Page 103 of Silver Linings
By the timefive am rolls around, I’ve gotten a collective two hours of sleep.
I’ve spent the whole night tossing and turning, intermittently waking up and remembering the day before, either my mother or Hendrix at the forefront of my mind each and every time I startled awake..
Eventually, I toss back the covers and get out of bed, needing to just…move. I don’t know. I just need to be anywhere but here, where all I do is think of him.
I can see him standing in my kitchen as I make us lunch. Hendrix on a ladder in my room, pants fitting him so perfectly, it was impossible not to ogle. Hendrix standing in my living room, offering to help me with the store and me stupidly agreeing to it.
After quickly washing my face and brushing my teeth, I change into leggings and an oversized cable knit sweater, before I head out the door and start walking.
The air is colder this morning than it was yesterday, and I welcome the bite it gives to my skin, waking me up a little more with each step. I have no direction but away from my apartment as my feet pound the pavement.
The city is still quiet, not quite abuzz with activity yet, but I wish it was. I left my phone and earbuds at home in the hope that the city would distract me from the relentless thoughts swirling in my head. So far, I have been unsuccessful in that mission.
I stop by one of the food carts on the sidewalk hawking stale pasties and burnt coffee to get myself a cup, forgetting I didn’t bring anything with me. When I say as much, apologizing to the owner, he takes pity on me and sends me off with a drip coffee and a donut that tastes like ash in my mouth.
I walk for miles as I watch the city wake up—cafés putting out their shop signs, joggers on their morning runs, food carts setting up for the day. Around and around, people run about to their next destination without noticing me. I am one in roughly eight million, inconsequential to everyone around me. Buildings a thousand feet high all bursting out of the ground around me making it very easy to feel small–insignificant.
I weave in and out of the streets of Midtown, passing through Times Square and all its bright Jumbotron screens, easily walking around the minimal number of people who would have a reason to be here this early on a Sunday morning. It’s almost eerie, seeing this part of town so quiet.
Before I know it, my aimless wandering has dropped me off at Central Park South, and it seems kind of poetic to me that I would wind up here, the place I always came to when I was feeling alone in a city full of people. I would torture myself by reading all the bench plaques engraved with tributes and words of love and admiration for people I’ll never meet but who meant the world to someone somewhere.
I thought I was starting to understand that kind of love for another person, to actually let it in and feel it for the first time in my life, but I guess I was wrong.
I slowly pass bench after bench as I walk around the southern portion of Central Park, working my way higher and higher.
To my wife Delia, for making every day an adventure.
For our parents, who sat on this bench every Sunday and played the crossword together.
Celia, James, and a love that transcended it all.
For Miley, who loves to bask in the sun on this very hill. You saved me, baby pup.
On and on, the confessions of love go as I wind through the lush walking paths of the park, reading every single one with tears threatening to spill.
I walk, fingers grazing against engraved steel plaques until my heart can’t take it anymore, my knees crumbling beneath me. I catch myself on the arm rest of the closest bench, sit down, and finally let them fall.
I have no idea how much time has passed. Minutes, hours, years—it could be any, and I wouldn’t be surprised.
I miss my dad, and I wonder what he would have made of all of this—of me. I wonder who I would have been if my childhood wasn’t ripped away from me. Would I have liked who I was—who I would have become? Would I have ever met Kena, or been as close to Nan as I am? How many different paths could my life have taken if the experiences of my youth didn’t bring me down the one that led me to a park bench on a Sunday morning? More silent tears spill because I don’t know the answers, and I’ve never been good with uncertainty, always preferring the roadthat led to the destination I could predict. At this point, I am one giant tear, and I don’t know how there are any left. Every emotion that I’ve bottled up over the last twenty years, breaking through the dam, drowning everything out.
A gentle hand settles on my shoulder, startling me. When I look up, it’s to find the kind eyes of my nan staring back at me, Kena standing just behind her.
“What—” I get out one word before the tears start anew.
Nan sits down next to me, Kena taking up the other side. She pats my leg and grabs my hand, bringing it into her lap. “I thought I might find you here.”
“How did you get here?” Baffled is the only word to express what I’m feeling right now.
“Something called Uber? Creepy business, if you ask me, telling people it’s okay to ride in cars with strangers.”
I choke on a laugh that bubbles up my throat. “I meant in New York, Nan.”
“Well, Bear, I think it’s obvious I took a plane.”
Kena finally interjects. “I called her yesterday and told her she might want to come in.”
“Ah, yes. My sweet boy said my best girl might need me.”
