The Third Child - Session 5

(Beep. Music fades in)

I think you know what I’m about to say. Or rather, I think you know where this is going. In a sea of apologies, why would I break the pattern now? What possible reason or purpose could I have to do so? And yet, you’re hopeful. Maybe it’s the fact that I apologized to you before. I told you I couldn’t give you a map to fix your relationship. And I regretted that. I lamented that I could not give you any framework or structure. And really, all I could do was commiserate with you that both of us were at a loss on what came next, on the words we needed to say to cast some sort of spell or anything of the sort that might pull our lives together. We would take anything. And I’d like to think you found this commiseration comforting just as I did. But I can’t guarantee that. I could have found out, sure, but I wouldn’t. I refuse to. Then and now. And I’m sorry. For that. And maybe for so much more. 

I’m sure your sister told you that I have a tendency to apologize too much, and when she points it out to me, I apologize for apologizing, which just feels ironic. I don’t think it technically is. But I think it is the beginning of some type of spiral, and saying it’s ironic is an attempt to break the track before the momentum gets so strong that there’s no hope of stopping it. Waiting it out was never much of an option. From my perspective, it’s obviously quite painful, so painful as to be undesirable. And for your sister, I can’t imagine it was that much better. 

And yet, she chose to cast her lots with mine. She chose a life with me. But I’ll be the first to admit she could not have possibly known what that meant. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I know she never told you how quickly everything happened between us. She admitted as much to me. She said it was better that way, better than worrying you with the truth. I’m sure I’m supposed to have an opinion on that, but I don’t. At the time, it was because I trusted her. Or that’s what I told myself. I told myself it was just a matter of trust. She knew you better. She knew what your tolerance level for… well, I used to call it star crossed romance. We orbited each other for so long, and then we didn’t. Stars crossing paths, you know? I mean I quite or not quite… I almost literally came crashing into her world. And no, I don’t mean… (Sigh) Look, I don’t know what I mean. 

But once upon a time, I saw something in a dream. I saw a moment that I could write with a favorable ending. I don’t get many dreams like that, so even though it meant risking my well being, of course I took it. Please don’t blame me for that. If your sister ever tells you the details, please hear them kindly. Please don’t blame me for seizing the singular moment in my life when I was not helpless. When I had a chance to save someone, to save a small child, one that looked so unlike me that I thought she had a chance at happiness. And I didn’t want that to go to waste. I didn’t want her life to go to waste. But no, I don’t know what would have happened to her if I didn’t intervene. There’s a chance that the accident I saw wouldn’t have happened. I just knew I couldn’t live with the consequences if it did, if I didn’t do something.

The story goes on to include me briefly knocking myself out on the way back to the ground. It was only for a moment or two, enough for this beautiful woman to appear at my side with a genuine look of panic on her face. I knew that face. I knew that beauty, you could say. And at the time and now, I don’t think it wears panic well, so I tried to speak. I tried to say I was fine, but she didn’t believe me. And that’s a fairly common occurrence to be honest. I’ll say I’m fine, and those around me don’t believe, but there’s seldom a reason to push back when someone lies to you in that context. So I can sit here and complain about the dances we exult, about the social habits we turned into de facto laws, but at the same time, I can’t deny that I took advantage of this one, of this ability to charge through small talk with no accountability for the lies I regularly told. 

I still do it, though. I know I do it. I know it can be a problem, but I can’t stop. It’s my way of self implosion.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

But anyway, in that moment, a moment that feels like it belongs to another life, your sister could push back. I was lying on the ground, head smarting from quite the smack, and I’d been out for a few seconds too long, so she did. She took me to the hospital. She called for an ambulance and rode with me in the ambulance. She told them she was my wife, and because head injuries can be serious, no one challenged her or dared her with any follow up questions. 

Maybe they were expecting me to say something if she was lying. But I couldn’t do that.

To tell you the truth, that lie felt right. It felt right living that illusion. So I didn’t want to call it a lie. Instead, I thought we just fell into our truth, into our life together. And that’s how romance works, right? Or that’s what I told myself. I told myself you just fall into things sometimes, especially those sorts of things that are meant to happen. Meant by who, exactly? I was not about to ask that. I wasn’t in the right state of mind to ask that. Nor do I think it really matters. If there is an author to my tale, do they not owe some sort of dream to balance out all the nightmares? Maybe they do. Theoretically. But this is not a theory. This is not a vague moral debate. This is reality. And in reality, goods like this–living nightmares and/or living dreams–aren’t real. Nothing so simple can be real. So you can’t really be owed anything or anything like that, can you?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I’ve been thinking about that a lot more lately. Particularly when I watched you pull your relationship together not out of the ashes of what was before but with those ashes. It was how you sealed together those pieces previously torn asunder. You both came out better for it. You came out stronger both individually and together. And it felt so… inevitable. Not right because no misery every truly can be right. But I watched a process unfold that was supposed to unfold. I watched wheels that turned the way they were meant to turn, even if they had to do so regretfully. I saw a reluctant beauty that I had never thought possible before. And it’s not that I wanted it per say but I wondered if it was ever something I could have. Or something I could do. And what that might have said about me.

And to tell you the truth, me watching felt so voyeuristic. Whether or not it fits a classic definition. And for that I’m sorry. I never should have pulled you into this. Your sister was right. It was better to keep you at arm’s length, just far enough so you wouldn’t worry but closer than everyone else in your family would ever get to me. I should have listened to her. And I’m sorry that I didn’t. Not that I know what the damage is. I just assume there’s quite a bit, you know?

But I’m glad you’re happy. I’m glad the two of you worked everything out. I do hope you appreciate it, though.

(Music fades out. Beep)

The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?