Casey Gilfillan

She reminds me, asks me if I remember that time when this was said, when that happened. She asks if I remember when we had thrown my suitcase out of my second story bedroom window, how we sent it flying. The suitcase followed by bags followed by a stream of uncontained garments, loose and flailing onto the lawn below. The sun was still out, yes of course I remember.

Softly, creeping and tender in step through the house towards the front door. It was a white door with a thick, rectangular lock made of a hard plastic with one of those side-latch locking mechanisms. The interior door, made of a thicker, fuller wood, swung fully open, allowing the sun to cast brilliantly through the preview of the storm door. Slow steps, softly creaking on the kitchen floorboards. She did not stir.

The drool pooled, spine craning uncomfortably forward, hand thrown into contortion, eyes adrift elsewhere. I opened my mouth and there was nothing to say. I felt the breeze, heard the clicking of the wind upon the gentle frame of the aluminum. I passed by, I saw the half-filled laundry basket, partially-smoked cigarette, the quarter cup remaining of coffee. Somehow it looked cold.

She asks me if I remember, I say yes of course I remember. I was in the natural light of the kitchen, I was approaching the door for the very last time. I said goodbye, whispered and with disbelief pushed with new fingers to a new outside. Where she would stir, eventually, and become so overcome with indignancy that I had not repaired the window.

She reminds me, asks me if I remember that time when this was said, and what I could possibly make of such a thing now. You remember, don’t you? And yes, of course I remember. The sun was still out, each notification alert stabbing me like a stake through the heart. My phone a personalized killing device that takes small jabs in non-critical areas of my thorax with each rising development, losing just a little bit of blood each time, incurring just a little more of the infection. I pay for this at her disposal. She talks of revival and pardon, writes of sorrow and tribulation. Yet she will not speak truths, but versions and depictions of truths to her delusion.

She did finally divulge to me a truth, unencumbered and unladen by pathos. She reminds me, asks me if I remember the time when I ruined her life. I do not remember, and she knows this. She tells me that she regrets my very claim to the stake, my grasp and stubborn persistence. But why oh why must I cling on to that which was thrust upon me?