Like looking into a mirror: Hart Edgewood

[fantastix]

I remember Paris.

Long walks.
Miscommunication.
A sailing moon.
Provisions.
Waltzing.
Cheap china.
Your music.
Isolation.
Holy, holy, holy.
Assailants.
Your head dipped back.
Perfume. Awful, awful perfume.
Letters. Tons of them.
The walks. I can't forget the walks.
Miscommunication.
You.
Me.
Isolation.
The flight home.
Home.

I remember Paris.

Winter, 1998.
Snow.
Snow on your eyelashes, so beautiful, so simple.
Pure.
Postcards from Amsterdam.
The garden.
Killjoy.
The Streets.
Your head tilted back.
San Fransisco.
The First Tulip.
Your eyes.
Your mouth.

I remember Paris.

How did it ever become this way?
How did we ever become so distant?
I remember you.
I remember you so vividly, so perfectly, just as I wanted you.
Just as you were.
Not like this.
I never wanted you like this, swimming in your tees, drowning in addictions.
I wanted you that way.
Not like this.
But, I still remember you.

I remember Paris.

[fantastix]

<center>

I can't undo the day
It won't go under the rug
I pull out all the stops
And you pull the plug

These are sober days and I know it can't be
But I'll miss you the way you miss the sea

Don't look down
Keep staring like you've never seen the stars
If you need me to remind you who you are
Little blossom there's the shiniest soul
Just behind those eyes

"No longer my affair"
Well I can't go there just yet
So I've come to love and trust those friends
That are holding your net

Falling off used to mean
Maybe grazing a knee
And I'll miss you the way you miss the sea

Don't look down
Keep staring like you've never seen the stars
If you need me to remind you who you are
Little blossom there's the shiniest soul
Just behind these eyes

While I won't second guess
What you're thinking of me


Elbow.
</center>

[fantastix]

Mattie

This is the sort of letter I never wanted to write to you. And I probably shouldn't have started it this way, I know you're probably reading frantically now after seeing that first sentence. Before you read on, you should know everything will be okay. It always turns out okay, it always turns out for the best. How cliche of me to say, given what I am about to say to you.

I loved you. In some ways I still do, but in other ways I just feel that I'm not in love with you. You have to understand, Paris was a glitch. It was a hiccup in my routine; while you hate the word, I live by it. I live by a schedule, a set time, a routine. It's what keeps me going. Paris was just a fault in the system; it was nothing but a vacation from reality for me. You have been nothing but a vacation from reality for me. I say this because somehow waking up to you doesn't seem like it could last forever. It's not that I don't want it to, but it just can't. You're too dream-like for me to wake up to. You keep me in a haze, I don't get work done, you leave your cigarette butts floating in the toilet, I find your hairs on my oxfords. You smell like flowers and you're the most beautiful when you're first waking up because you're not hiding then. You're not stuck behind a bunch of make-up, or putting on a fake smile. But the second your feet hit the floor, that's all you do. You hide, and more importantly, you hide from me.

It shouldn't take this note telling you I can't be with someone that hides from me twenty-four hours a day for you to know that. You should know me by now, you should know the kinds of things I expect. Expectation: a word I never wanted in my vocabulary, but now I can't stop using it. I expected more from you. I expected more from us. Don't feel that you are entirely to blame; I am just as guilty as you are of getting too comfortable too quickly. I hate that I know your every movement, the words you're about to say, what every flinch and crease of your skin means. I know the language your eyes speak before your mouth could ever find words to speak it. I've always known. Ever since the day I met you. Ever since June, ever since Paris.

I think about Frank, too. I think about the sort of life he led, the kind where he did what he wanted when he wanted, but with a kindness in his heart that only left a sweet taste in each person's mouth that he came in contact with. I want that for you, and I want that for myself. I want the chance to do greater things -- not that I'm necessarily worthy of that, but it's worth a shot. I want to be with a person who is better because of me, not someone who is with me because they know they can lift me up. Does this make sense? Does it make sense that I am so full of myself that I'm not satisfied with settling with a perfectly good person because I'd rather be with someone who gives me a challenge? That's what it is. I need a challenge. I need someone who not only compliments me, but swears up and down they are right. I need someone who pushes my buttons and makes me want to rip my hair out; I need someone who doesn't pretend to understand me, but understands me so well they know just how to torture me, then become my heaven. The sad thing of it all is you do this. You know me extremely well. But you're settling. We've both been settling, and if that wasn't the case you wouldn't be crying to go back to Paris.

I'm going to New York. I want to see Carol and the kids, I want to spend time relearning the city, and I want to take time to relearn myself. Somewhere between Paris and Amsterdam and here, I've completely lost myself. I might've found you, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm dead. I'm gone. And I'm just too young to be dead or gone. I need to find me, and while I (unfortunately) don't have a map to lead me back to myself, I think this is the first step. Even if it turns out to be a mistake, it'll be a good one to have made.

When you receive this, I'll be on a plane. I'm not worried about my posessions: trash them if you want. I've got my clothes. I've got my necessities. And you don't know how much I wish you were one of those necessities, but I just can't pretend anymore.

I've got to find myself before I can find anyone else, but understand if there was ever a person I wanted to find as much as myself, it would be you. Maybe one day, the broken map I've chosen to follow will lead me home to you.

I will always love you. Please understand that and don't misinterpret this letter as anything less than.

Hart

[fantastix]

Mya: "Uncle Hart?"

Hart: "What's up, chitlin?"

Mya: "How come the sky is blue?"

Hart: "Ask your mom, she'd know."

Cameron: "Yeah, don't ask stupid questions, Mya. Everyone knows the answer to that."

Mya: "Nuh uh!"

Hart: "Yeah, Cameron. If you're so tough, you answer it."

Mya: "Yeah!"

Cameron: "It's blue because the chemicals in the sky are blue, dumby."

Mya: "Then how come yesterday it was gray?"

Cameron: "Because they were gray yesterday."

Mya: "You're a liar, I'm telling Mommy."

Cameron: "Your face is ugly."

Hart: "That's not very nice, Cameron."

Cameron: "Well she called me a liar! And I'm right about the chemicals. My teacher said so."

Mya: "I'm going to ask Mommy, she's a teacher and she knows everything."

Cameron: "Fine, stupid head."

Carol: "What are you two fighting about?"

Mya: "Mommy, why is the sky bl--"

Cameron: "She called me a liar."

Carol: "I need to talk to Uncle Hart, can you two go play outside for a little while?"

Hart: "No kids, stay here."

Carol: "No, go outside."

Insert two very confused blinking children here.

Hart: "This doesn't sound good."

Carol: "It's fine. Come help me with dinner."

Hart: "Why'd you make the kids go outside? Don't tell me it's about Mat--"

Carol: "I wasn't going to say anything."

Hart: "So why are you?"

Carol: "She's a mess."

Hart: "We knew she would be. Doesn't it matter that I'm a mess, too?"

Carol: "I just feel bad for her, I guess. Hand me the cutting board."

Hart: Handing her the cutting board. "She called?"

Carol: "Earlier."

Hart: "Where was I?"

Carol: "Outside with the kids."

Hart: "Oh. --The 'wrong number'."

Carol: "I don't want to be in the middle of this, Hart."

Hart: "No one's asking you to be, I guess. One egg or two?"

Carol: "Two. Look, I think maybe you've got to give her some closure at least. She was pretty confused on the phone."

Hart: "That letter is all the closure she's going to get."

Carol: "Hart..."

Hart: "No, listen to me. If I call her and talk to her, she won't listen to a goddamn word I'm saying. She'll just listen to herself spew bullshit about things she doesn't even know about. Don't you side with her, Carol."

Carol: "I'm your sister."

Hart: "You're her best friend."

Carol: "You're her.."

Hart: "Nothing."

Carol: "You sure?"

Hart: "It's not like we were ever married."

Carol: "You love her."

Hart: "Loved. Loved, not love. Potatoes?"

Carol: "Pantry. I just don't want to see either of you going overboard, and you know that statement is more for her than you. I know her just as well as you do."

Hart: "I don't know her anymore. She doesn't know her anymore."

Carol: "Sometimes I think I don't know James, but that doesn't mean I don't try. You don't see me walking out on him."

Hart: "I should've known you were going to give me this bullshit. If you were so concerned about it, why'd you let me leave so easily and agree to let me stay here?"

Carol: "Because you're my brother."

Hart: "No, I think you agreed so you can just bullshit around like her."

Carol: "You sound like a retard, you know that? Hand me the onion."

Hart: "You sound like an insensitive bitch."

Carol: "This entire conversation was started on behalf of yours and her well-being, and you have the nerve to call me an insensitive bitch?"

James: "Honey, I'm ho-- okay... Honies, I'm home!"

Carol: "Hello, dear."

Hart: "Hey, James."

James: "Hart, I didn't realize you were already in town. Good to see you, man."

Carol: "James, tell Hart he's being unreasonable and needs to call Mattie."

Hart: Blank staring. Slow, heavy blinking.

James: "Umm... no."

Carol: "Why not?"

James: "It's in the Brotherhood Contract."

Carol: "You're not even real brothers."

Hart: "After all the shit you put us through to make us have bonding experiences, you're going to say that?"

Carol: "Watch your language, the children might hear you."

James: "Here we go..."

Hart: "Here we go is right, right into your hoity-toity kick."

Carol: "I am not hoity-toity!"

Hart: Cough. "Bullshit."

Carol: "I resent that."

James: "Well, you do like opera..."

Carol: "James!"

Hart: "Good one, my man."

James: "I'm leaving before I end up on the couch."

Carol: "Where are you going?"

James: "To see the kids."

Carol: "Thirty minutes 'til dinner."

Hart: "Can I come, James?"

James: "Come on, whiney bastard."

Carol: "Watch your language! And no he cannot come on, he's helping me with dinner."

Hart: Mumbling. "More like getting an ear full from the love doctor."

Carol: "Would you rather have a fist full?"

Hart: "Of what?"

Carol: "I don't know. Pudding."

James: "Sounds kinky."

Carol: "Both of you shut up!"

Hart: Grinning. "Home at last."

[fantastix]

The floor felt cool against his ridiculously hot feet. He paced slowly, counting his steps just to keep his mind away from what he really wanted to do, knowing full well it wasn't his place to do it. The point, he reminded himself, was to get away from her.

The rest of the family had gone for a Saturday filled with Upstate New York activities: Cameron's soccer game, Mya's ballet class. While Carol was chauffeuring the children around, James was keeping busy with springtime activities such as cutting the grass and weeding the small garden in the back yard. This was the only way to keep Hart somewhat sane -- had he gone to urban New York, he would have only found millions of things that reminded him of her. Thinking he could take time for himself, he chose somewhere more rural; he still found a million things to remind himself of her, including the china. Including the hardwood floors. Including the telephone.

Rather than taking the house phone to the front porch, he dug around in his pocket to fish out his cellular, dropping down easily onto the porch swing. The house was small, but not entirely. The back yard had a white picket fence. It was the sort of dream house the average All-American family dreamt of; and here he was, itching to get away. Itching to go back home, though he really didn't know where home was anymore. It wasn't Paris. It wasn't with Mattie. It isn't here. Punching in the first three letters of her name, she pulled up and he sat for a long moment, his elbows jabbed into his knees, eyes staring down at the face of the phone. There was a fleeting moment when his thumb moved to the 'end' button, but before he knew it he was rubbing the heel of his palm over his weary eyes, pressing the phone to his ear to wait for her to pick up.

"Hi, you've reached Mattie. Leave a message."

"I... Mattie. It's Hart. But I guess you probably knew that already if you checked your I.D. And you probably recognized my voice. But I'm rambling, and anyway, I just wanted to say hello. I heard you called yesterday. I don't know what my sister said to you, but whatever it was, forgive her if she was rude. I think she's PMSing. Well, maybe that wasn't the brightest thing to say to another woman. Well, anyway. I'll leave my cell phone on. You can call me. I hope you're well, I've been thinking about..."

Before he had a chance to complete his message, he was cut off by the automated response letting him know he'd run out of time.

[fantastix]

Tomorrow. Technically today.

I'll see her. Or maybe I won't.

I wrote her a letter, but she never responded. But I told her not to. I told her I didn't want to see her. There is no getting back together, I said. I just have to get my things, I wrote.

Why can't I sleep?

Leaving New York temporarily, and I can't get one second of shut-eye because of it. I will kiss my sister in the morning and promise the kids I will see them soon. Take care, I'll tell them, of everything by the time I get back. Which will be very soon. Very soon. I swear.

I will sip coffee, though I won't want the caffeine. I will order disgusting airline food with the hopes that I can stomach it long enough to tide me over until I pick up more food that I will barely be able to swallow. I will sit in the smoking section of restaurants only because I know she won't expect to find me there. I can expect to find her there. I'll leave my cell phone behind. I'll find a reason to go back there. I'll find a reason to miss New York and head straight for home.

This is a disaster waiting to happen.

I should not get on that plane. I should not leave New York, and I should not sit in the smoking section at restaurants. I should not still smell her on my pillows and I should not find her hairs on my shirts. I should be stronger than this.

I remember Paris.

The fighting.

The miscommunication.

There should be not even a fleck of an inkling of a speck of a minute idea that this is the right thing to do. I should have these things boxed and shipped to me by someone else. I should not get on that plane. I should not see her.

But I will.