What I Remember
WHAT I REMEMBER
Nine years ago. The ring, the bracelet, the tulips.
Vanessa Thompson, by accounts from outsiders glancing into the situation with her husband, might’ve seemed like a strong, unfazed woman. That was what she presented, even to Dennis Thompson himself, when the brain fog set in and she’d have to remind him of things, when she’d sit on the curb with him because he couldn’t walk up the street without stopping to catch his breath, when he could no longer sing while strumming his guitar.
It’s alright, she’d tell him. I’m okay. I love you more than life. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than at your side, she’d say when he worried that she was falling apart on the inside. But I’d listen on late nights, watch from the darkness of the hall while she cried with the sink water running, trying not to make a sound louder than the steady stream. It wasn’t always possible. One night, she couldn’t help the ragged sounds coming from her throat, the quiet way she begged, “Dear God, I’m so tired. Please.” And my own chest hurt with wondering whether she was asking God to save my father, for a miracle that wouldn’t come, or to put an end to both of their suffering. Because Dennis Thompson was supposed to die a year ago, then six months later, then it’ll be any day now, but he was still holding on to her hand like an anchor to this earth.
My throat was sandpaper dry when I slipped into my room and picked up my phone. It was past midnight, but Issac still answered my call. “Ni, what’s wrong?”
How could I get the words out? Why did I expect him to hear my voice and know what I’d need to say?
I was ashamed, suddenly remembering he had lost both parents.
Was crying to him over one I hadn’t lost yet cruel?
“Nothing, I’m sorry,” I said. “It was something silly, but I didn’t realize the time. I don’t want Mom to hear me talking. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
I hung up the phone and tried to keep my heart from splintering into pieces. Minutes later, Issac knocked on my window. Something heavy gathered in my throat as I watched him haul himself inside, and as soon as his feet hit the carpet, I let a cry escape. And then we were hugging and he was saying soothing things and rubbing my back, and he didn’t care that his shirt was tear-soaked or that it was hard for me to explain why I needed him that night.
“Shh. I’m here,” he said. “You can tell me, or you don’t have to say anything at all.”
His words broke a dam inside of me. For the first time, I let my feelings pour out, telling him I couldn’t imagine a life without my father in it but hated that my mother was becoming a shell of herself. Hated that my father couldn’t dance with me anymore, or that there hadn’t been tulips on the kitchen table in months. That I wanted both for it to be over and to prolong it forever so that we’d never lose my father.
Issac listened and held me until the sobs left. When I pulled back, self-conscious over the tears still slipping, he was crying too. I apologized and he tilted my chin.
“It’s me. Please don’t do that.”
The words felt tender, released the feeling of being a burden, so that when he asked if I wanted him to stay awhile I answered honestly. We lay on my bed, our limbs tangled above the covers. He smelled like mint and grass after it rains, and I was quickly lulled into sleep. When I woke alone the next morning, there was a note along with a small silver ring he always wore on his pinky. Took your name bracelet and left a ring from my mom’s jewelry box in its place. A trade that didn’t feel fair when my bracelet was a thing strung together haphazardly to pass the time. But even back then I’d realized Issac Jordan trusted me enough to wear his mom’s ring. It felt like a responsibility and a promise all at once.
I put it on the necklace my dad had given me two birthdays ago, and decided I’d keep both forever.
Later I’d learn that when my mom walked into the kitchen after waking up, she found pink tulips Issac had picked from a neighbor’s yard sitting on the counter for her.