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Foregone -- adjective
He will come to you, unbidden. Gentle as a breeze through a window screen. A fish breaking the glassy, silvery surface of your hard-won peace. Maybe you will be sitting on a weathered muskoka chair at the end of a long dock. Watching dragonflies chase meals in the summer light. The clatter of dishes from the neighbour your only complaint.
You will hear perhaps the sound of tires rolling slowly over gravel; an engine running a few seconds longer than it should. Unbelieving. That engine: you would know it anywhere. The precise three second run-on. Thunk. Thunk. Before you even turn, your senses, muscle memory, feel the crazy-truth of an old familiar pang. Up through layers of sedimentation, obfuscation. Years of therapizing, trees and trees of books, (such defences!), blown away like tiny, yellow specks of pollen.
And because there is no redemption in suffering you reach into the cupboard and fill your cup. Bismillah. Drain your cup. Fill it again and repeat.
Forget the promises – broken, if not now, tomorrow. Forget the hope, best left to the naïve; and what is naiveté but stupidity ringed with daisies? Forget the ultimatums, the purview of children and the childish. Forget the companionability; the gnawing need; the genetic imperative; the sense of belonging and the addictive sighs of contentment. Forgotten too should be the slope of his shoulders, his veiny hands, the knobby knuckles that you soothed with your own hands and the wine stain next to his belly button. The warm moisture of his breath mingling with yours. Forget. Forgotten. Forfeit.
You dare not turn. Use the darkened screen of your reader to surreptitiously view what’s behind. Should be behind you. So clever. So clever and fearful. A car, the colour of which is obscured. Late model. The occupant unseen; a conspiracy of light and shadows. You drop your over-large sunglasses down over your “big-big” eyes. Beautiful eyes, “cow’s eyes”, he used to say.
Reach into the cupboard to find his razor and toothbrush. The green floss sticks you’ll never use. The travel size shaving foam. Let your hands do the hard work; don’t let your eyes rest on any one object too long. Avoid sniffing the cap of shaving foam. Wipe off the stains from his coffee cup, the dried signs of his toothpaste in the sink. Shut your mind and casually drop everything in the bin. Tie the bag off tightly. Once, then once again…just to be sure. Bismillah. Drain your cup and fill it again for a job well done.
Turn now. You must turn. How old are you? You’re not some little girl after all! Sitting at the dock, frozen. Who would dare to come to your aerie, your redoubt? The one place that you give yourself over to with no misgivings! Turn now. Turn.
The car door shuts, daring you. And then, silence. Not the sound of footsteps or a clearing of a throat or a simple “hello.” Maybe you stood up from your camp chair or still seated turned around in the chair. Your first sight of him after, what, a decade? More. Tall, lanky, a little older looking; but still the same somehow. Cautious smile on his face, khakis sitting a little too high as usual by the grace of that chipped old brown belt. Moss green henley shirt, it’s sleeves rolled back to the elbows. Left hand squeezing the other. Nervous. One glance, a gestaltic snapshot.
Ah, the old familiar pang.
As he approaches the dock, eyes down, paying careful attention to his footing, you are not standing stock-still. Your hand moves to the chair’s back to still it’s shaking. Your eyes are watering, traitors, unfaithful, obscuring your vision. Blinking now, your hand moves under your glasses to clear your sight. The sight of him. Unready, unsteady, undone.
Finally, he says, “Hi, Emma. How’ve you been?”
Your eyes shut. One-two-three-four-five. You open them, adjust your glasses.
"Seb?" you whisper: a question? A greeting maybe?
"Hi, Emma."
Your heart is beating too loud, too fast. You're trying to remember to be present. Just as quickly as you take a deep, bracing breath, your skin heats, outracing your abilities to calm yourself. Build the walls now, as fast as you can, against the oncoming tide. Buttress, fortify, jam supports into place! And just as quickly as you do this, your breath blows those ramparts out.
You stand two arm lengths away, years apart; And yet here.
"Sebastian-fucking-Coe. What are you…?” You stop and try again, Suspiciously, you ask, “What’s happened?"
"I'm not sure. I was…I needed to see you."
