The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets - By Kathleen Alcott Page 0,46

who listened but would not commiserate.

“Dear heart,” he said with a sigh, “I want you to hear what I’m about to say and try not to be angry.

“You and Jackson …” he said, and all I heard was the familiarity of our names once again united, “… you and Jackson have had your time. I’m an old man, and I know what I’m saying when I tell you that just because you love someone, Peaches, just because you love someone doesn’t mean they’re right. For you. At least not forever. And how many times, Ida—how many times have I picked up the phone to you in a state of absolute disrepair because you’ve woken up to him gone? How many times have you worn long sleeves in the summer—I don’t care if it’s not his fault he hurts you, Ida, but the truth is he does. And you hurt each other. You’re my child and Jackson might as well be, and don’t hate me for saying this, honey, but I think he was right to go.”

When I had run out of old friends to call, and even my father said he’d be happy to talk with me about anything but Jackson, I began calling James’s hotel. He was required to pick up and so I was able to get in a few angry words, hammer out a few reluctant answers, but after two weeks he convinced his boss of a frequent prank caller and the need of a little box that he glanced at, then ignored, while the telephone wires ached and the numbers of my location pulsed and pulsed and pulsed.

Amid all of this, my father and Julia undertook partnership wholeheartedly, almost as if it were their profession. They made an art form of consideration, compassion, frequently stumbling over each other to accommodate. Rolls of Tums showed up with the slightest mention of stomach upset, you-shouldn’t-haves exchanged like currency. Whatever tension there’d been decades ago, as young parents trying to survive in different ways, they relegated this like an old couch for the sake of something more comfortable. She moved from the room where I had slept as a child to his. Though they slept in the same bed, we understood this was not for the sake of lust but nearness; Julia wanted to be there in the middle of the night if my father’s breath grew troubled, and he felt obligated to receive whatever end-of-the-day or postdream thoughts she offered. In a word, Julia navigated all things physical and tangible for the both of them—trips to the post office and the pharmacy, groceries, whole days mopping and sweeping—and my father held her hand and listened, read her short stories by Latin American authors about little boys sailing and drowning in a sea of light.

There are photographs I could display, stories I could tell, that would mitigate harsh images like that of Jackson sitting demonic in the chair at Paul’s gallery, of him looking down at the most recent bruises on my breasts and turning away, not able to manage the information. There were whole days laughably perfect, those we memorize to nourish us later. Of course, I try to reject turning to these for hydration, given the subsequent drought and its crater I sat in speechless, but it would be unfair to him and, mostly, all that time, to say we faltered for the entirety of it.

There is a game we used to play, after sex, in which we’d try to stay connected afterward for as long as possible. As in we’d lie there, adjusting our bodies and breathing patterns to avoid possible displacement, having conversations about the books we were reading, the man at the corner store whom we loved, our parents, the status of the tomato plant we tried raising several times. It’s silly to describe, the next part even more so, but sometimes, on the heaterless winter mornings in our apartment, we’d try to get up like that, the comforter wrapped around both of us, my legs around his lower back, and he’d sometimes succeed at pouring a bowl of cereal that we’d then share, me still suspended and calves straining to grip, giggling but trying to refrain from doing so, wanting to be a part of the same warmth. We’d put our serious faces on again and he’d oscillate between an exhausted, happy still and an erection, and sometimes we’d enjoy each other again.

Were I testifying for a case of happiness, there’s much else