Susan Senator

Crossroads
Seem to come and go…
— Allmans

As I write this, I feel vomity guilt rise in my throat, but it is true: I go through my days mostly not thinking about Nat, except stray moments. I walk past his door and notice how he makes his bed now that he’s been living at the House. I see his empty chair at the head of the table, where we put him back when Ben could not stand to face him, so bad was the hate, anger, grief, whatever stew of emotions he felt.

When I suddenly do think of him, my heart lurches. How did I not think of him, that moment before? How can I have dropped the thread?

I always felt bad about the seat-change in our dining room. I know how Ben felt. I don’t know how Nat felt. Did Nat pick up on Ben’s hostility? I think Ben made him skittish, at very least. I never knew what to say to ease the pain between them. I did a terrible job of it. The flood of happiness and little-boy bounce that Ben exhibits is just golden to me, a light laugh, a blessing from God. My own happiness, my freedom. Max’s freedom to just be the crabby grunting teenager, no guilt. It was all born of Nat leaving, which just rips me open, like Prometheus: always healed the next time I’m with Ben, Max, or teaching my class, or changing plans just like that, or letting lights stay on and handbags stay open. I’m always freshly lacerated when I think of why.

I have the pressure of tears behind my eyes and my brow has been furrowed most of the late afternoon, my lowest time. I think that what happened was I went for a run and as I rounded the two-mile point, “Sweet Melissa” came on, which was the first song on my Labor Tape. I know I’ve said this before. That song, that song. It is the song that reminds me of my early labor, the Braxton-Hicks, the warm-up contractions prior to giving birth to Nat. I wondered if I was having a girl, contrary to all signs. I had seen him in a dream — laughing, with bright blond hair, in my sister’s bedroom in my parents’ home in Connecticut — yet I still thought I was having a girl. We never had the later-term ultrasound, I don’t know why. We had so much confidence in my baby’s health, and mine.

So Sweet Melissa, in late October, is my Nat song and my Nat time of year. His birth day was November 15, 1989.

I ran around that bend and I felt my face clench into misery, even with the bright blue sky and the light rhythmic breathing of a perfect run. The tears I cried mixed with my sweat and I kept clearing them away because I didn’t want people to see, and wonder about the idiot who cried while she ran.

Just like maybe some of you wonder about the idiot who just can’t get over that her firstborn moved out. Mawkish, maudlin me. But I don’t care. I still worry. I still hurt. I still think of things he might be thinking. And I don’t know, I don’t know. This isn’t about evidence, reports from the staff, his teachers, my own eyes. This is in my stupid fat unseeing heart. I don’t know if he’s wondering if he’ll ever live fulltime at home, ever again. If he’s wondering why I gave him so little warning about moving out. I was so selfish, thinking only that I wanted to preserve the peace and not get him all anxious and aggressive again. I am so afraid of the return of the aggression. The absence of the aggression means that so many doors are open to him. He can go anywhere, outside, do anything, with others, and it seems to me that he likes that, the way he smiles when I drop him off at Social Group. Those are his dudes, his peeps.

But I don’t want to think about the aggression. I can’t stop thinking about Nat and how it still hurts, the parts I didn’t get right for him. And just missing all the parts, all of him.