Leaving Me Softly

Dispatches from a Philadelphia writer living in Ireland.

By Katie Haegele
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Feb. 8, 2006

Karen Klassen

Looking back, I can't have known it was the last day. But why didn't I? Don't you usually have a feeling?

I'm asking you. Shouldn't I have been able to tell it was over?

When I roll over, still half asleep, it takes me a second to realize R.'s not there. I lie still for a moment-his voice is in the hallway, and his little alarm clock says 9:02. Late. Then he pops open the door, which always sticks a little, and stands there looking at me, sleepy and sheepish.

"Baby, aren't you late for work?"

He drops to his knees onto the bed and sort of falls forward, face in the pillow. His hands are shaking hard, fluttery birds' wings.

This is the thing about R.: He gets depressed. Every night he takes a cardboard box from beneath his bed and fills his palm with about 15 different pills, which he then swishes down with a swallow of whatever's handy.

On my bright, shiny surface, I'm happy in R.'s rumpled bed, his rumpled life. But beneath that I'm exhausted from not having had a home for the last month, from worrying about R., worrying about myself. I'm broke and bedraggled and my jeans are so dirty they droop.

Even on a good day R. sleeps till noon, and lately I do too.

But we've been happy too. Cozy in our little universe of milky tea and cigarettes and vanilla incense and old ska and him cupping the back of my head when he kisses me, which he only started to do when I got my hair cut short in the back and he seemed to like the feel of it, all softly tapered against my skull.

Right now he seems unable to talk. This happens sometimes. It happens, it's okay, it'll stop, he'll get better, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.

"At least get up. Even if you don't go to work, we should get out of bed."

He looks at me sideways, tries to focus, but his eyes keep slipping shut.

I look around the dim room, always dim this time of morning. The sun doesn't rise till almost 9 in this part of the world this time of year. Which is actually depressing by any standard.

On the cluttered little coffee table there are two mugs, two wine glasses, an empty book of matches, an empty pack of cigarettes, a sunken candle and the tiny plastic bull that came attached to a bottle of Chilean wine R. brought home last week. (Home!) I was as delighted with the toy as a 5-year-old, and since then "the bull" has been a prominent feature of our conversation.

"The bull wants you to get up! Look at the way he's looking at you!" I set the bull on his shoulder and kind of nestle it into his sweater so it stays there, facing him.

R. smiles a little. I can tell by the way his head rises on the pillow.

"I have to go see that room today. The one by the sea, remember? That Italian girl?"

Nothing.

"But you and I could hang out first. And the bull. We could go do something. Something not in the bed?"

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