort to think of mom there. She won't let anything happen.

She looks down, folds neat her cloth napkin. One she gave us — handed down — when we moved in, before we were married. Cherries and red checks. Pretty country cotton. Nostalgic for the war era. Mom's childhood.

"No." she looks at me for a long moment. "I see it in your eyes you know, Annie. You're still not well. It will make me feel better if you wait—"

"They said it was the baby. The medicine will help soon. Edward's back."

"Annie you know when you were in that dark place—that semester you took off from college- I wondered if you—or I don't know if I wondered but you were so depressed. Do you remember? Do you think it was the same —as now?"
I shake my head and keep my eyes on her. Somehow I am angry that she doesn't know the truth and that she is suggesting these two mental illnesses are the same.

"Can I talk with him? Before you go then? Can I take Edward to lunch? I want to settle things."

"If he wants to—"

"I wanted to ask you."

"Of course."

"I see it in your eyes darling. Something's wrong. Are you still hallucinating?"

I lash out "Mom do you know how that sounds? Are you still hallucinating?! Jesus. I had a breakdown due to the hormones. I'm not a nut job."
Her liberal attitude steps in "Now really. Nut job is such a ..." she shakes her head has a sour expression "It's very insensitive and not nice, Annie."

You and I made love the morning of the day mom took you to lunch. It was early. You are always up early—even earlier than the children. I don't want to open my eyes in the mornings with you beside me. It is the same as the dreams I had when you were with Leora. You are everywhere.your scent. Your spirit. You inhabit my consciousness. In the dreams there was no anger, or jealousy. There's just the two of us and the feeling is so pure and uninhibited. It is not human to trust someone so much but I do. Then I would realize it was a dream. A white light would wash over me and then there is a recognition. I must have awakened without knowing it. It dawned on me that you were gone. I tried to return to slumber to a place where there was no need for forgiveness. Just you and me.

You make love to me often in the mornings. This is when and how you tell me you love me. This is how I love you. I don't 'give myself to you' - I am always yours to begin with. I can't hide from you in the mornings. I don't want to. Everyday the sun enters the room- a room that for months witnessed my darkness. I look into your eyes, I kiss you. I desperately kiss you. I tell you I love you. That I'll always love you.

I know this is different than Leora - I saw you—at least the first time—you didn't really love her did you? You never said you did. Not even when I asked you point blank. "Tell me the truth. Are you in love with her Edward?"

The idea of Cape Cod has drifted away. I don't want to move away from mom. I don't want to be alone with you. I don't want to be near the sand dunes. I don't want you to leave me and rush out to the shore with another woman. Holding hands laughing. I don't want someone to find me, near frozen in the dunes. Alone. You looked for me that night. I heard your voice calling even over the surf. I saw you, the wind causing your white linen shirt to flap. Your linen pants. You were handsome and I had been proud to be your wife that night. Now, in my memories of the night at Jonah's becomes the night at Slaters. You are there. I can see your silhouette—the crash of waves, evil then suffocation. Then silence. Then amnesia.

"Coffee?" You ask caring in my mug. Mom. written in black courier font on a white mug. It's big and heavy. Mom. Period. End of story. A summation. A totality. I smile at you. Today I'll be positive. No more blame or accusations. I'll take you in and take you at your word. I'll love you today. Unconditionally.

You sit beside me, already the eastward sun has passed now a yellow light-not bright- bathes the room. Your hair is tussled. I alternate my gaze from your tanned skin—stubble on your face. "Is that a 5:00 shadow?" I take a sip.

You laugh, shake your head. You squint your eyes—look out of the wavy panes at the green foliage just outside the window.

"You look cute" I say. "You look good in a 5:00 shadow."

"Where did you get that term?" You smile and bend forward. You kiss me on the lips.

"You're cute." You say. You look around, still siting on bed next to me. You take the cup out of my hand and put it on the table next to us. "I love this room." You say. I think you'll move into bed with me, undress. That we'll make love.

"Why do you?" I let my eyes wander to the shadows cast across the room through the iron window, I follow the shadow and light first across the rug then in a geometric pattern across the rumpled covers, across your arms as you pull down the blanket. Criss cross of iron panes, wavy glass, an ocean over us.

You kiss my neck then shoulder, "I love the light in here."

"but we haven't remodeled. It's the only one."

"I like it that way—"

"That's what you always say."
"I do. The old wallpaper." You sit back up and I straighten too. "When do you think that's from?" You stand and step back, look up towards the ceiling.
"the thirties?" I reach for my coffee and take a long sip.

"It's funny they'd put nouveau paper in here. The room's small. Remember how much the lathe and plaster crumbled when we did the front room."

"What got you thinking about the flat this morning?"

"And the trim in here. This is elaborate."

"Are you nervous about talking with mom?"
"She's worried about you Annie. —- I am"

"I'm fine."

"Why wouldn't you call me? Didn't you know I loved you through everything?"

"how would I?"
"Come on."

"Let's talk about the wallpaper." You pace for a moment, stop and look up, as if you are mentally measuring the height of the ceiling.

You sit back down next to me. You laugh, loosen your body. Lean into the pillow. Your arm touches mine. Your skin is darker than mine. Your muscles are bigger.

"No baby crying this morning." I whisper.

"What time did you get up last night?"
"All night. he not a good sleeper. he not like Maddy."
"You's so cute." You say. You brush my hair back and stare into my eyes for a long time.

"You're in a funny mood." I say.

"I know."
"Is something going on?"

"Got to go to work."

"I thought you were on leave—for the summer."

"yeah but you know. Loose ends."

You kiss my lips and take your coffee. The bedsprings squeak as you get up. You examine the wall paper then you walk out the door.

The house is quiet for a half hour or so. I feel fine. I feel good. I hear the birds out the window. Mostly crows lately. Hawking. What happened to the little birds that sing. Why are the ugly crows everywhere. Crows and pigeons. I rise and open the tall window, it looks out on to the garden. It's on the back of the house. I finish my coffee then I hear the baby. Then I hear Maddy — she's talking to her stuffed animals. She bosses them. They do as she says.

I'm getting better Edward. It's as if I can feel the chemicals in my system balancing themselves. Each day there is more clarity, almost as if colors are returning to a normal hue. Maybe more light, or maybe it's more acuity. Yet, I can get derailed—like now, lack of sleep. It ignites a hint of anxiety—one I would not question if I had not been psychotic after Alex. When this occurs, a part of it. A small part of it is the way words echo like a hollow voice in the distance, a song stuck in your thoughts. Like that but with more substance, almost endogenous-and I am enervated. Like that endogenous, enervated and it will keep up nagging me until I surrender into a bleak fatigue. My thoughts this morning are a carousel of your words last night. "I want to make you happy again." But you know you don't control my life or will Edward. Even your betrayal isn't really the genesis of this darkness. Yet, I can tell you know, in some supernatural way that I am deeply troubled and in trouble. There it is again"deeply troubled in trouble." Another echo.

Despite my guilt when the darkness falls with echoes and shadows and illusions that are almost animate, I indulge in memories that comfort me. Today I summons those days on the Slater's beach. The two years. I was so young, 16 but I didn't think I was. I didn't really think about myself in context of adulthood. This morning, I remember the innocence of my relationship with Jack. In it's way I suppose it is as obsessive-an obsessive antidote. Often it's the first summer he and I were together. In this memory I am sixteen, a little girl practically-most often, in fact. The town beach -the public beach - I will find out later it was met with disapproval from your parents, the lifeguard job. Your mother wanted insulation from the depressing lives of the working class.That's her big obvious secret, she was working class. And below that snobbery was a life of want and shame. But Jack worked as a lifeguard anyway. There was some esteem to it then, a little bit of fame. Girls flocked and fawned, feigning dehydration or a lost phone. This was my life, a regular summer job at a snack bar on the big crowded beach I honestly had no idea that there were people of your ilk, so rich that backyard bbq were catered. In fact, they weren't back yards at all were they? No. They were sprawling estates with lawns that stretched acres before they reached the private shoreline, nothing but horizon in your view. A vast blue with growing deeper until a gray then black band hit the horizon separating the sea from the sky. During the summer the water seemed calm and it was warm with a thick salty solution that somehow seemed softer more gentile than the rocky coast I knew so intimately.

But Edward you say still "Isn't it remarkable that we both grew up in Massachusetts and ended up in DC." As if there is something remarkable about it. I grew up in southeastern Massachusetts and you summered there. Otherwise you lived in a mansion outside of Boston that your parents -for whatever reason- called "the farm." I met your brother while working at a public beached eventually was broken by your broken family. I fell into your arms, Edward in a destructive velocity that gained force util it was a hurricane and we ran to safety. I went to Georgetown—yes, there is the coincidence and we rarely remarked on it while I was still with Jack. Your mother eyed me, even back then, even when she adored me. She eyed me suspiciously, but why? As if you'd unconsciously attracted me. Enigmatic in your corduroy blazer, jeans, loafer. Timeless and out of time all the same person-you, Edward. When Jack and I were infatuated teenagers, when your family -your mother in particular (and yes, I bring it up a lot because I never knew that love was so violently conditional. I'd basked in her adoration and approval in being "the daughter she never had." She loved Jack and held something against you-this was understood but I didn't really care back then. I hadn't noticed you and you later told me you'd hardly noticed me. Hardly-which in translation means you did notice me, maybe it was weak synapses that connected your relationship to me. And those grew fierce and burned tracks in a sudden neurological assault when you rescued me that night on the beach-drunk or drugged-and your angry father who rarely even inhabited your family's life. First he'd lashed out at you and then -later that night- me. We were bound by that event everything that happened, that violent sequence and ocean crescendo: your dad, me, and you. the It was an indelible violence. An there before us, is a hazy memory of an aunt you never knew.

We are duplicitous too Edward. And, so is Jack.

Alexander cries after you leave first to go to work then to meet mom. Too early to meet you I think. You looked too...too? Too something. I distrust you That's all but I sometimes -since you've been back- less than a month but sometimes I recognize that you are still inhabiting another life. What do I mean? I mean you must be still seeing Leora or in contact with her. When will you completely come back to me? And, do I want you back anyway. My apathy renders me confused. I descend again, and recognize it's yearning and fatigue. I hardly sleep, even when Alexander does. I lay awake and remember things.Sometimes the beach and so I do it,Edward. I return to Horseback beach and the first day I met Jack, his silly infatuation. Then waiting for me after work. The lifeguard and the girl at the snack-bar. And I don't know why but I dared him to race to the point....I started running and he came after me and we went from warm sand of dusk to the cool Atlantic water, rushing through surf, how far was it? Someone once said a quarter mile. I didn't know your brother but I somehow felt that silly and at home with him even that first afternoon at the public beach where we both worked (me at the snack bar and him a lifeguard). I was competitive and despite it being our first conversation, I interrupted it and dared him to a race. He won. Edward, he won. Made it safely to the point. He waited triumphant on a huge gray boulder, I said the shore was rocky. And extended a hand helped me out.

That's how adolescent infatuation is. No commitments. So much energy.

An earwig...you keep your secrets and the truth makes me sicker.

you keep your secrets and the truth makes me sicker.