belonging tender_square she noticed her husband looking low and at a remove from the action of her father’s 70th birthday, staring up blankly at a march madness game. she walked over to him during a break in her pool game with her sister, rubbed her right hand at his back while she held her cue with her left, balanced her body with the weight. “are you alright?” he smiled weakly. “yeah, i’m fine.” “you sure?” he nodded, took a sip of his soda. “i just wanted to make sure because you looked off on your own when they’re having a conversation.” she motioned to her father, and his friend, and her sister’s boyfriend. was her father being exclusionary? she didn’t like the way he seemed more chummy with her sister’s boyfriend, smiling and laughing, in comparison with her husband, who had been a part of their family for almost eight years. “i think you’re making a bigger deal out of this than you need to be,” he said. she removed her hand from his back held it out in surrender. “okay. i just wanted to make sure you were okay.” and maybe it was her own shit. maybe she was jealous of the ease her sister’s boyfriend had with her dad, maybe she wished her husband could be as sociable, as easy going around others. maybe she was self-conscious about the partner she’d chosen, about whether she had misjudged the ease with which he’d fit with her family. as her and her husband played pool following dinner, they circled back to their earlier conversation. “your dad was talking about the past; he is very much about this place.” he bent down to shoot a striped ball, sinking it in a corner pocket. “yeah. he loves talking about the past, it’s true.” she leaned against the pool table. “why not ask him questions about it?” he sunk another stripe. stood upright and looked at her from across the felt. “i don’t think this is on me.” the comment smarted her. she couldn’t say why. she aimed for a solid, a direct shot for a corner pocket. she aimed for the lower part of the cue ball. the solid pinged both corners of the pocket, scurrying across the table. she hung her head in frustration. on the way home he asked her if he was wrong about that, about believing that the onus wasn’t on him. she wondered if he’d seen the face of disagreement she’d made in the darkness of the car while they waited at the stop light. “i don’t know,” she offered. “i don’t know what the answer is.” she pressed the gas pedal and looked through the intersection as she drove through it. “i mean, my dad has alzheimer’s, he likes reminiscing about the past, it’s what brings him joy. couldn’t you just throw him a couple of questions about it?” she pulled into their driveway and he was silent and sullen, getting out of the car before she had turned off the engine. he was inside the house by the time she caught up to him. “are you upset?” he stopped walking down the hall and turned. “i don’t know.” he continued to their bedroom. she removed her coat and rolled her eyes. tried to psych herself up for the inevitable discussion that was to come. she entered the bedroom and sat at the foot of his side of the bed. “can we talk about this? what is it that’s bothering you?” “how do you think it feels for me to have no family or place where i belong?” in her head, she thought, “not this again.” she wanted to be sympathetic to him; he’d lived through trauma she hadn’t; how could she possibly understand what it was like to lose a home in a natural disaster, to lose a mother to cancer? “you’re part of a family, this family. you’ve been with us for seven years. i don’t know why you still have walls up with us.” “what do you this this is?” he motioned to the room. “what is ‘this’?” “the house. the house is me showing that i’m serious about being a part of this family.” why did it have to be abstract gestures, why couldn’t it be about the concrete day-to-day interactions? they had the house but he complained nearly every time they planned to travel there. “when i’m with your family, and i don’t know what you all are talking about in relation to your past, i’ve asked questions.” she got up and began to change into her pajamas. “because i want to know more about those events and people and why they were important to you, how they shaped you.” he made a noise under his breath at her back. “you don’t have to do that anymore.” she whipped around, hurt. “that’s not true!” “it is true! my mom is gone! my brother is gone!” and yet he still had a sister, he still had a father, and a stepmother and four step-siblings, none of whom he spoke with on a regular basis. he didn’t just have walls up with her family; he had them up with his own. she shook her head. “i feel like you’re saying that to make me feel bad, like i don’t have a right to ask you be this way with my family because you don’t have one anymore.” “no one asks me questions about my past.” “that’s not true.” she was defensive of her family. her dad may not have asked her husband about his past, true, but her mom certainly had. could her father be blamed when he was an introverted man who mostly kept to himself? why should her father get a pass if her husband didn’t for the same behavior toward her dad? should her father be blamed when he had an illness which may make him more liable to stick with what he knows and is comfortable with? it bothered her that the discussion should turn to her husband and his needs. “why does everyone else get to be themselves and i’m expected to change?” but she also understood that he felt so on the fringes in life. “this is your wound,” she said, moving towards him on the bed. “what was it, the fisher king?” he nodded. “except i have, like, five.” she wrapped her arms around him. “where was his injury again?” “the groin.” “ah, yes.” silence passed between them. “i don’t like being this way,” he said. tears quietly left her eyes as she pressed her forehead to his cheek. “i have often wished to be different, knowing it would be easier that way.” she didn’t understand why living was so painful for him. “this is my life’s quest,” he began. “to learn how to make my way in the world. it’s difficult for me, but i always prevail. i need to remember that.” she didn’t know how much longer she could walk beside him. she wiped her eyes and sat up. “yes, it’ important for you need to remember that.” 220320 ... Bizzar "i think we're gonna make it", the words spilled listlessly from his lips. i could tell he was moments from sleep, and i wondered if he would remember this tomorrow. i laid next to him and watched his eyes move rapidly under his lids. i paid close attention to the feeling of the weighted blanket on my legs. the comfort and safety that i felt. and for a moment i wasn't sure if it was the blanket or his warmth next to me. or the way that i just fit so perfectly in his arms. in his bed. in his life. the way my heart belongs to him. the way his heart feels like home. and i can't help but smirk in my own thoughts. in how 10 years ago we spoke of this lost chance. we excitedly discussed our interests and celebrated their similarities. we discovered each other with the enthusiasm of new lovers while simultaneously mourning the what could have beens. and i used to wonder how i could possibly feel like i belonged with him, when i didn't even know what being with him felt like. i can still remember the moments, as each one unveiled itself. i would read our typed tales and confessions over and over again. as though i could possibly change our past to the one we daydreamed. i imagined he was also staring at his screen in disbelief, wondering how he possibly missed this person, in regret of chances not taken. one exchange that remains ironically vivid is one in which started out so similar to so many others, discussing so much common ground that our past selves had, and the interests and morals we still held in common. there was a long moment of empty, and then his text bubble appeared again. and i waited. as i often used to - staring at those moving dots. waiting so anxiously for his response. and as his spoken words fade into the sounds of the rain machine, the same way he fades from wakefulness to sleep by my side. as i inhale the scent of him that lingers on my skin. i think of those words he just breathlessly spoke, and that vivid memory of his message 10 years ago bounces around in my skull over and over again: ... "for the record" ... "i think we would have made it" 220321 what's it to you? who go blather from