Scraps of Time

The first one was tucked into a delicate pocket sewn into my skin just below my sternum. I pulled it out gently and unfolded it, but couldn’t make out what I later knew as letters. It was simply a design like so many other designs that surrounded me once I got out. Later, of course, I would know the shapes as separate, not all attached by the strings that I thought I saw. Toaster. Shoe. Doll. Mommy’s hip. Rug. Dog. Cereal. Mirror. Me. Papa. Pipe. Words. Words everywhere.

The second one was under my pillow.?My mother was clanging around the kitchen trying to make my birthday cake. It would look funny and bring tears to her eyes.?I unfolded this note too, with just an easy tug, but still the letters weren’t organized in a way I could understand. I knew by this time that they were letters, but what they were telling was still a mystery. Why were these letters under my pillow I wondered? Was I supposed to understand? Were different ones under Mommy’s pillow? Papa’s? Nobody ever mentioned them. I was sure I shouldn’t ask.

Then I was already 7 years old and playing hopscotch with the Irish girls on Bennett Avenue. Suddenly, I felt a bump in my shoe and sat down on the stoop to find out what it was. The sisters held their noses and made stinky faces as I took out the piece of paper. It tore as I uncrinkled it and a piece was lifted by the breeze and scurried high and fast toward Broadway. There wasn’t enough left to follow the clues and besides the girls wanted to get back to hopscotch so I stuffed the torn paper into my pocket.?Soon gone with the lint and candy wrappers into Mother’s fastidious nature.

Much later again, so much later that I’d forgotten this strange game, there was a stray piece of paper next to my father’s face. I looked around to see if I could nonchalantly lean over and reach into his coffin to scoop it out. There was something disturbing about this receipt or business card or whatever it was floating on top of the white satin pillow beside his rouged cheek. It would tickle if he could tell us. Just as I was about to gracefully impose, the priest pushed by and pinched the paper between his stubby fingers, and then smiled right through me. That was for me, I wanted to say, but I was voiceless in that moment.?

Once I found a note in a book beneath Mother’s favorite sweater. It wasn’t for me and yet?I read it anyway. I had no right and didn’t think twice. Dear Evelyn, it said, There’s so much and so little to say. I am about to undergo heart bypass surgery, and I have the feeling I will not leave the hospital. Maybe if I were in the United States, but we are behind in this kind of thing. I feel at peace mostly. My children are on their way and my wife will be fine. I think of you tonight though, where you fit in, where we fit in. Between the lines. The clouds make their way from one window to the next like in a children’s book, and I am a bit melancholy as I think of the choices not made. With love, Henry

When I woke up on the morning of my 52nd year everyone was gone. How many messages had I missed along the way? Did they tell me they would be here for such a short time? That we would be the ones left? It’s just a creaking door, the wheeze and then the silence. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, good …

There is a tiny scar from long ago that only I can see. The note from the before ones was there. It must have ended up in a diaper. Perhaps they tried a thousand times.?I am bright for a moment. From now on, I will scan the sidewalks and sidelines for the unnoticed.?

And, yet, it is late. I am dozing and waking and then slipping back again. It’s not the end, just deep into this life I love so much. I feel a gentle finger on my scar. Are you there? The clouds make their way from one window to the next like in a children’s book, and I am a bit melancholy as I think of the choices not made.