Life’s meaning escaped me.
The bank foreclosed on our home
on Englewood Road.
Marcia paid the bills.
Or, I should say, didn’t pay the bills.
After Marcia lost the baby,
the money I thought we’d saved
went up her nose.
I emptied my lungs with shakes and screams.
Marcia sat on the brown leather sofa.
She lowered her chin
and held her head in her hands.
Marcia needed help, so we agreed to treatment.
I gathered her bags and carried them
from the truck to the clinic.
It was a day before Valentine’s Day.
We talked about this
and that and her getting better.
We steered clear of the baby.
“I wasn’t there for…”
“Don’t,” Marcia said, placing her hand chest high. “Stop. I feel…” Marcia paused and brushed away tears with her fingers. “I love you, Ben.” Marcia planted several warm kisses on my lips.
“I love you, too,” I said, choking up. “I’ll be back in six months.”
Marcia stood with her hands tucked inside her back pockets. “Six months.” She gave me a confident wink.
I paid movers to place my furniture in a rented unit at Granger Storage.
I noticed boxes of papers.
Papers that I hadn’t examined before.
I moved in with my parents.
They lived a few blocks away from where Marcia and I lived.
Where we used to live.
Dad had plenty of space in his three-story home.
I slept in my old room.
One night, I held my hands behind my head,
staring at the ceiling when curiosity washed across me.
I twisted to sit upright, scratched the back of my neck,
and stretched with a yawn.
I had to see the papers in the boxes.
I grabbed a coat, slipped my feet into tennis shoes,
and descended the stairs for the door.
I slid in and cranked the engine on.
I waited until the air blasting through the vents warmed my hands.
Shadows suffocated the day’s race and stretched across the sky,
with pinholes for stars to peek through.
I reversed out of the driveway, looking over my shoulders.
I shifted gears, following stoplights and street signs.
I noticed stray dogs here and a man with no place to go shivering there.
The Jeep in front of me was missing a brake light.
God’s intention must have been to nurture my passion.
I blinkered left, but my left blinker wasn’t working.
I grinned at the irony and continued the drive.
I drummed my thumbs on the steering wheel’s edge
to The Aces Attention.
Was this God’s way of breaking my attention
on what didn’t matter in life?
I pulled into the storage place.
The light above my unit flickered
as though its time was coming.
I turned off the truck and made my way to the unit.
I twisted the key and popped the lock.
As I lifted the door, the squeak bit my ears.
I clapped the dust off my hands
and dragged my wrist across my brows.
I shifted items and opened a box.
It contained Maricia’s journals.
Reading them would invade privacy, but I needed to see.
The first journal that I opened
had a picture of us as high schoolers.
That prom picture brought me back to a time
when life was simple.
I smiled before a tear trailed my cheek
to my chin.
I love Ben so much, as the journal noted.
I traced my finger across it with my eyes trained on the meaning.
I lost the baby.
The baby?
I scratched my head.
I knew about the one we just lost, but other babies?
No.
I continued.
I’ve lost a baby since high school.
Each journal noted the same frustration over losing a child.
I raked my fingers through my thick, blond hair.
That’s why Marcia turned to drugs.
Marcia didn’t have an addiction; she just needed to talk to me.
She knew how much I wanted a child.
But I didn’t consider her pain.
It was work this or work that.
I lost track of what mattered.
I picked Marcia up from the clinic after six months.
When she exited the building, I saw what I’d missed before.
I saw the person I remembered.
Marcia stood a distance away, playing with her hands.
Our eyes confessed our love for each other.
And our tears apologized for our failure.
Marcia closed the distance between us.
She spilled into my arms as though
I was a soldier returning from a war.
“I didn’t do it,” Marcia said.
“Do what?”
“Your father bought us that ranch we wanted.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “The bank took our home.”
“About that,” Marcia said, playing with her hands.
“What?” I lifted and lowered my hands.
“We didn’t lose the home.”
“What?” I screwed up my face.
“I sold the home because we wanted that ranch.”
“That’s why you don’t have any bags?”
“You didn’t know that I was staying downstairs in your brother’s old room.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I needed you to figure it out on your own.”
“The journals,” Maricia said, “talking to Jesus, all of it, I needed you to see me.”
“I’ve learned a lot in the past six months,” I said.
“I’ve been writing it down,” Marica said.