The Eight-year Cycle

"Pa, let me make your tea." 

He looks at her as she weaves her hands into her hair. He likes how she reminds him of snowfalls. He doesn't know who she is except that in eight years, the police would find her in her kitchen, an empty packet of cigarettes beside her bloodied form. He's seen that before and it doesn't scare him anymore.

"Of course. Add a lot of milk." He tells her.

"But..." She stops herself and begins to walk away.

"What?" He asks.

The morning is purple as if someone has drowned it before. She pulls the curtain apart and begins to fold them carefully. He sees the sun, the color of unfinished truths, and remembers how pale she would look in her kitchen, dead.

"You don't like milk." She responds thoughtlessly.

He frowns, "I love milk. I don't drink tea without milk."

"I added it yesterday and you threw it away and you cursed..." She stops again and twists her hands behind her back.

He doesn't know why she talks this way. But he knows that she will break an arm when she slips on the stairs. It's the inevitability of that moment that makes him sigh. Because he knows so much of how the story ends. He starts to wonder how someone as delicate as she can die in a kitchen built with bricks but he says nothing. Her end doesn't scare him.

"Maybe I was sick." He says.

"No." She struggles between laughing and frowning. "Don't you remember? Pa?"

But he doesn't know that. That's what bothers him -the fact that he can't remember what she tells him- and he doesn't know if telling her will change anything. 

"Oh." He whispers. He starts to pull the covers away from his body and oddly, he feels nostalgic. Like he's done the simple act of peeling skins. He remembers now, the light before the darkness. It doesn't scare him.

"I'll make tea. You like rice?"

In a year, he'll get a call from her. He will be seating in a rocking chair in his room, listening to nothing but static on the radio when he'll hear her small sobs. She will tell him she wants to come home. He knows why she calls him Pa now. He likes the flow of the word as it leaves her lips. He likes the red shade of lipstick on her gentle lips. In four months, she'll throw it away and kiss his grey hair. That's what he knows.

"I want to take a walk." He says getting up.

"No, Pa. The doctor says you need a lot of rest." But she isn't as quick as she thinks. He gets up and falls back down. She presses her palms together as if in silent prayer. He looks up at her, sees how she keeps blinking back her tears. He's seen this picture before, two days before the police find her in her kitchen. That's how much he knows, the knowledge like a great pull, tossing him into the wind.

"Why do you keep forgetting about the accident?" She asks, helping him back into the bed. "You keep forgetting things lately, Pa."

He knows more than she can tell. He knows how she'll get the scar on her wrist and how her husband will smile like he knows the reason why the sun breaks in half. 

"I remember." He says.

She nods, slowly, unsure.

"Go get me tea."

She leaves him there.

The lights came on in the kitchen. That's what he thinks about as he sits in his room. Because thinking about little things makes him happy, and a little bit as powerful as snowflakes. He calls the man he is seeing Omar, sees the girl who called him pa sitting on a chair. 

"Her husband, I guess." He says.

She comes in with a silver tray and hands him a cup of tea. He holds the cup thickly, the color changes to the sun at dawn.

"Where's Omar?" He asks sipping from his cup.

She frowns. She says, "Who is Omar?"

He knows more than she. He knows Omar like the back of his hands. In his mind, Omar is standing by the door, one hand around a little boy. He is twisting the neck around, afraid of letting go. The small boy is as lifeless as is possible but still, Omar wants more of it. He brings it to his lips and kisses the top of its head, instinctively, silently. He has tears in his eyes.

"Your husband," He says chewing his lower lip.

"But...I'm not married."

He looks away and sips his tea. She sighs and goes to sit on a chair. She stares at him and tries to think. It's harder to think about anything when he is watching. But she wants to, desperately.

"Pa, you seem to be forgetful." She says clapping hands, "Do you want to go see Doc?"

" I am fine."

"I can go take you to see Doc, Pa. You forget things too much and you talk about weird things."

Another thought comes to mind. This is in four years, he thinks and smiles at the rough feelings.

"Your son is beautiful." He says.

The tea is gone and only a brown trail of sugar is left. He hands her the cup and she covers the top with her palm.

"Which son?" She asks, frustrated.

"He has Omar's smile. Omar is a good man but he isn't good enough."

She throws the cup across the room and it lands hard on the wall. She watches as it breaks into two before turning to meet his eyes. She says, "You are unwell, Pa. I shall call the doctor."

"I am fine." He whispers, twisting the sheets around his body. He's peeled skins before, with knives and unwashed hands, and doing it again, with the sheets feels nostalgic.

He doesn't know who she is but he knows that in eight years, when they find her in her kitchen, he'll get a call and his aged body will rock with grief. He knows how he will sit in the balcony of a hotel room, listening to cars and small boys crying. That's how he remembers eight years and that's how he knows he likes her now.

"Can you take me for a walk?" He asks.

She nods her head but doesn't move from where she is standing. "Tell me what's happening."

He aches to tell her but the room is stuffy and he wants to see the streets. And the people he doesn't know.

"Take me outside and we'll talk."

She helps him in his wheelchair and rolls him out into the light of the dancing streets. It's a busy Wednesday afternoon and he claps delightfully as she walks with him. By the corner of an antique store, she stops for an old couple. 

"Good afternoon, George." She calls, laughing.

The man -George- laughs too and takes Pa's hands in his.

Hand holding takes effort, he thinks for a moment. It requires the kind of strength and agility of driving mid-morning in winter to see Omar. The kind of strength it takes to grasp a hand as cold as he, is a sort of canyon and it spins him around. He's tried to hold her hands, firmly, as she walked him to see the doctor. It was slippery and hot so he walked with his hands in his pockets. He hates how George holds his hands as though they've always been best of friends.

"How are you, Jackson? It's a relief you are coming out now."

"I am fine." He says.

He doesn't know George. He's sure he hasn't seen him before. He hates how that thought makes him feel powerless.

"The sun is magical." George insists, pulling away, "You'll soon be back to your old self."

They stop under a large sign that spells bakery backward and she sits on a bench that shakes underneath her weight.

"How are you feeling, Pa?" She asks.

"Who is George?" He asks.

She opens her mouth slowly, shock spreading across her face. "Now, we will have to go see a doctor."

"I am fine." He says again, laughing, into his palms.

He doesn't know her so well but he knows that in a year, after she calls him begging to come back home, he'll accept and she'll move back and he'll tell her Omar was never good enough. It is a plain truth, one he finds so hard to shake off. He knows so much of the invisible that sometimes he fears he is scarred by the knowledge. As they sit in the sun, he is awakened by the little snippets of the future, ones only he can see.

"I can see the future." He whispers, looking past her head.

"Oh, Pa." She tells him.

He looks at her, and knows, without thinking, that she doesn't believe him. He begins to laugh into his palm again, leaving behind Omar and the kitchen.