These Days

The paint color I chose is called "Cactus Blooms."  It's bright and cheery and reminds me a bit of what it looked like when I poured that packet of orange jello onto a pot full of elbow macaroni when I was 10.  

The spot on the wall where James punched a hole is swollen and raised - a cubic foot-sized stress hive that will forever stand out from the rest of the room, forever say "What do you think happened here?"
Forever.

And we sanded it so hard.

Where to go from here?

What to say about it now?

Summer is upon us, and James Austin Henderson is gone.

The question poised before me at the moment is whether or not to recount all the gory gore?  

Maybe it's best to start at the end.

Last Friday we were fugitives.  

I awoke with a hell of a headache from having those fifteen staples put in my head the night before.  Worse than that was the feeling alluding to a suspicion that no one believed it was an accident.

"You got a real winner there," Mike said after I told the story.

In the darkness of the morning, standing in the kitchen with that grim smile and cold look in his eye, that instant he may as well have been holding a can of Coors and threatening to put the fear of God in me unless I could learn to close my goddamn legs, girl.  

The meeting called to tell us that James would be exiled was happening in 40 minutes and I had blood in my hair.  No time to shower.  

This really is dark, but don't be a bitch about it.

We were sitting in the campus ministry office, a place where so many great conversations had happened. The idea that these peach-colored walls would be witness to this awful hour was both absurd and fitting.  All kinds of things happen here.  Once the news was pronounced, Nora and Mike inched away from me in their seats.  Beth asked us to share our thoughts and it was almost more than I could take.
Mike said he was relieved.  Rebecca agreed.  Andrei was and always will be in all ways Andrei.  

We were told not to tell James by text, call, carrier pigeon or telepathy.
"I want to go home.  My head hurts."

A chaperone was offered.  I declined.

"I want to go home now."

I didn't have to break any promises I didn't make; he knew by my face.  

Things happened fast after that.  

We found ourselves on his bed sobbing around 2:15 p.m., after having returned from the Markoe House where they informed him he would be leaving the state by 9 o'clock that night.  

"I don't know how to do this day," he was facing away from me with his head on my chest.  My hand kept wandering up to his eyes, checking for tears.  The truth was I didn't know how to do it either, but I would be damned if I let this be the last thing he did before he left.

In the span of an hour and a half we had purchased him an alternate flight, decided to continue with the plan to stay at Ruthie's family cabin for the weekend, and booked a place for the night.

Nora and Conor came promptly at 4 with boxes and it was all I could do not to grab him by the hand and run.  We packed instead.  Packed and made excruciatingly stupid small talk.

"We think someone in the house pees in the shower.  Gross right?  Oh yeah I can send those photos to him later . . ."

That night we were invited to the Novitiate. The day had exhausted me, and mass and dinner had long since been over, but it felt like I had to show.

Thank God for Patrick Fisher - he can always be counted on to get it without making the egregious social misstep of asking what's going on or oversharing anything going on with him.  He poured water and laughed his lovely, loud, goose-like laugh.  

After a while the night felt stale, forced, and sad.  Maybe it was just me.  But no.
We all had stories we couldn't tell each other.  Not then anyway.  I threw up a hope in the air that there would be a time for it again, and with that I retreated to the car where James had been waiting.
We flew.

Our Airbnb was in Midtown.  There's nothing good to say about it.  I was glad the door locked.  

One thing I've always admired about James is he doesn't feel averse to things others can't handle.  Though I couldn't lie down without placing my sweater on the bed first, he plopped his face right onto the pillow and fell asleep as best as one could when kicked out of your own house and told not to return, even for your things, ever again, and definitely not when any other living person is around.

St. Cloud was great.  

More next time.