All the Other Pearls

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | release

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | release

CONNOR'S PALMS SWEAT as he stands on the Warrens' front porch. He took a Valium before he got here, but his heart still tremors.

It's the same porch he's visited countless time since elementary school. He and James used to sit on the swing, drinking cold lemonade, clutching their Nintendo DSs and trying to thwart each other on Super Mario Bros.

Aunt Sylvia answers the door. She's effusive, gracious, emotional, bombarding him with gentle, loving smiles. Every step Connor takes through the house reminds him of some old, simple memory that he'd long forgotten because those mundane, everyday moments were nothing special. It's never special until it's gone.

She baked chocolate-chip cookies just for him. She serves coffee in the same old mugs; the house has that same old candle-fresh scent; the sofa is the same, with the same old faded stain from where James spilled his underaged booze that time his parents were out of town for a weekend in ninth-grade. Connor was there, he remembers it vividly. Connor was always there.

They catch up over the small things. How's work (it's fine), what's Megan up to these days (James' older sister, also fine), how's your mom (she's fine), how's Julia (she's fine too).

Connor is not fine, but they don't talk about that.

Peter has taken up wood-work as a hobby. Sylvia's knitting club is hosting a competition, and she might try entering the blanket she's been working on. Megan just finished vet school in Saskatoon, she's sticking around there for a while. Connor's mom has been thinking of retiring, even though, an empty-nester, she's only been back to work a year-and-a-half. Julia is Julia. You know how it is.

There's a hole in the room.

It's deep and black, it keeps growing and growing, but for some reason no one's acknowledging it, no one's looking at it, no one wants to bring it up. It's about to swallow him whole.

It's not the memories. It's not even the photo of James on the mantlepiece that does it. He's been sitting there for thirty minutes when suddenly, on the windowsill in the corner of the room, Connor spots that stupid matching friendship bracelet — ratty, yellow-and-black thread — that he and James made as a silly joke at grade-eight summer camp.

Connor lost his ages ago. He forgot those fucking things ever even existed.

James kept his. He kept it, safe, even after he died.

All at once, Connor forgets how to breathe. His lungs won't fill with air. He's gasping, panting, hyperventilating, hot wet stringy sticky juicy warm tears splashing endlessly down his face. His ribs are cracking, his heart is bleeding, the grief is so intense it feels like he's dying. He's dying, he must be dying, this is what dying feels like. The absence of life.

The three of them bundle together on one couch, arms thrown over shoulders, weeping. I loved him. I loved him, we loved him, he loved you, oh my baby, he loved you so, so much. I still love him. I'll always love him.

Later, when he's back at his apartment, alone, by himself, he won't be able to figure out whether he actually said those things aloud or not, but by then it won't really matter.

They were thought, they were said, they were meant. It's all the same. There's healing in admitting it. With truth there's release.

***

Author's Note [July 22nd, 2022]:

I'm laying here bawling. There are actually tears dribbling down my face, and I'm not even on my period! Goddamn it.

xoxo Ami