Porch

By DCI Wooderson

She said it was nothing serious, and I trusted her. Trusted her more from the lack of details than from anything she gave away. That was normal when she called like this. We’ve been tracking the sun for an hour — how it moved on the grass, each blade flipping bright and then dull green with the breeze.

It was nothing serious. But still, she called. Did she have to get out of there? Was she moved to seek someone? I assume. Because she’s here. Not like clockwork. It’s not a routine. It’s sudden as a thunderstorm. A sunshower that comes in briskly out of the clean crispness of summer. No one gets mad at a sunshower, because it’s oddly beautiful, even in its inconvenience. We all bond under awnings wondering where the hell this came from, and watch the water turn to steam in the heat while storm clouds and sun share the sky. Then it’s gone just as quickly with no regard for what it left behind — ruined leather and hairdos, or bleeding colors of Sunday’s Best.

Her hands betray her. Her fingers fiddle at the neck of the bottle, her ring clinking against the glass. She needs the touch. Touch is distracting. It’s like the taste of food when you’re sad, the sting of booze when you’re hurt, or the warmth of sex when you’re empty. She touches because the events replaying in her head worked their way to some conclusion. And it’s a conclusion she can’t admit, at least not yet.

The cool of the bottle charms her fingers. The clink of her ring reaches her ears, and her tension fades, if just for a moment. Thoughts recede, and she’s back to the sun, the breeze, her shoulder flush against my arm, her fidgeting legs stretched to their length, bare feet touching the finished wood of the worn table.

I wonder about her silence. We share words on more days than we don’t. Except when she calls. When it’s nothing serious she doesn’t say a word. It’s like the loss of words a person suffers when borrowing money from a friend. There’s a humility in someone doing something for you in your moment of need. It begets an almost immediate self-reflection. An assessment. “Do I deserve what you’re doing for me right now? Have I ever done the same?”

Her shoulder against mine. Her knee folding against my thigh. It’s some form of currency exchange. She isn’t repaying me or promising anything, but just reminding me how much she is worth. Her touch recalls a time when she meant so much more to me than she does today. When the same stretching legs were laid across my own, bare and lazy, and her fingers played with buttons on my shirt, each time never giving away whether playful or simply idle.

If she can’t repay my care, at least she can remind me why I care and conjure a time when care spun out of both of us like string from the ends of our fingers, connecting in the middle, beautiful, tangled, so strong that it controlled — even constricted — our movement.

She’s thinking. It isn’t about me. That’s okay. I’m different now. There were times she called and I was raw, woken to another day empty of anything worthy of scrapbook or timeline, creeping to sleep in a charcoal gray haze, indifferent to whatever is next. When she’s here like this, I go through my paces like an AA sponsor. That isn’t so harsh. Sponsors care. But they also don’t take it personally — it’s not about me. It can’t be, even when it should.

She’s lost in thought, but she’ll catch herself from time to time, turning from the view to look at me through worried eyes and smile and say, “What’s up, man?” Soft and strained like the wrong answer will make her cry. It’s the best she can do, and I silently love her for that. I tap my bottle against hers, and we look to the green again.

I give up on things too quickly. I gave up on all the parts of her that were too complicated until all that was left was this simple thing that is so unsatisfying in daily life, but so beautiful in dire need. If I could feel every day how I feel when she needs me, I’d play jazz and write epic poetry. I’d speak motivationally and make killer jambalaya. I’d say things like “I captivated the room.” I’d beat Bobby Flay. That she calls me when she’s in need is this ruined pillar of something once great. It’s glorious and sad all the same. It’s all that’s left, which means something tore it down. I read the history book every time she calls.

The sun sneaks through spaces in the trees and touches her face. She squints. Maybe she winces. A tiny gap in her weary cheer. There’s a hurt she’ll likely never describe to me. It’s not my place to know what happens before she calls. But when she does — when she arrives hopeless and hurt yet somehow smiling — I pretend at least a fraction of the damage belongs to me. It’s on my ledger. Would this day have happened if I hadn’t given up? Part of me imagines her thinking this. It’s a delusion. It’s my conceit. But it’s my story, so I’m allowed. I etch the narrative into her mind. In my version she asks a hundred why’s. And I remind her that I really… I really wasn’t so great. And she says, “Neither was I.”

“I should go.” She sits up, arching her back and sweeping her hair to one side of her neck. She’s better. She just needed some time.

“You okay to drive?” I joke, looking at her bottle half-full. She more exhales than laughs. She’s examining me. I’m happy she’s better, but sorry our time is done.

“What’s up, man?” She feels for the cuff of my shirt, worn and frayed, stopping at the button hanging by a thread. Then her hand is on top of mine, and I smile as she plucks the one last string connecting her finger to mine.

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