Nightwolf

And yet that fear isn’t leaving.

The fear of losing her after having lost so much.

How do I move past that fear? How can I throw myself back into love with such open arms knowing that one day it’s all going to hurt like hell?

Then something my father said comes into my mind, floating like a feather in the wind. It was before he died. Literally right before. Part of everything I tried so hard to block out.

He said to me, “Loss and love go hand-in-hand.”

My father knew that back then. He knew it as a simple truth, a fact of life, not something to be afraid of. He knew he was going to die, and still he was trying to teach me a lesson, that death was a part of life, just as love was.

I just don’t know if it’s a lesson I’m learning too late.

Chapter 18

Amethyst

“Amethyst?” Lenore calls from the kitchen. “My mom just texted. Dinner is ready. Did you want to come upstairs or eat in your room? I can bring it to you again.”

I’m lying on my side on top of the quilted covers in Lenore’s bedroom in her old apartment in Hayes Valley, which has become my temporary home. It’s dark, all the lights are off, and had she not said something about dinner I wouldn’t know what time of day it was. I’ve kept to myself these past few days, just existing in this liminal world between sleep and reality. I like it that way. It keeps the pain from getting too real and, believe me, I have pain coming at me from all different directions.

The pain of losing my mother.

The pain of losing Wolf.

I don’t think humans are built to handle so much at once. Whether it’s happiness, or pain, I think we tap out. I know my brain isn’t capable of processing any of this. That’s why it keeps me in this state of consciousness that’s a lot like being under.

Or being in a coma.

I try not to think of it like that, but my mind keeps coming back to it.

Was it like this for my mother as she lay in that coma? Was it a peaceful place? Was it a place she purposefully retreated into because being awake was too hard? Or was it dark and scary and did she feel lost? Did she really hear me when I was talking to her? Or was she just floating along, sometimes coming through, like pushing through a web, catching snippets of my voice, before disappearing again?

Did she really see me when she looked at me?

Or was her brain damage too much, so that she didn’t know who I was at all?

That’s the question that scares me the most, that the moment, that beautiful connection we shared when our eyes met, didn’t mean anything to her. That she didn’t know I was her daughter.

I like to think she did. No, I have to think she did, or else I will go mad with the deepest sorrow. I saw the recognition in her eyes and I have to believe, I have to believe, that she knew who I was and that she knew I loved her.

She had to at least have felt the love.

And when Wolf told her to keep her eyes open, did she really know what he was asking for? And if she did, was that why she died after? Did it really take all her strength to see me one last time?

One last time. Oh god.

But, the more I think about it, the more it hurts, and so I don’t. I try to push on. I feel like I can just…skirt across the surface, like one of those bugs you see walking on ponds. They’re so light and they walk on water and it seems like a miracle, and yet underneath you know those fish are swimming, ready to swallow it whole.

That’s me.

I’m just waiting to be swallowed whole.

Then the surface breaks, and I sink down, down, down, into my pain and it’s bone-crushing and heart-breaking and I feel like every single ounce of me, who I was, who I am, who I will be, is being altered in messy, violent, irreversible ways. Then I pop back up on the surface and catch my breath for a few more seconds, maybe even walk a few more feet, before it happens all over again.

When does it end? If it never ends, how do I learn to live with that? How can I live my life again without sinking to the bottom every time I think about my mother?

Or Wolf?

I know the pain of heartbreak isn’t the same as the pain over death. I know that now, but fuck, they are similar. They both bring grief. They both make you question everything you’ve ever known. They both slice you up from the inside out.