In Tongues

by Thomas Grattan

I wanted to return to that line in the bus station and name some other city instead. But I would’ve been met with disappointment anywhere, been shocked by it, too. That was me then, surprised by results as inevitable as a math problem’s solution, most due to how easily and often I jumped, with no plan for what I’d do once I’d thrown myself into the air.

“You okay?” he asked, a question so kind I felt myself tearing up, wishing I didn’t cry so easily, wondering if there would ever be a time when the biggest thing in my life wasn’t difficulty. My self-pity was large then, though maybe it was fear, the call and response of those two feelings so seamless it was difficult to distinguish follower and leader.

“I find that hard to believe.” “I don’t know where to look,” I said, my words close enough to the truth to hold water. This tendency to lean on almost truths still lives in me, though decades later I’m better able to resist it, to understand the holes I’m digging, the bullshit I’m trying to pass off as a clean bill of sale, even to myself.

I lay there wondering if this was what it was like to be a parent, with your child during a moment of abject fear or illness, disgusted by them, grateful, too, to have been with them at their most miserable.