Fontanelle

A man stands up at a pew. He clears his throat politely to the woman on his left who is overcome with grief. Raising her head she tucks her knees and pivots her seated grieving to allow him into the isle. The man edges past her and caries his momentum out and into the open space among the pews. His funeral blacks cling rigid and starched to his frame resisting as he walks with purpose to the pulpit.

It was his fault; in the measured weight of assigning blame. He thought, with candour, that only in the remaining steps to the pulpit would this transient thought be so clear in his head.

He thought of words. Words like ‘fetus’ and ‘infidelity’. He wondered as to why such a disgusting sounding word was used to explain a developing child and yet such a beautiful word was used to name the worst act committed in love.

He thought of the words ‘to cheat on a spouse’ and how whimsical it all made it sound. A euphemism for the ages. As if life and the beautiful connections we make with one another is a game; a binary configuration set within a rule book. He didn’t cheat on his wife. He didn’t cut some corner to win some false sense of accomplishment cued up by cards in his sleeve—he did far worse and the words of it should deal just as worse with him.

He reached the top and left those indulgent intro-punitive thoughts to the stairs.

“Some might think that I don’t belong to be here. That my sins remove my right to stand here. I would agree. My unfaithfulness to the woman I loved removes that. I stand before you an ungrateful man, one who failed so greatly—but also one who tasted the finest of things. Who was so near to the one you’ve all come to call good. Headstrong, and powerful, an ally, and a force. The one who held aside what I’d done and allowed me to witness something so amazing. I wish to share it with you for it does not belong to me alone.”

He inhaled at length through his nose before continuing, “I once held the title of her husband. I once had her back and had the privilege of seeing her up close. Getting to appreciate her early morning smiles, her grocery isle dances, and her unequivocal talent in anything artistic. I have no intention of taking away time from speaking about her other than to outline a truth that is entirely apart from me—any martyrdom I reach for, let it be in vain.” The man atop the pew coughed away from the mic wondering when his throat had become so parched.

“She was inseminated on August 23rd, 2013.” he hated preambles, so he got to it quickly pushing some scribbled notes into a discernible order atop the podium, “It was a Friday, I think. I remember because of her frantic nature. Her mother always calls on Friday mornings which makes her a very specific type of anxious. She hadn’t told anyone outside of those involved and if you knew her as I did you would know she is notoriously bad at keeping secrets. Her poor tolerance for guilt made her the perfect storm for spill over.” He smiled to himself on a flaw he liked about her.

“That day a seed was placed inside of her that was not her own and not for her own. She intended to grow life in her womb for a couple that had lived in our apartment complex—one of little means and of great heart. These two incredible humans spend every day of their lives being the best at being good. If you do not know them their reach of kind care is far and wide. By god, we need more of you two in this world.” the man addressed the two woman in the front row with warm eyes.

“A few months prior to it all she received a small inheritance of twenty thousand dollars from her favourite aunt—the amount of money that brought about all of this. Without it she would not have been able to pay for the procedures and it would have died in an idea. An idea that swept so many in its path towards the life that resided in her. Without it I might have known the last of her voice in a phone message asking where I had stashed tax papers.”

“It came to her in a headache. I was not there, but I can describe the scene completely. The sun has risen and so has she. She’s made coffee, but forgotten about the cup in another room. The table is dishevelled; athwart with scraps of paper—she is creating. She likes to visualize what she doesn’t yet understand and as she feels another wave of hurt within her brain she lowers the paint brush onto her fifth Moleskin. She was trying that day to paint her headache; trying to understand what shape it would be and took to one of her yearly art filled journals. When she looked down and saw that what she had painted on its rounded cornered sheets was an infant in a womb.”

“I received a call from her on a Monday afternoon. I’m not sure why she reached out to me. Why I would ever deserve to have that time with her. I had just taken my poorly behaved dog for a walk and narrowly avoided his excited mauling of a fine dressed business woman. It was in that state, feeling flustered and in the middle of a heightened wave of emotions, when she told me. Her voice was calm as she explained and then asked if I’d come home, to help her with something important."

“To cut through what I am unable to quantify into words, this is not a story of sorrow or hardship, but one of emotional teaching and of not being a bad canvas for life. I, to this day, struggle to understand her mind and why she had to do it, but I know it was done fearlessly and in love.”

“The same headache that brought the idea of life to her was also the one that would claim her and gather us all to this room. At twenty two weeks I took her into the emergency where we discovered the mass on her brain. One that would grow if she was to continue with her pregnancy.”

“My eyes never left hers as she absorbed the diagnosis and the recommendation to terminate her pregnancy. In that moment and in all the ones after—and even though we all urged otherwise at one point or another—she never wavered.”

“To her, what resided within her was a life; one worth every bit as much as her own. I spent far too many days trying to overturn that decision; to find a way to slow the growth of the weighted object pressing on her mind. When all words failed I knew what lay ahead and I hoped to whatever god would hear that her window of recovery would be reached regardless.”

“After I had fought I layed my hands on her stomach. From that moment on I had the privilege of holding her hand as she walked so effortlessly through the dull silence of her decision.”

“Her choice left her with such little time and it took her on a rainy night. I said goodbye to her, though her eyes were closed. I didn’t get enough time to make up for what I’d done and yet I got to see her go.” he steeled himself to the wave that was now upon him.

“If you can give me just a few more moments, before your contempt eases me out of the room, I’ll ask this last indulgent question. Do any of us deserve life? Or the fatal bonds that we make and cherish only to devalue and break. She taught me my answer to this in her ways that both filled and emptied the room when she left it.”

“My answer is that I don’t think we deserve anything. My greatest failure in life came from me thinking I deserved something. Life is that unverifiable shape of water, and the one who leads us back into the dust. She lived and taught. She departed and was grateful.”

The man gathered his notes and stepped to the center of the podium looking out into all of the staring faces. A long moment passed like this.

A baby started crying somewhere in the front row. And so did he.