Limping along

August 23, 2012

We limp along, F., E. and I. A four-legged creature with three legs. An amputee.

We are quiet. We are dislocated. We have lost our symmetry.

R. doesn’t call often. She is growing land legs.

E. is outnumbered: two parents, one kid. He is sullen, cranky, distant. He lives in his room. In bed, under a sheet, door closed, laptop open. Not so different from when R. was here, except he’s even more unreachable. I ask him how he is, looking for an opening, a window.

“I’m not R,” he says, setting me straight: There will be no bonding. “I’m my own person.”

I’m crushed.

R. and I used to snuggle up together and talk, look at pictures, do nails. It grew less frequent as she got older, but she was usually up for some face time at the end of the day. Not E. He deflects my gaze, sees it as an intrusion, an affront. Beneath his armor he is suffering. But his eyes are stones. They puncture my heart.

One child has left, but I’ve lost two.

The three of us watch a movie on the big futon couch. E. shifts from side to side. Comfort eludes him. Out of the blue, he rests his head on my shoulder. I am stunned, but before I can respond, he retracts his tough, solitary self.