Still With Me

Maybe, from where he was, he forgave you. Not me.

—Myriam Delègue

Jeremy’s strangled cry ripped through the usual din of the prison.

The heavy steel door closed behind him. The sun dazzled his eyes, and he squinted. Most prisoners savor their first moments of freedom, but Jeremy stood there, haggard and oppressed by the light.

He’d been incarcerated for twelve years. That’s what he learned from the date scribbled on his release papers. Where should he go now? Should he find another way to return to prison, thereby protecting Victoria and the kids? He had a few hours ahead of him to think.

In the street, the hectic pace of life and the excitement of the street swept over him, trying to pick him up and drag him along. But he wasn’t really in the street. He didn’t belong to its plotted course. His life unfolded elsewhere, in a different time.

He went in the direction of the house where Victoria had lived in the year he went to prison.

He went into the garden where he’d spied on his little family. He rested on the bench where Victoria had sat a few years before. A gentle warmth crept over him, as if Victoria had left a few waves behind for his body to reactivate. He thought of the words she’d spoken then, her tears, and her look of defeat. He lost himself in his thoughts. His mother, his wife, and his children each took their turn, smiling at him, lecturing him, kissing him, crying for him, hating him.

Jeremy didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at the windows of the house. Did Victoria still live there? She’d probably moved to get away from all the places that reminded her of her painful past. Jeremy walked to the front door and checked the name on the mailbox. Victoria’s parents’ names weren’t there anymore.

He went to his mother’s apartment, hoping to see her. She must have been seventy-nine years old, and age and the trials of living would surely have taken their toll. He walked all the way to Faubourg-du-Temple Street and stopped in front of the building. Traces of his happiness were everywhere: on the front of the building, on the sidewalk, the benches, and the doorway. He moved toward the walkway and noticed sadly that they’d made renovations. The wooden mailboxes, where children had carved their names long ago, had been replaced by aluminum lockers; the old tile with marble slabs.

Jeremy scrolled through the names on the intercom. His mother’s wasn’t there. He tried to calm his fears by thinking of her letter. Four years ago she had been alive. But the past four years didn’t have the same meaning to an amnesiac and an elderly woman.

Lost in a story in which he had no role to play, Jeremy wanted to be alone with his pain. He noticed a small hotel up the street. The kind of place you would only enter out of necessity.

The room he checked into was filthy. Dirt smears marred the peeling paint. Pale light filtered in through sticky curtains. But Jeremy barely noticed the grim decor. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

An hour must’ve gone by when Jeremy heard a knock at the door. He didn’t react. He wasn’t expecting anyone—didn’t exist for anyone.

He heard a few more knocks, as whoever it was tried again. Then the knob turned. Jeremy saw the door open slowly and made out a shadow and then a face. A man looked over at him. He hesitated for a few seconds on the doorstep and then moved into the light of the room. Then, despite all the forgotten years, Jeremy recognized the person staring down at him. It was Simon.

Jeremy sat on the bed facing him. They weren’t speaking. On the hard, unforgiving face of his son, Jeremy could see traces of the child he’d barely known. He had a hard beauty. His features were perfectly even. Jeremy was both joyful and disappointed. He didn’t expect Simon to run into his arms, but even so, his icy coldness wounded Jeremy.

Simon spoke. “I came to ask you a question, sir,” he said firmly.

The formal tone hurt Jeremy. It expressed the conflict that had made them enemies and pulled them apart to the point where they were no more than strangers.

Jeremy knew what Simon had come to ask. He sighed to demonstrate his helplessness. “I can’t give you an answer.”

Simon clenched his jaw.

“You came to ask me why I did what I did to your mother…and to you,” Jeremy continued. “You want to know what I’m going to do next. But I don’t know any of it.”

“You don’t know?” Simon repeated angrily. “That tells me something already.”

“No. I don’t know anything about it because I can only guarantee my feelings and actions for today. Tomorrow, I’ll be another man. A man I only know by his cruelty and who I can’t control.”

Simon rushed his father and grabbed him by the collar. “Listen to me,” he said, shaking him to stress the importance of his words. “The prison administration warned us about your release, and for weeks my mother has been terrorized. She doesn’t sleep. She doesn’t eat. I’ve been following you since you got out. I saw you go to my grandmother’s house. I don’t know what you’re up to, what you’re looking for, but know one thing: if you come close to my mother, if you have any intention to hurt her, I promise you I won’t hesitate to…to make you regret it. My mother has suffered enough. I don’t want her to die from fear or grief like my grandparents. I won’t let you destroy her. I swear to you.”

Simon relaxed his hold and threw Jeremy onto the bed roughly. His face reclaimed its dry beauty and symmetry. He walked toward the door.

“Wait!” Jeremy shouted.

The tone of his voice surprised Simon.

“What did you say? My mother is…Mom is…”

Simon looked confused but kept his guard up. “You already know that. She died two years go. And it was your fault. She died of grief. She’d lost her husband after losing her son. She let herself die. She didn’t eat. Our love wasn’t enough. She wanted yours.”

Jeremy slid to the floor. He felt a terrible pain burning in his chest, and each heartbeat pushed the liquid lava deeper into the remote folds of his consciousness, the infinitely small muscles of his body. He was a searing flame. He would burn himself out, be reduced to ashes, mixing with the dust in the room that muffled his tears and rasping sobs.