I sat trance-like with the phone cradled in one hand, now humming a C minor monotone, and the last swallow of lukewarm tea cupped in the other. Raising the cracked porcelain rim to the bow of my mouth, I sipped on the remnants of the fragile piece till the cup could no longer be drained of its sugary, leaf-flecked residue. It was densely sweet as it travelled; lethargic down my throat, and left a tacky coating, like cheap lip gloss, on my mouth. My tongue emerged to wet-mop the sticky circumference just as the belated gulp reached my belly.
With taste buds so glucose-engaged my other senses took reprieve, until that is, I recognized that the drone of the "phone-cello" had changed to a piercing sharp A staccato. I replaced the receiver into its wall-mounted hanger, following the prompting of the angry, robotic woman's advice- "...If you'd like to make a call, PLEASE HANG UP. If you NEED HELP, HANG UP or dial you operator..."
Help, I thought. Help was coming. Coming in the form it always came in; Lucy-shaped. Of all the friends I'd ever had and of the few who remained, her form was favored. Our affinity toward each other stretched beyond the linear confines of time. For so long nothing could separate us and when our lives took different courses, the geography between us only forged our bond stronger. Alone we would have remained a mish-mosh of alloid metals, but together our alchemy created gold.
I was the soft, malleable part.
So fragile and as finely wounded as the vestibule that previously housed my Darjeeling. And there would be Lucy, with a chunky, over sized stoneware mug, ready for the transfer when my hairline fractures gave way to the pressure; my contents leaking at the teak- stained seams.
Why did I always gravitate toward the delicate? Or, was the delicate stuff sticking to me like doused taffeta or watered chiffon? Things seemed to break so easily around me. Had my soul followed suit to my slight frame? A tiny glass menagerie on open display, while Lucy's cathedral-soul was guarded by stone. Her breakable parts, in iron-soldered cagery, still exposed her hues, like a stained-glass window.
I had been so dependent on Alex and the children for my identity, my "happiness", that when our marriage shattered, I fell like a crystal figurine. I stayed there, in shards on cold marble floor, for the better part of a year. It wasn't until I read that newspaper article, the one about amnesia, that I recognized my brokenness. And although Lucy was coming to the rescue, logistically to take the children off my hands, I was going to have to re-glue this statue alone.
For reasons I could not have yet understood, that night was to be the premiere evening to the rest of my life.
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