1. M__
You always called during dinner.
(This was before we took to eating in our rooms).
Bowls would be passed from hand to hand,
my sister and I making faces at
the slurping noises coming
from across the table, where the boys,
to whom eating was serious business, shoveled
and swallowed impassively.
When the phone rang, mid-meal, everyone knew.
In an irritating sing-song voice,
someone would announce, unnecessarily:
Daaad, M__’s calling again!
ShiTT, he’d mutter, emphasizing the T as if annoyed,
though we knew he wasn’t.
We always knew it was you on the other end of the line,
because we could hear you wailing in distress from the other room.
(Hysterical, we children of the patriarchy called it
— a word derived from the Greek hystera, meaning ‘uterus,’
pertaining to female symptoms
formerly believed to be caused by a defect in the womb.)
Having known you better ten years later,
and having lived many tens of years after that, I wish we had
understood your deep well of desperation,
understood that it was more than another evening’s entertainment,
understood that most things are not as they appear at first glance
— a friendly smile, a joke, a marriage —
understood how, out of all human feelings, helplessness
is, perhaps, the most devastating.
No, we could not have known, being children, and thus cruel.
But, maybe, our lack of understanding was for the best.
Because how could we, having once witnessed
how much one person could lose,
how very far it was possible to fall, and keep falling,
have taken even one confident step forward?
As for you, M__, you were a kind soul, and would not
have wished that upon us. Neither would you have known that,
on the nights you called, Dr. __’s dinner was always eaten cold.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
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