new scenes from tatamagouche (Patreon)

2.

We hear the car coming long before we see the lights. There is no hurry. Simon and I find a tree on the side of the road and stand beside it in the darkness. We don't move, patient and invisible. Eventually the car approaches and then passes. Nobody sees anything on these roads at night, unless it is coming through their window.

Simon holds my hand for just a moment.

“Not afterward though,” he says. "I can't hold your hand afterward." Above us, the sky is empty and full at the same time. Stars so small that they make the road darker. Back home everyone is asleep.

The warehouse beside the pier doesn’t have a sign out front. It doesn’t have any windows. Lobster traps are everywhere, set back from the water, stacked on dry land. Simon kicks through the grass until he finds a cinder block. He picks it up and starts to carry it down the pier. I watch him stop to rest, setting the cinder block down, and lifting it again. When he reaches the spot he stops and looks back, waiting for me.

I lift a cinder block of my own from the grass, and I walk out to stand beside him. Together we lift the concrete blocks and tumble them into the green dark water. There's a moment where we can still see a shape beneath the surface, like a face looking up.

3

Another night. Overcast, with car after car on the road, the air threateing rain. Like rain matters. Imagine. The horror of getting rained on.

On the pier, I step up behind Simon, my breath on his neck, my nose and mouth against the back of his head. I wrap my arms around his waist like a chain, and squeeze tightly.

"It hurts," he says. "I don't think it has to hurt."

I loosen my arms, and finally slide back. “Okay then, switch,” I say. I take his place, and stand closer to the edge, looking down at the water. Simon steps up behind me.

My face had to tilt down to kiss the back of his head. His comes barely to my shoulders. His cheek against the rough denim of my jacket. He slides his arms around my waist as loose as possible. And I can tell it is too loose. He clasps his own hands. He presses his face into my back.

I push down on the hoop he's made of his arms. But his elbows catch on the bones of my hips. I push again. Even loose, his arms won’t go. He's right. It didn't have to hurt.

The waves are so small here. Like the Atlantic Ocean is a lake. Simon tightens his arms and hugs me now. To remind me they aren't really chains.

4

Sunday,

I am not sorry. I know I should be. The most dangerous word in the world is "should." You should feel this way. You should be better. You should should should. I believed in "should" until it was driven like needles under every one of my fingernails.

You are stong. Protect Simon. Let Simon protect you.

I love you, and I will see you in hell,

Your mother.