Elegies for the Brokenhearted

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Book: Read Elegies for the Brokenhearted for Free Online
Authors: Christie Hodgen
his life.)
    I didn’t know who you were talking about, but it didn’t matter. I bet it’s tough without a dad and I’m glad I was around some. You can always write me, you know, you said. I’ll write you and you can write me back. I wanna know how you’re doing in school.
    I nodded, said nothing, kicked and pursued that fat gray stone. You’re a pretty tough kid, you said. You’re gonna be just fine.
    When you said this it was all over. I bawled like a baby, held my face in my hands and sobbed, gasped. I stood on the street shaking and you held me, held my head in your hands. I’d never cried like this and was lost in it, hot, salty, the sorrow itself and the shame of having collapsed into it. Don’t cry, buddy, you said, your voice cracking. Don’t cry .
    Then you were gone. This was life. This was the lesson we kept learning over and over and over, the lesson our mother was best capable of teaching us. Love—whatever else it might or might not be—was fleeting. Love stormed into your life and occupied it, it took over every corner of your soul, made itself comfortable, made itself wanted, then treasured, then necessary, love did all of this and then it did next the only thing it had left to do, it retreated, it vanished, it left no trace of itself. Love was horrifying.
    We didn’t hear from you for almost four years, during which time we often wondered aloud, Where were you? Where the fuck were you? And when were you coming home? Would you come knocking on the door, like you’d always done, and if so, when? Now? Was that you knocking right now?
    It wasn’t that anyone cared. No one would admit to that. It wasn’t that we missed you. The phrase with which you were summed up went something like: “Hey, if he wants us, he knows where to find us!” It was just that Pop Beaudry could die at any moment and this was—not that it really mattered but in a way it did, you certainly could say it did, in a way when you thought about it, it mattered more than anything else—your father; you were, in fact, Pop’s only true family, his only true blood, and what if he died, just up and died? This was possible. Pop was diabetic, he was hypertense, from time to time he suffered from shingles and gout. What your sisters couldn’t get past was that Pop could die, your own father would be dead, and you wouldn’t even know it. That was the thing. It was disgusting. It was unforgivable. It was, they said, something only you would do.
    Finally Christmas 1984 you sent a card, and inside a picture of yourself, grown hairy as Björn Borg, your arm around your girlfriend, a pretty black girl with a red mouth, your newborn daughter held between you, swaddled. The card was full of exclamation points. Look what I went and did! This is my kid! Meet my girls, Mary and her mother Kim! Though we could hardly see her face amidst all those blankets we said the baby took after you. Around the mouth, we said.
    Malinda said, “Which one’s the baby’s name? Kim?”
    â€œMary,” I said. “Jesus.”
    â€œI’m just asking.”
    â€œLook,” said my mother, “she has his eyes.”
    â€œNo she doesn’t,” Malinda said. “His eyes are gray.”
    â€œYeah, but the baby’s are sad like his. Look how sad. Look at that face.”
    Your return address was a Brooklyn hotel. The aunts said:
    â€œHe lives in a hotel?”
    â€œFancy!”
    â€œHe must’ve got a good job or something.”
    â€œToo bad he doesn’t invite us down, let us stay for a while.”
    â€œAnd to think all those nights we put him up!”
    â€œHe could at least invite us for a weekend!”
    â€œIt’s the least he could do!”
    They sat for quite some time imagining the luxuries of the Ritz-Carlton. They imagined a maid in a black dress coming through each morning with a feather duster, they pictured

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