Waiting For Spring

by R.J. Keller

The other kids laughed at that but Sister Patricia smiled and asked me why I felt that way. I said, “I don’t know,” even though I did know. She would understand, and I could tell her after class, but not in front of the laughing kids. The reason was actually very simple even if they were too stupid to get it. There wouldn’t be colors called Burnt Sienna and Hot Magenta and Aquamarine if God didn’t love us. There would just be brown and red and blue.

There wouldn’t be colors called Burnt Sienna and Hot Magenta and Aquamarine if God didn’t love us. There would just be brown and red and blue.

Sleep. It’s like sex. You know it’s good, but you don’t know just how good until you’re not getting any.

The first question people insist on asking a new acquaintance is: What do you do for a living? I hated that. Insecurity, probably, because I’m not a lawyer or a doctor or any of those other professions that make people say, Oh…in that reverent, awestruck way. And anyone unlucky enough to ask me that fatal question without preceding it with at least two others—for example, what books have you read lately or who’s your favorite ballplayer—was answered with: “I’m a lumberjack.” Because any person with a greater interest in what it is I do to earn enough money to afford rent and music and beer and food and jeans—rather than in the fact that I think Bill Lee is the coolest guy ever to climb onto the pitcher’s mound—deserves to think I spend my days in the woods cutting down trees.

I knew what he was thinking but didn’t correct him. Better for him to think I spent my free time watching porn than for him to know I’d become addicted to True Hollywood Stories.

I’ll admit that life’s been rough. So rough that it’s left me with only two rules when it comes to men. One: I don’t fuck Yankee fans. Two: I don’t fuck assholes. I’m afraid you’re disqualified on both counts.”

There are some things you just can’t say out loud. Some feelings you can’t find any words for. They have to find a different way to escape. A better way. A truer way.

“Bible buffet. Pick and choose which sins you’re gonna pile on your plate. And I’m Catholic, so all I have to do is go to a priest and run it through the dishwasher so I can start all over again.”

All I knew for certain was that everything had changed. Because he was still inside me. Still. And I didn’t want him to ever leave.

And there it was. The secret to eternal youth: Jealousy and pettiness. I’d gone from grandma to ten-year-old in less than five minutes.

“It’s all right. You’re doing the right thing.” I said it even though it wasn’t all right. Not yet. But it would be Someday. I’d make sure of it. And I said it because it was the right thing. For her.

Sorry. It was like love. A stupid, ineffective word. Too much emotion for just one word.

Because this is what sorry is: deep icy pits lined with spikes and razors that live in your gut and heart and brain and soul. Frigid misery. Sharp reminders of your mistakes and the sadness they’ve caused people you love. People who love you. And how can you say those words to someone? You can’t.