Read Dark Doorways for Free Online Page A

entryway as I left. Shadows, looming
shadows, swam through the cracks, in and out like it was nothing. It wasn’t
until I was safely on the sidewalk that I looked up at where the address
numbers hung, there in the dark doorway.
     
    ***
     
    Swanson encouraged me to
write out these memories, to have an outlet that would not interfere with my
research. Swanson fills my memory of that day in Cancún, that Spring Break,
when we had our day at the beach after recording Nahuatl and Zapotec speakers.
I was learning far more of Mexico’s indigenous languages than I imagined
possible, but misery still sprawled all over me, thick like an unwanted blanket
in the shoreline heat. My despondent gaze looked out over the endless lurching
of the water, wondering if Florida and Cuba would both just reach over and grab
me. Would I maybe prefer it?
    It was loneliness, which I
knew far too well. You don’t lose a mom and have an absent dad without living
it daily. Mom’s passing might have been easier with someone to walk the path
with me, some sibling or aunt. But there I was, alone on a Mexican beach,
wondering how I ended up surrounded by drinking college students and feeling even
more alone.
    Mom hated my father enough to
consistently conceal his name. She used her little code words, like Sperm
Donor, as if he didn’t deserve a name like decent human beings. “If you don’t
like your curfew, take it up with The Sperm Donor.” “Don’t use that voice with
me, Miss, or you can go live with The Sperm Donor.” Oh Mom.
    The couples stumbling
hand-in-hand, barely conscious from their alcohol indulgence, reminded me of my
other great void. Michael never passed his prelims, never sat for them.
Apparently I had dated a flake, a man-flake who floated through grad school
like a snowflake drifted across a glen. I wouldn’t deny that I missed his
friendship though, or that even in his oddities, he still eased the sting of
loneliness, if just a bit.
    And so it was Swanson–
Vadim– who placed a single hand on my shoulder that afternoon as I
mourned my mother and Michael. The pat pat, the brief gesture that still
allowed him to retain his manliness, was enough to send tears flying. The salty
droplets leapt from my face to dive into the salty Gulf. They were returning
home, these little estuaries flowing out of my eyelids in their debouchment.
    I remember my head falling on
his shoulder, his arms folding around me in the anonymity of a Spring Break
beach. It crossed my mind to accept the embrace, to appreciate the comforting
for the affection behind it.
     
    ***
     
    The plane couldn’t have been
quieter. Swanson and I flew back to Chicago in silence, each stewardess
mistaking us for strangers travelling separately. Even the babe in seat 27B
remained inaudible until I could trace the outline of the Des Plaines River
from my window seat.
    It was a strange lack of
noise, the silence of that flight, full of meditative passengers. Something was
about to happen, and I could see it in that not-yet-happening anxiety, that
holding of your breath as you watch your mom’s favorite bowl fall to the ground
in its doom.
    Swanson paid for our cab back
to Evanston, dropping me at my apartment dutifully. Hesitant fingers sat on the
cabbie’s back door, my jaw dropping open to say something. I looked over to
Swanson, laughing at his nod even then, even after spending a research trip
together in Mexico. He couldn’t manage a simple Goodbye or See you
Monday .
    “I–”
    The words just weren’t there.
A thought had already formed somewhere; my speech just couldn’t quite pin it
down yet. More silence. My phone cut me off as I grasped for words, ringing
while I grabbed the black duffle bag.
    “Bye, Swanson. I’ll email you
my transcriptions as soon as I get something substantial finished.”
    Nod.
    It was commonplace, the way
I– or anyone in my generation– could close a car door, schlep a bag
up to a second floor apartment, and somehow get settled