I'll Tell You When Your Older

I

She liked him. I mean, as far as first dates go, this was splendid. He did all the talking, all she had to do was listen. Listen and learn. The diner was humble. He was too, and she could tell by the earnestness in which he spoke. As he rambled about growing up, pointless stories with subtle hints of subtext regarding a child who had friends but never a close one, she listened. Listened and learned. She was good at reading people, and she could tell that, through his naivety, that child lived on, along with the need for company, a companion, an other. She didn’t go on many dates but still was well accustomed to the ever-masculine search for a lay and a pretty woman who believed he was god (but only for a short time, really, things always need to be low-key). She listened, and heard loneliness. She learned, and saw genuine kindness.

“God, I’m talking way too much, I’m sorry,” he said, breaking off a sentence in which he was describing how programming his coffee pot to automatically brew in the morning had changed his life. “How was your day?”

Her day passed by in a flash through her constantly active mind. The moment she saved a life at the hospital and then was nearly fired for “insubordination.” Dropping the eggs as she carried the paper bags of groceries into her apartment. Visiting her mother at the memory care unit of the nursing home and wishing she understood her when she told her of a date she was about to have. Petting her cat.

“Pretty average, nothing too exciting. Most days aren’t very exciting.”

He smiled. It was a soft smile. “I talk too much when I get nervous.”

“I like you. Do you smoke weed?”

Hesitance clouded his oh-so-readable face.

“I have, once or twice, college, you know. College. College is weird.”

She smiled wryly, and not without a healthy dose of excitement.

“Do you want to try it again?”

The night continued as expected. They went to her apartment. He got too high, giggling throughout the paranoia and then falling asleep on her couch. His snores were loud, obnoxious even, but she couldn’t help but retain the perpetual smile on her face. She had found someone worth getting to know.

She got up from the other side of the couch, opposite from where he lay passed out, and began to water the many plants in her apartment. Remembering she didn’t have to work the next day, she sighed contentedly and got out her drawing pad. Within a half hour, she had a mostly finished caricature of her new friend drooling on her orange couch, asleep.

She stopped drawing. She looked up, staring into space.

“I like him,” she said to the air. “I do. Yes, I will. No, no this has nothing to do with you. I like him and I will see him again.”

II

Six months passed by in a flash. Not a flash of lightning or the indecent exposure of some drunk asshole on the street. No, a flash of the fragrance of a flower, lingering in only memory and pleasing, pushing forward the trudge of the weary trail of everyday life.

They decided to go camping for their sixth month anniversary. Her choice. She loved camping and found peace in the wilderness. It soothed her, and she told him that if only he gave it a chance, it would soothe him as well. She was right, and the last night in Yosemite National Park found him sleeping soundly, once again giving an endearing snore brought on by an inexperienced but growing fondness of cannabis. She laid next to him, nearly asleep, when her eyes shot open.

She exited the tent quietly, and walked into the dark forest. She walked slowly as her eyes adjusted to the blackness, feeling the favor of the full moon upon her brow.

“You do not scare me,” she said resolutely. “He makes me happy, and it is my choice, not yours. We had our time.”

III

The next six months went by a bit slower. Hidden truths wore heavily upon her mind, and not even the hectic workday as a nurse could lift her from the brooding discontentment and guilt, not from him, but stemming from her own self.

Their anniversary, a year after they were official, was spent in Hawaii. His choice. He said it would open her eyes to the beauty of travel, and indeed it did. The flight there was a hellish experience for her, a strict phobia of flying strangled the enjoyment of the view of The Pacific. However, as she landed, the tropical breeze washed away the fear and her mind moved from anxiety to excitement. She had never seen a jungle, let alone a volcano.

It was their last night in Hawaii. He slept soundly, this time not snoring but instead breathing unnaturally quietly.

She lay awake.

She got out of bed to take one of those famous night walks on the beach. It was time for action. The sand felt good on her bare feet, and the crashing waves gave her courage.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I need to tell him about you, and I’m going to. You cannot stop me. You do not frighten me. I am going to tell him, and I’m going to tell him soon.”

She didn’t speak much to him the next few days, back in their home in Los Angeles. He continued each day working as a mailman, the monotony giving him the structure he loved. It was one of these typical days that the earthquake struck, and at the same time, the phone call.

As the ground shook, he answered the call. His face morphed into an expression of concern, and then one of deep fear. “What do you mean, unresponsive?”

Their apartment shook as she was vacuuming. She turned off the vacuum, surprised at the tenacity of this particular earthquake. She looked ahead at nothing, and said “I will tell him within two weeks.” Her cat walked up to her, and she bent down to pet him.

“Let us be brave, my sweet kitten.”

Her phone rang as soon as the earthquake had quieted.

“Hey baby,” she said, her voice quavering only a little.

“We need to talk,” he said, fighting back tears.

She paused, before responding with “I know.”

IV

Because of her fear of flights, they agreed to drive to Portland, Maine for his brother’s funeral. He was kind this way, and even though his pain was incomparable to anything he had ever felt before, he understood the nature of phobias and was happy to do the driving.

The trip was quiet, both of their minds brooding. The funeral was bathed in tears, his brother was only twenty eight years old. His love for motorcycles had begun when he was ten, and more often than not, we are killed by what we love.

The return home was even quieter. Somewhere on a turnpike in Indiana, he finally broke the silence.

“Death is terrifying. The reason I’m scared of heights is because I’m scared of death. My brother has now faced the greatest fear in man. I wonder how it all worked out for him.”

She scoffed, her heavy mind feeding into impatience.

“Life is far more scary than death,” she responded quietly.

They decided to stop at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. They agreed it might do some good for their weary hearts and tired minds.

On a particularly sullen hike, the argument began.

“You just need to get over it, death is a part of life, it happens to everyone.”

“You shouldn’t single me out because I fear it, literally everyone in this world has been afraid of death at some point.”

Coming across a dead pear tree, no longer in its non-native prime, they stopped.

She looked at it peculiarly; this had been the first time she’d seen such a tree in the wild and, stubbornly at that, refused to take the omen anything less than utterly seriously.

“I have conquered that fear. It is time for you to do the same.”

He let out an exasperated sigh, none-too-dramatic, and said, “Fine. I’ll climb this tree to the top.”

Without a word, he began to climb. Higher he went, gripping on to the branches like they were his only hope for life, because, in a strange sense, they were. He reached the top and breathed deep. The branch stood on snapped, and he plummeted to the rocky ground.

She screamed. Terror invaded her already heavy mind.

As he lay on the ground, unconscious and bleeding, she fell to her knees.

“Please! Please save him! I’ll do anything!” she pleaded. “Yes! I will, I’ll leave him and you’ll be the only one, I won’t ever talk to him again and you’ll have my undivided attention for…for…” She burst into tears.

He woke up in a hospital bed. She was in a chair next to him, face swollen from crying. Her tears sprang forth once again.

“You’re awake!”

“What happened?”

She told him of the pear tree, of the branch and the fall.

“How did you get me to the hospital?”

She shook her head, tears falling from her face in a strange mixture of joy and despair.

“I’ll tell you when you're older.”

He smiled.

V

After a couple days of a miraculously quick heal, they were back at their apartment. Her two weeks were up, and the promise she made to save his life was at the forefront of her mind as she lay in bed that night. As he slept, once again snoring his endearing, stoned snore, she left for the bathroom, shut the door, and wept.

“Please, I love him. I loved you too, and I still do, but I cannot live like this. Let me have him.” The tears fell like rain during a drought. She cried herself to sleep on the rug in front of the running shower.

She woke early the next morning, a resolute expression on her face. He still slept soundly. It was Sunday. Mail isn’t delivered on Sunday. But hardware stores are still open. And that’s where she was headed.

She bought a hammer, and nothing else.

Next she drove, none-too-quickly, to a graveyard. She walked rather aimlessly among the gravestones, and finally stopped in front of one. It was unmarked. She laid a closed envelope and a single tulip in front of it. She smiled a peaceful smile, and walked quickly away.

He was still sleeping when she got home. Carrying the hammer, she entered the bedroom. She tiptoed up next to him, standing by the bedside. She watched him sleep. She gripped the hammer tightly.

Smiling a soft smile, she bent down and kissed him on the cheek.

Reaching into a drawer next to the bed, she took out the caricature of him, memories of their first date flooding her mind. She moved slowly to the wall, and hammered a tack through the drawing and onto the wall. She dropped the hammer, went to her side of the bed, and got under the covers.

She cried quietly, but it still woke him up. “What’s the matter, baby?”

“I just had a really good dream.”

“Must have been good. What was it?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re older.”

“Sounds good. Want some eggs? I’ll make you some eggs.”

She smiled and kissed him softly.