When I was born, my mother was told that I shouldn’t have been able to survive. I came into the world with the umbilical cord wrapped four times around my neck, which should have rendered me, at best, mentally disabled, and at worst, comatose, if not completely dead. Luckily, the nurse tending to my mother noticed immediately, and cut it off before anything worse than me crying could happen. And cry I did. I’m told I didn’t even stop when my mother breastfed me for the first time, that I wailed through my first meal and my first bath. Later I’d come to associate that particular brand of melancholy with my early childhood. 

Now I am somewhere in my 50s, though I cannot fathom the number. I haven’t celebrated my birthday in at least fifteen years. Each year passed by in a blur, and then the blur got blurrier until I couldn’t even see past the todays, let alone the yesterdays and tomorrows. Work is fine, I’d assume. I haven’t really been paying attention. My apartment is in order, mostly because I don’t cook anymore--I order takeout and hire cleaners once a month. 

I am suddenly shaken out of my reverie by, speak of the devil, my cleaning ladies. Well, I call them ladies, but really it’s two shockingly buff men, who, in my personal opinion, need to find another job. But they work well and are paid even better, so I guess I should be the last person to judge them. 

“Heya, Mr. K. Your place gets messier each month, man!” Jack, the younger of the two, says cheerfully. Of course, he has every reason to be cheerful. The messier my apartment is, the longer time they spend cleaning it; the longer time they spend, the more they get paid. Simple logic. 

Larry, the older of the two, chuckles heartily. “More reason for us to be here, then.” He gets it. These two men have grown used to me, as I have with them--they probably know more about my life than any of my colleagues. They’ve been coming around to clean my apartment sporadically since about ten years ago, though recently I’ve begun to need their help more and more. 

Two years ago, I received what should have been the best news of my life. I was promoted to CFO of my company and became the manager of a project I had been working to establish for years. I got extremely busy extremely fast. It was for this reason that I began hiring my cleaners regularly, and they got to know me so well. Somehow, I managed to contain my excitement throughout receiving news of my promotion, beginning the project, and on through the next few months of nonstop work. I stayed afloat on the residual waves of this huge opportunity that rocked my world. But it was about a year ago when I realized something: I had contained my excitement not because of propriety or social custom, but because I no longer felt that old excitement upon achievement of this long dreamt of dream. How do you win a game you’ve stopped playing?

It is a few hours later when Jack and Larry have finally finished cleaning my apartment. They were blasting their speakers pretty loudly, because I said I didn’t mind (I do), and at this rate I’ll have the entire soundtrack of Les Miserables memorized after their next visit. I close the door carefully on their retreating backs, and double check the security of my locks. They are in fine condition. I walk back to my living room, noticing that the bathroom door is slightly ajar. I always keep this bathroom closed and off limits, even when cleaners come. As I go to shut the door, I feel a strange pull in my gut, something I haven’t felt for a long while. My feet are crossing the threshold and my hands are locking the door behind me before I even have a chance to wonder what my body is making me do. I stare around the cramped space, at the whitewashed walls and the bumpy ceiling with a square fan in the middle. The sink hasn’t been touched since the last time I was here, over 8 months ago, but it is still as shiny as it always is. I try not to come here to often, or else the memories threaten to implode my already unstable brain. I reach out to pull open the cabinet beneath the sink, grabbing a spray bottle and a clean cloth. I begin to spray every surface before me, the mirror, the sink, even the toilet. I wipe the soapy, lemony stuff away with the cloth, then scrub at the sink and faucet until my hands are raw and numb. I put everything back the way I found it, taking care to close the door tightly behind me as I walk out. Earlier, Larry had pulled me aside to ask if I was alright. He had seen the mess in my room, which I have stopped using. I told him I was fine.

If I could hazard a guess, I’d say about 20 years ago was the last time I remember living, really truly living. Willa, my girlfriend at the time, would manage to shake me out of my melancholia by writing her ridiculous and meticulous lists, on and on and on, about something or the other. Grocery lists, books suggestions, vacation plans. I listened to her because she was easy to listen to, bossy and commanding. I loved her because she let me let her give me goals, plans, motivation. Though I’ve never been much talented at anything, one thing I could always count on was my need for control. If I couldn’t control myself, I’d get someone else to do it for me. 

From the ages of 6 to 28 (I went to college immediately after high school, then graduate school without a rest in between), this control took the form of the education system. My teachers, deadlines, homework, projects, and later my thesis paper (Control Your Finances Instead of Letting Your Finances Control You), which took a year to write and another six months to perfect, all served to keep my inhibitions in check. 

After age 28, it became Willa, unsuspectingly of course, who controlled me. She gave my life much needed, well, life. We took vacations, met each other’s parents, talked about having children. That was a rather sore subject. Neither of us had ever really felt parental urges, but were both bound by expectations we couldn’t shake. Willa by her parents, and me by mine, though in completely different ways. My mom was dead at this point, and my stepmom, who had been with my father for as long as I remember, didn’t exactly conjure up images of a bright, happy childhood. I would not ever wish upon any child to be raised as I was, alone and lonely. I also didn’t want to raise a child without knowing I could give it everything I had in myself, and I don’t think I was ever ready to give myself up. Willa’s parents were separated, but not divorced, as she always liked to stress. Her mother had been with a boyfriend for 17 years, ever since Willa was about 13. This made her always a little bit sad and angry and lonely, like I was. Maybe that was why we had fit so well into each other’s imperfections, because they were all the same, in the end. She didn’t want children for more practical reasons: we weren’t financially ready, pregnancy would ruin her body, she didn’t think that she had motherhood in her. I thought she did. I mean, she basically raised me into adulthood.

I used to think I’d give anything to be like Willa, strong and determined and brave. I often wondered how two people who grew up in such similar ways could end up so different. She was really brave, not just reckless and headstrong. Even more importantly, she was good, truly good. She was noble, and honest, and didn’t litter. Good people are rare, because we are often so bound by our exigency for survival. So most of us cruise through life, content on surviving, because it’s all our biology has ever known. Willa didn’t cruise; she rode on horseback, body low and head up, feet tightly reigning in the stirrups, eyes always trained ahead.

It’s about five o’clock when I get a call from my sister. She is nine years older than me, and we really only developed our relationship after I went to college. Before, it was like we didn’t know each other, even though we had lived in the same white picket fenced house since she was 13 and I was 4. We moved there after my parents split up, and my mother left us with our father. Later, when I was a teenager and had somewhat reconciled with my mother, she told me that she left because the pain was just too much to bear, that knowing my father didn’t love her anymore had taken an essential part of her soul, even though she loved her children more than she loved herself. I thought it was bullshit, what she said. We still didn’t deserve to be left behind. Plus, everyone loves their children more than they love themselves. It’s a crucial part of the human condition, the fear and pain and happiness and love all bundled into one tiny, easily breakable package. Otherwise, how could we ever survive as a species? If we loved ourselves more than our children, how could anyone survive past birth? But then again, maybe love isn’t part of the equation. Maybe it’s just instinct, fear, need for survival. Maybe love is a biological mutation, a freak of nature.

I walk into the living room to pick up the phone. My apartment still has a landline, from the good old days of 1990 in Chicago. I took a liking to the rustic atmosphere, the dark, dusty air of the attic and the reddish brown brick walls. The floor to ceiling windows in the living room allow me to rarely use a light, especially now that I sleep on my couch and wake up to sunlight streaming in. I hold the smooth black receiver up to my ears, already hearing the shrill sound of my sister’s voice berating me.

“Sebaaastien,” she intones, emphasizing the ‘a’ as she has always done since we were kids, petulant and judgemental. Now she is an old woman in her 70s, although she’d fly over and slap me if I ever even implied she was old. She still sounds just as energetic as she had at 50, 30, 15. “We were so worried about you.” ‘We’ being her and her wife, Jean. They both worry constantly. It’s such a prominent trait of theirs that I don’t know how they can live together without worrying to death over the other. 

“Mariiia,” I mock, “I was not worried at all about you.”

“Oh don’t be this way, you haven’t picked up your calls in three weeks. The only way I figured out you were fine was through the Skypee.”

“Skype,” I correct her.

“Whatever. I saw your little light blink on once in a while, so I decided to leave you alone for the time being. How come you picked up this call?”

“I was away on business. Lost my personal phone.” I actually hadn’t. I left it at home so I wouldn’t be harrassed by my family. Specifically, Maria.

“You did not.” Her voice fades for a minute as she calls out to Jean. “I’ll be at the Bridge Club in twenty minutes, honey. You can leave without me, I’m speaking to Sebby. No, I will not be partners with Humphrey. You know how much he bothers me.” I can’t catch Jean’s reply, but I hear the door swing shut as she leaves. “Alright, Seb. I wish I could stage an intervention but there’s nothing to intervene upon. Which is the exact reason I called. Please do something besides work.”

“I like work.”

“Pish posh. What have you been doing besides bossing people around and stealing innocent people’s money?” She sounds serious, and I don’t know how to explain to her yet again that I don’t actually do much, even as the chief financial officer, except present projects and financial analysis to the higher ups.

“That’s not what I do.”

“Uh huh, sure. Pharenus is corrupt. Jean and I went out to protest them in San Fran last year, you know.”

“I know. You tell me every time we talk. Bye, Maria.” I wish she would come to visit. She may be wrong about what I do, but she’s not wrong that I’m boring and lonely. But she is getting older and it’s already hard enough for her to remember her credit card number, let alone all the medication she would have to bring with. So I say nothing, and let her say goodbye and hang up.

I need some fresh air. I grab my keys from the handmade ceramic bowl with two handprints on the side, one rough and crude and the other clear and thin, on my unused kitchen counter. I quickly walk out, locking the door and hurrying down six flights of stairs. I don’t take the elevator. I rush outside into the cool city wind blowing in my face, breathing in smoke and other pollutants that could kill me. I feel better already. As I walk down the street, I relax into the sounds of a city I’ve known all my life, my carved out corner of the world. Birds chirping, seagulls squawking, people bustling by me, anonymous but not invisible. I spot several teenagers leaned up against the walls of an alleyway, smoking and laughing. It is a special beauty, the way the world can contain so much stuff without bursting. All these sounds and sights and sensations, all this emotion and knowledge and movement. It is miraculous.

I take my time in the city. My recent accomplishments at work have earned me a leniency I would have never been granted previously, but this freedom also gives me more time to think, too much time, which is not a good thing. My mind has wandered far and wide these past few months, bringing raging rivers of memory into my consciousness. So I wander with my feet, along with my mind, hoping the wind and the air and the sky and the sun may calm my beating heart, my aching soul.

When I finally get back home, it is almost midnight and the sky is an obsidian curtain, shining city lights glittering across its surface. I slowly trudge up the stairs, thinking about nothing in particular. I reach my door, apartment number 605. At this time of night, the hall is so silent that even the soft click and turn of my keys sounds harsh and out of place. I walk in, rubbing my tired eyes and locking the door. I check on my geranium plants out on the windowsill. They look like they’re drooping slightly, so I turn to reach for a watering can. As my fingers close around the handle, pain shoots up my legs. I drop the can, swearing as it thunks on my polished wood floor, dripping water. I bend over, clutching at a nearby shelf for support. My entire body feels like it’s cramping up and tearing at the joints, an agony so profound I cannot liken it to anything except being stabbed by hundreds of knives, over and over and over. My poor geraniums.

I am crying out for help, but no one hears me. I limp to the bathroom I never use, very aware of the irony. But my aging self needs some reassurance, even if it’s from gods who may not exist. I stare around the cramped space, at the whitewashed walls and the bumpy ceiling with a square fan in the middle. I am overwhelmed by deja vu. I scrabble for something, anything to hold on to. My hips scream in pain, my knees buckle. You are old and dying, is the promise my body makes to me. I no longer know how it feels to be young, I’ll never know what it feels like to be young again. I choke out a harsh laugh, feeling my lungs constrict and the air around me grow hot and tight, suffocating. I wonder if this is how she felt each time. How precisely fitting. I am falling, I think, and like always, no one is here to catch me.

Suddenly I see her, standing like she did all those years ago, hands on her hips, lips in a flat line, but eyes always, nevertheless, dancing, sparkling. Willa is a sight to behold, magnificent and extraordinary. How could she have gotten in my apartment without a key? I wonder vaguely. She was always a little bit magic, just when I needed it the most. Her hair is still the same length, dark brown and dusty at the tips, like she’d dipped it into plaster and couldn’t wash it completely away. Willa, I think dimly, help. She must have heard, because she walks over briskly and kneels at my side, clucking her tongue, sad eyes brimming with unshed tears. Her long, thin fingers, soft and pale, stretch out towards my face. “Oh Sebastien, my darling. I am sorry I left you. Let me help you now, please. Hold on.”

I will, I try to say, but my world goes blissfully dark and my mind is finally at peace.

When I wake up, the first thing I see is yellow. Yellow walls, yellow chairs, yellow sunlight. I look down at my heavy body and see that even the blankets are yellow. I sit up, groggy and disoriented. Am I in a hospital? Why am I in a hospital? I don’t remember anything except Willa. Willa.

“Willa!” I shout uncharacteristically, sharp and fearful, the anticipation almost tangible on my tongue. I miss her. I cannot wait to see her. I have so much to tell her.

“Mr. Kelly. Calm down, please. I’ll just be in and out to take your blood pressure and then you can go back to sleep, alright?” The nurse quietly comes in, a young man with dark blond hair and kind, crinkly eyes. I stare at him incomprehensibly. He smiles at me, clearly nervous. “I’m new here, still doing my residency. How do you feel?” 

“Fine, I think. I’m, why am I here?” 

“I wasn’t here when they brought you in, but I’m told you had some kind of accident. You were found in your house by a neighbor, unconscious. The doctors couldn’t find anything technically wrong, but sometimes these things happen.” He takes my arm and gently wraps the cuff over my upper arm, squeezing air into the cuffs as he checks the computer at my side for the readings. “Your doing very well, Mr. Kelly. All good to go.” He unwraps the cuff and puts it back in a drawer. “Would you like the lights off?”

“I, uh, yes, sure. Is it night?” I wonder how long I’ve been here. “When did I get here?”

“Yup, about 11 o’clock. You’ve been here since late last night. We weren’t sure when you’d wake up.” 

I think about what he said earlier. How could I be in a hospital and not be sick? “What did you mean sometimes these things happen? ”

“I just meant that we see cases like yours all the time. Patients suffering from exhaustion and overwork, bad eating habits, sometimes in so much pain they think they must be dying. But they’re just showing symptoms for diseases they don’t have. They’re usually fine, they just need rest and lots of vitamins and nutrients.” He hesitates for a moment. “I’m not really supposed to ask you how you feel, I’m just here for the logistics. The doctor will be in tomorrow morning to ask you about your symptoms and give you a diagnosis.” 

“Oh, ok.” I am suddenly exhausted. I slump back onto the pillows, head spinning. I’ll ask the doctor about Willa tomorrow. “Goodnight.”

“Have a good night, Mr. Kelly.” He flicks the lights off and leaves the room.

I wake up to the sound of angry shouting. The room is still so very yellow. I see that I’m alone, even though there are two more hospital beds. The curtains around my bed are drawn back like yesterday, but the curtains against the windows are not, leaving the sunlight out and the air heavy and dim. I hear the heartbeat monitor beeping steadily.

“Let us see him, you son of a bitch!”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Kelly, but we cannot let you see him until he’s woken up and we’ve checked his vitals. Please, refrain from using expletives and have a seat in the waiting room.” The doctor sounds desperate and stressed, a common reaction to my sister’s wiles. Wait, my sister? She is here. I smile up at the ceiling, amused. The doctor comes in, sharp face harried. Her hair has begun falling out of its bun, and I feel sorry for her having to deal with Maria. 

“Sorry about my sister. She means well.”

“I know, Mr. Kelly. It’s quite alright. I’m Dr. Amir. How are you feeling?”

“I’m not sure. I’m just confused about why I’m here if there’s nothing wrong with me.” I want to ask her about Willa, but wait, my mind says, wait. You must figure out what is wrong first. Willa will not come back for a broken man.

“Well, nothing is physically wrong with your body, except aging.” She looks almost sad for a moment. “I know that you’ve experienced pain that says otherwise, but this is not unusual for someone of your age--or for someone with your work ethic and so-called ‘inability to take care of yourself,’ as your sister so kindly informed us.” A flicker of amusement passes beneath her face before she schools it into a neutral, scientific expression. “But when you were brought in, you were unconscious and your heart rate was going through the roof. Most likely that was your body dealing with residual effects of the pain and the panic attacks brought on by it. Do you feel that any part of your body experiences aches or pains excessively?”

“I guess my knees and my hips sometimes hurt when I walk too much or climb stairs.”

“That’s very normal.” What is normal, though, I wonder? “I’ll prescribe you pain medication for whenever your hips and knees are acting up. You may have a case of mild onset arthritis.”

“So it’s arthritis? That has me in so much pain?”

“Well, primarily, yes. But the pain can also be psychologically and neurologically impacted. The best way to describe your pain is basically that it’s your body’s way of warning you before you shut down. The pain is a symptom, not the disease, which brings me to my next point.” She gives me a stern look. “You must take care of yourself better, Mr. Kelly. I know you are a very busy man, but busyness does not excuse lack of self-care. Truly, the best advice I can give you is to look after yourself. Medication will only help so much. You are here because you lack sleep, don’t eat enough, and overwork yourself.”

Shame burns my face. Dr. Amir must be able to tell, because she smiles consolingly at me. “It’s nothing to feel bad about. Sometimes we do too much and our bodies have a system to warn us when things are getting bad, which is what yours did for you. That’s all it is.”

“What about Willa? Was she here?”

“Who?”

“A woman. Long brown hair, scraggly, tall and kinda long arms?”

“And who is this Willa? To you? Is she family?”

“I’m.. not sure, anymore. She was there, at my apartment. She saved my life.”

“Mr. Kelly, it was your neighbor, an African-American man with glasses, who brought you in. He said he found you--and no one else was with him. I’m sorry. Whoever this Willa is, she is not here.”

“But she must be! I saw her, I swear I did!”

“I believe you, Mr. Kelly. We can contact her for you, if she is next of kin?”

“She’s not. I..thought she would come back for me. I wanted to tell her so much.”

“You said you saw her? I don’t want to alarm you or presume anything, but you might have been hallucinating. It is sometimes a side effect of excessive pain, especially when you’ve been tired. Are you sure...that she’s…real?” She sounds hesitant.

“Of course she was real! Is real! I loved her. I love her.” The words are ripped from my throat with an intolerable harshness, loud and terrifying and inevitably painful. My chest constricts with unshed tears and an aching emptiness, loneliness. I have no control over this crushing torrent of emotion, now. My hands begin shaking, and I am filled not with butterflies but decaying moths, fluttering, flapping, destroying my insides. Suddenly the repressed memories come flooding back, dense and profound after years of repression.

Willa and I are in our brand new, sparkling apartment. She is spinning around, hair reflecting the sun and artificial light, shining a luminous brown and silver. “We will be so happy here, Sebastien. And I cannot wait to get this monster child out of me.” She lays her palms lovingly on her protruding stomach. Our baby had begun kicking, often almost furiously. It kept Willa up constantly, although I knew she secretly spoke to our child in hushed, affectionate tones when it fussed, late through the night and into the next morning. “Baby,” she’d hum, practical as ever, refusing to name it so early on. “You are my shining star, my glowing moon. You are everything that brightens this gray little world.” Sometimes, I think those nine months were the happiest in both our lives.

Then everything went wrong, starting that day in the bathroom. She had only left our bed to grab a glass of water, when I heard her scream pierce the quiet morning. I ran out to find her kneeling in the hallway bathroom, crumpled at the edge of the toilet, clutching her stomach, eyes screwed up in pain. Over the next few months, I found her like this more and more often.

This yellow, yellow room is so familiar because this is where Willa lay dying, as I left her over and over, said goodbye over and over until there were no more goodbyes. Thirty six was too young to feel like I’d lived for thousands of years, but in those few escalating, heartbreaking hours I felt like I had lived for three lifetimes instead of only three dozen years.

“I killed her! I killed her, she is dead because of me!”

I am sobbing now, and I think Dr. Amir’s collected coolness is finally shaken. “Mr. Kelly. Please. I understand now the cause of your attacks, but you’ve got to calm down. Let us help.”

The nurse from last night comes rushing in, looking concerned, with my sister and Jean on his heels. He is shocked to find me blubbering like a baby, I think. But then again, he doesn’t know that I’ve always been the crying type. He and Dr. Amir share a doctorly glance, then he grabs my hands and looks me straight in the eyes. “Mr. Kelly. What was the last movie you watched? Just tell me.” I think back to a few weeks ago when I binged a drug documentary on Netflix.

“I don’t really watch movies. Does a drug documentary count?” I ask. My sister rushes toward my side, blinking her eyes rapidly. 

“Oh, Sebby, that’s the most you thing I’ve ever heard. Even the last movie you watched wasn’t actually a movie.” 

The nurse laughs and asks me to take deep breaths. “Are you feeling calmer, now?”

“Yeah. Yeah...can I just be left alone for a while. Please?” I implore.

“Of course,” Dr. Amir says.

Maria nods her assent and leaves, but Jean comes toward me. “Sebastien. I just want to tell you that if you ever need to talk to someone, I am here. You know I share your pain. It is hard, I think, losing the greatest gifts of your life and being unable to articulate how it hurts. Just know that Maria and I love you very much.” She speaks with a lyrical, sophisticated accent, her voice like silk rolling off her tongue. I am glad she found Maria after her husband died. They have only been together for ten years, but I’ve always envied them both for the miraculous feat of finding love after middle age.

Jean leaves the room, and the nurse follows her out. I am left with Dr. Amir, who has somewhat gained back her professionalism. “Mr. Kelly. Have you thought about therapy? Our hospital has many revered doctors who would be happy to help you. You will probably be discharged soon, and you should think about taking steps to regain your health, both physical and mental. I don’t want to rush you, but think on it, okay?” I nod, spent.

“I will. Thank you.”

We would have named him Lars. Neither of us wanted children, but when she got pregnant, we decided to keep it to appease both our families. I think both of us were excited, though we never would admit it to the other. It was as if having nature decide for us to have a child gave us an excuse for hoping. And hope we did. We hoped for a child with my temperament and Willa’s resolve. We hoped for an intelligent child, someone to whom we could teach everything we ourselves never really learned. We hoped for a new beginning, a second chance, a clean slate. Here was one person in the world whom we could both trust in, someone who would never accuse us of being what others accused us of. Willa would not be selfish, vain, or temperamental. I would not be passive, boring, or logical to a fault. We would be only parents, first and foremost. It was something both Willa and I longed for, despite our various objections. So we hoped.

We hoped when Willa began growing sick. We hoped when she hemorrhaged once and then twice. We hoped throughout dozens of hospital visits. We hoped we hoped we hoped, and in the end hope did nothing. She ended up weak and dying on a hospital bed, our child dying with her. Even when it was clear Willa could not go on, I kept hoping for the sake of our unborn child, the responsibility that we created. I don’t love change, but a child was a change I hoped for. Dreamt of, even. And I don’t dream, either. But it was not to be. Wherever Willa had gone on to, so did her son. Where they left me, I stayed. Cutting away the pain was impossible, but my mind gave me a way out, I now realize. Pain does not lessen with time. Dolor non minuit. Pain does not lessen, but our memories do.

He did not cry like I had when he was born. He was pale and blue and so small I was afraid he was not real, that this was a nightmare in which my baby was merely a doll. But it was real, and he was alive for seconds, minutes, hours that kept me hoping for more and more and more, maybe. But it was not to be. He stopped breathing and I stopped living. 

I do not remember much from those lost years. I am surprised I made it out alive. I am glad my mind made me forget, but I am more glad my body made me remember.

My Willa, my Lars. I hope you are content. I hope you do not miss me too sorely. I hope you love each other dearly in my absence. Perhaps one day I will meet you again.