Jessica Chiarella - And Again

The Daley Center is all lit up in golden light, a shining meteor of chrome and glass in the hazy Chicago darkness. The space is crowded, and I catch Penny’s eye from across the room, winking, a silent sign of solidarity borrowed from years of going to loud, crowded bars together. Nights when pushy men would con us into dancing, when a wink across the room would signal the need for an escape route. Or other nights, like the night I met Sam, when a wink meant that I’d find my own way home. Tonight, she smiles at me, knowing that my signal means she’s done well, that I’m here, and that she’ll be all right. It was the same wink she gave me when I turned, glancing back at Sam and Penny and Connor before I was wheeled into the operating room.

Her work is phenomenal. It hangs, suspended on wires from the ceiling, huge, wall-sized collages of gauzy paper, sheets layered by the hundreds until they have form and depth and shape. Like terrain, or long expanses of skin. Painted pale watercolor shades and cracked through with light and shadow. I stand in front of one that is all sun-bleached peaches and creamy grays, the one that’s called And Again, a battleground of long tears and smooth, polished expanses of color. It feels alive, as I stand in front of it. It looks as if it could breathe.

Penny breaks away from the couple she was talking to as I move toward her. “So what do you think?”

“It’s pretty decent, actually,” I say, pulling her close. She’s her usual jangle of bracelets and earrings and necklaces, all sterling silver and shining against the black silk of her dress.

“Connor is somewhere around here. Jesus, I’ve already lost track of my own boyfriend. I’m already a prima donna in the making.”

“Those are some lovely paintings.”

“Want to know which is you?” Penny asks, and I choke a little on my drink.

“Me?”

“Of course. They’re all people. Connor is right over there.” She motions with her wine glass at a canvas that is all shades of turquoise and sand. The longer I look, the more I can see the calm and subtle quirk that could easily be Connor.

As I look around at the rest I can see it now, the cadmium red and burnt umber of her grandmother in her hot little kitchen, flecked with a blue so clear it could only be the scent of salt water coming in gusts through the windows. Her parents are side by side, the violet and silver of her mother next to the sea green of her father’s eyes, the smooth exactness of his temperament. I look back at the one that drew me in initially, the one that seemed sad and beautiful and alive. And I understand why she titled it And Again, because it is not me as I was before. It is now, it is my living, breathing present. And somehow, in a way I don’t wholly understand, I can see myself in it. A clearer vision than any mirror has yet been able to provide me. And I think, if nothing else, this will sustain me. This will draw me forward, at least for a little while.

“Thank you,” I say, and I know Penny sees it in my face, that I understand.

“I started it the day you told me you were sick. The bottom layers are black. I would just coat whole sheets in India ink. I burned some of it, until it was tarry and charred and just desolate. You can’t see it anymore, there’s too much covering it now. Even where I cut into it, I couldn’t go down that far.” Penny looks so sad as she speaks that I nearly have to glance away. I wonder about the sum total of pain I’ve caused the people I love. I wonder if it hangs over my head, a butcher’s bill, waiting to be called up. Or perhaps I’m already paying my price.

“It’s a shame I had to stop,” Penny continues. “Imagine if I’d been able to work on it for another year. Imagine where you’d be then.”

Sam stands in front of my painting. The sight of him makes me seize up, sends a jitter of nervous energy through me. I thought he might be here. I’ve spent most of the night trying not to look for him. But I approach him, end up standing next to him, because I’m nothing if not a glutton for punishment.

“See, I recognized you this time too,” he says, motioning up at the canvas, before he even looks at me.

“You got it out of Penny.”

He shakes his head. “I’d know you anywhere. In all your forms,” he says, meaning it to be a joke, but there’s a stab of poignancy to it as well. “I like your tattoo.”

I glance at the lacy phoenix threading its way up my arm. It’s the deep black of a new tattoo, not yet muted by time and sunlight. It’s like me, in a way. All of our wear is yet to come.

“No you don’t,” I say. “You don’t like tattoos, remember?”

“I liked yours.” He must see my skepticism, because he continues. “You never understood, I liked what it meant, that you had them. That I could walk into the office’s Christmas party with you on my arm, and everyone could see that I wasn’t like them. Because I was with you, and you didn’t play by their rules. I loved that about you.”

“I thought that was what you loved least about me,” I say. It’s hard not to be wistful in front of something so beautiful. “You know, I was thinking the other day about my first drink.” I take a sip of my current drink, which is ginger ale with a splash of gin.

“Which one?” he asks.

“The first one,” I reply. He turns toward me, his eyes on mine.

“You mean the time I gave a twelve-year-old a shot of Jack Daniels in her backyard?” he asks. “I thought we’d agreed never to speak of that again.”

I grin then. “I didn’t agree to anything. I forgot about it. I assumed you had too.”

“I didn’t forget,” Sam says. “I wouldn’t. That night was the first time I really saw you. Not just as Lucy’s sister.”

“What did you see?” I ask, thinking of myself now. What am I but a being made from memory, my flesh and blood a copy of the body that came before it, my mind a knot of history that cannot be untangled, cannot be relived? There is nothing for me to do but move forward and hope that whatever bits of me that housed my soul have been re-created here.

“I saw what I always see.” He doesn’t say more, he doesn’t explain. He doesn’t have to.

“You know, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to forget every single thing about you. Nothing else worked. Everything else hurt too much.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. I reach forward, brushing my thumb over the crease between his eyebrows, the price of loving me. No matter how badly Sam has always tried to do the right thing, it was always his weaknesses, his failings, that I loved the most. It seems terribly unfair now, that I can’t forgive them as well. I let my hand drop.

“We made such a mess of it, didn’t we?” I say, thinking of cities razed to rubble. High towers fallen. A perfect love story, gone to ruin.

Sam nods sagely. “We should keep that in mind for next time.”

I glance up at him. “Next time?”

“I got it from my source in the FDA,” he says, stepping forward and drawing his thumb over my cheek. “Looks like SUBlife’s going to be approved at the vote tomorrow. And I figure, if we’re all going to live past a hundred, you and I have time to make a mess of things at least once or twice more.”

I can’t tell if he’s kidding as he kisses me, a patient kiss, one that calls back all of the memories I’ve tried to hide away, and walks off into the crowd.

Tom is eating cereal in the kitchen when I return to the attic. I know he is, because that’s what he does every morning. He sits at the kitchen table with his New York Times and he eats a bowl of Cheerios. Even before my accident. I remember hating the exactness of his routines even then.