Winter Tendons

I called in sick to work that day. Not because I was physically sick and not because I was faking either, but because in my chest cavity I felt hazard. I couldn’t name it and still struggle to articulate a sense of numbness softened by fear. I masqueraded as a productive being, and replied to all emails that chirped at me by ten o’clock in the morning. I thought of my dad.
 
I have faint memories of him picking me up in a gray suit. But, I know I’m an unreliable narrator; it could have been black. My childhood is my best interpretation paired against my parents, and neighbors, and friends. Though, the farther you step from my grandma’s house, the tile and table I’ve spent years romanticizing, the truth becomes clearer. My dad suffered quietly. Anxiety snatched his body, as he sat in a calm, yet twisted position. I enjoyed elementary summers because he was home everyday. As a teenager, I wished I had the opportunity to sneak out; I made my own way, staying up and out way too late at “sleepovers.” Nevertheless, there he always was.
 
On days when anxiety rattles my organs, I imagine quitting my job, joining my dad. Times are different now. We could work online, go for walks, and consider the water gushing from the dam. But I don’t have to tell myself, even that would be too much for him.
 
I’ve had more jobs than I can remember. Ones I’d always quit within a week. Partly because I hated work, partly because something in me is off kilter. In the first year of my marriage, I was limp. I layed in bed all day. The only good part about it was our dog, Cedar. I didn’t know what I was.. I knew that no one likes to work, and neither did I, but there had to be some explanation as to why I continued to sabotage my life.
 
I joke and seriously say to people, “I feel a lot different, better even, since my brain is fully developed.” My aunt says I probably still have some developing to go. She’s not wrong. So,  now I was eight years into a marriage with a man way too patient and kind. I felt sickened at the moodswings and falsities I threw at him.
 
When I told him I was calling into work, a job I’ve kept for awhile now, I could tell he knew I wasn’t sick. I acted as poorly as I could, but knew before I even started that I wouldn’t get it by him. I believed he was challenging me when he handed me DayQuil. That’s how malicious my mind is. And to prove a point, I swallowed it, knowing full well I wasn’t sick, at least in the physical sense anyway. Even if he was skeptical, he was genuine in his gesture; just trying to take care.
 
I can’t say much for the bulk of the day. At eleven o’clock in the morning, I laid in bed and stared out the window. I closed my eyes, even though my mind wasn’t tired. All of the sudden, I was staring at the wall. I couldn’t remember how long I had my eyes open. I questioned if I’d even slept at all. I checked my phone and it showed a few hours had passed. The rest of the day I sank lower and lower into myself, frightened by the intrusive thoughts that came, blood turning cold by true thoughts that came.
 
He got home around six that night. He asked about my nose and my stomach and whatever disease I had invented that morning. He knew my mental health was wavering. “Rides always, help, will you go for a ride with me?” I pretended I didn’t know where my socks were. He said, screw the socks. It’s warm enough out. Up to 35 degrees today, and grabbed me my boots. I begrudgingly followed him to the pickup.
 
“Will you come with me to a place I’ve always wanted to visit in the winter? It’s not far.” And even though I’m some crumb of myself, my ears perk. His offering is a twinge of hope and I desperately snatch it from his hands. The truck hiccups over spurts of snow blown road.
 
We parked in front of the trail and started our ascension up a snowy hill. I didn’t want the cold to seep into my boot and infect my feet, but didn’t mind all that much when it did. Once we surpassed the peak, I spotted a row of benches set up like old fashioned school desks. “Will you sit on a bench with me and watch the lake?” I nodded and as I watched him walk, looked up. No lights in the sky. Yet, he was painted in a scratchy cloud of moonlight. Some wires must have been crossed between the fog and the stars, but he was a sketch outside of nightshades; darkness hadn’t even stamped its feet on us yet. We watched the water, silently. I asked him to take deep breaths with me and focused more on his than my own. Eventually, the Iowa cold had rubbed my ears too raw. As we made our way back to the pickup, I saw it in him; he knew summer was coming. I chose to believe him.