In Between

I find a picture of myself. I look at the painting for a long time. There's no doubt it's me, in the park, on my bench. Or one of the benches, I haven't kept a fixed spot. I'm wearing my new violet coat. I look preoccupied and solemn. The line of my shoulders is one I haven't seen on myself, but I have no trouble imagining I look like that now. There's a feeling in the painting, and it's just . . . wrong.

The kid has a crush on me. He's constructed some sort of a fantasy image of me, and whatever it is, it's not me. Oh, fuck.

I stand for a long time, looking at the picture and then at the sleeping boy.

Oh, hell no. I can't deal with this shit. I just can not.

I arrange his paintings the way they were. I dress, quietly, and leave. I feel vaguely guilty. I think of leaving a note, but what am I to say? "It's not you, it's me?" "I love you, but we can never be?" I almost laugh at the flat cliches I'm able to come up with. No, better play the mystery card until the bitter end, and just leave.

I walk the empty streets towards the railway station, keeping well away from the busier streets with all the bars. I pass an open pharmacy, and step in to buy a morning after pill. I hope the kid didn't give me any diseases, that would be most inconvenient. I wonder how I can be so cold. Why am I not a better person? Why didn't you raise me better? Am I too old to blame you for my mistakes? Is it too late to blame you for my mistakes?

Do I have to grow up now?

There's no train until six o'clock in the morning. I consider going to a hotel, but can't be bothered. I sit in an all night service station and drink fourteen cups of black coffee. My stomach gets upset, but it doesn't interest me.

I sit in the train and watch the city fall behind. I imagine the kid waking up in his empty apartment.

--#--#--#--#--#--

Months later, I meet my friend in a cafe. We talk, she's concerned about how I've overcome your death. I say I have, and some days I believe it. She never does. I guess she's imagining losing her own mother. Their relationship is nothing like ours though, right? What do you think? You don't think anything anymore. There's no you left, only this ghost I carry around in my head. I wonder if it's always going to be like that, but it's okay, either way.

My friend shows me a picture on her phone.

"I went to the opening at that gallery," she says. "Remember? I told you about it. And there was this one painting. It's you, isn't it?"

I look at the picture. It is me, on the park bench, in my violet coat. I haven't used the coat since I got home. I have kept it, though. I still don't know if it fits me, if I'm suited to be that person in this world. Even if I am, I'm the last one. My children will grow up to be their father. Nobody will grow up to be me. It's sad, but it's liberating: the ones to go before me have all gone, and nobody will come after me. It's just me, free and loose in this world. And alone, but maybe that's the price I have to pay for that kind of freedom.

"It sure looks like me," I say, in a noncommittal way. My friend looks at me, and I see I can't fool her. She's disappointed I don't confess.

"What was the name of the painting?" I ask and sip my coffee.

"'The grieving muse'," she says. I spit my coffee all over the table.

"God, that's terrible," I say, and laugh so hard my stomach starts to hurt.