Make enough to live. To buy nice things. To put some away. “Away.” To build a 401K. Mutual funds? IRA. But what’s an IRA. I still don’t know. Do you? Does anyone? Keep working. Long enough to find a therapist. “You’re doing the best you can” and “you’re not the only one.” Is he supposed to agree so much? Enough to pick a fight with him. Until you can feel yourself pushing him away. Maybe he’s not the one. That’s a loaded thought. Is there supposed to be just one? I told him the story about my parents waiting by their landlines. Couldn’t tell if he was listening. I kept going. They showed up where they said they’d be when they said they’d be there. Sometimes it was indoor racket ball. Is that still a thing? Or runs down to the pier and back again. My mom says he used to wash his car before each date. There was something very sweet about that to me. He had definitely stopped listening. My therapist. But I was getting to my point. I think. The phones with the cords. The windy ones with tangles and knots. Remember those? I’d been feeling nostalgic for a phone call. A real one. The way the whole house would ring for an incoming call. Wrapping my fingers in and out of the tangles. Was that twenty years ago? I don’t like to think about it like that. Playing back the voicemails after school. Sticking a note on the fridge. We’ll call them back later. Trading letters for voices. It sounded nice or maybe just in retrospect.
