We need to talk

She used to doodle. She’d sit with her coffee in the morning, take the newspaper and a pen, start in one corner, and push her way out to cover the margins. Sprawling patterns and intricate designs decorated the white spaces.

In the evenings, she’d phone her sister. The one in New York. Talk for an hour. Start sketching in the notebook next to the phone. A pretty girl’s hair would swirl and fill the page. Creatures would come alive in those curls. Cute, smiling imps. Grinning flame-eared pixies. But they’d only get lost. Sooner or later, I’d flick the page over, in a rush to jot down a name or a number. Something practical.

Then, it stopped. And she hardly talked. Certainly not for an hour. And she never doodled anymore. A pad of post-it notes – the smallest size – replaced the pages next to the phone. Rarely touched. Names. Addresses. Times. Dates. My writing. Mostly doctors appointments. Information. No beauty.

Pills began to fill the bathroom cabinet. It took a while, but they seemed to help. She’d get out of bed occasionally. Make a sandwich even. Drink some milk.

Sometime later, she started leaving short memos. Single words. Squeezed to fit the tiny yellow page. Shopping items. Rarely more.

SUGAr

CORN
FLAKes

SOAP

I could understand. Kind of. I tried, at least. But not talking about it wouldn’t help, I thought. I got impatient. I pushed. I even got angry. She didn’t like that. She never did. She withdrew even more.

I took a step back. Just tried to be there. And it got gradually better. For her. And between us, if I’m honest. Over the months, she gradually gave a little more in those tiny notes:

LET’S
HAVE
PASTa

Or:

HOW
aBOUt
a MOvie
TONite

I loved seeing those notes. Occasional dinner suggestions. Or movie titles. Mild comedies mostly. A few foreign films. Nothing too taxing. Certainly nothing violent. No blood. We did talk, but we didn’t say much.

Once, she wrote:

I MISS
YOU. I
MISS
US

My throat tightened. My eyes welled. I wrote

MISS
YOU
TOO

Those notes became our way of of communicating. It was a beginning. It was basic, but it was precious.

And we continued like that for a while.

One morning, after Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I found this:

HE
HURT
ME

I grabbed the pen. Held it in my fist. Thought of her and relaxed. I wrote:

WE
SHOULD
TALK

Later, she answered:

MAYbe.
BUT WIth
SOME
ONE

This was progress. I knew that. She wanted to say more, to finally tell me something, maybe even everything. She just had to find the right time. The right way. Until then, I could only imagine. I tried not to. I really did.

And then it came. Her words. Blunt and to the point. I didn’t have to imagine anymore

THE
RAPist
WES
RYER

A simple as that. Nothing more.

It was enough. Wes Ryer. An unusual name. Easy to find. She knew it would be, I supposed.

I had his address within an hour. One of those polite suburbs. A 40 minute drive. But I took the train. Then the bus. And I waited. Not long. He pulled up in his smart car. A Merc. A new one. It was a dark. Night. Winter. His kids were still awake. They leapt past the living room window, in their pyjamas, when they heard his key in the door. A barking dog. A wife too. Pretty.

She was a widow before morning.

The next day, we sat with our coffee. In silence, as usual. She had her newspaper. Her pen. Flicking through the pages. Scanning the headlines. Nothing touching her. Nothing of interest. And then she saw it.

She dropped the pen.

She dropped the coffee.

She dropped her whole body. Hard. Onto the table.

She wept. She wailed. The loudest noise she’d made in months.

I stretched across. I had to know. I tugged the paper free from under her. Turned it to face me. Read the headline

DOCTOR KILLED IN BRUTAL ATTACK
Popular psychotherapist, and father
of two, murdered while walking dog

Now, we never talk. Except through lawyers.

The only people that talk to me these days are lawyers.

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