—YOU CAN SEND ME A MESSAGE, IF YOU DON’T WANT TO TALK. I’LL MAKE SURE I DON’T INTERUPT

 

 

CRYING IN H MART    /    Michelle Zauner

 

 

Like everyone else, he never knew the right thing to say. His method of consolation was just to lie beside me in silence until my emotions ran their course, quieted down. To his credit, that was all there really was to do anyway.

 

The nurses gave her enemas. They dressed her in a large diaper, and when it released, liquid gushed from the top and out of the holes like soft silt. There was no embarrassment left, just survival, everything action and reaction.

 

When my father came back inside, he seemed boyish and giddy.

“What were you talking about?”

“Your mother just grabbed my penis,” he said with a laugh. “She said I’ve still got it.”

 

It was getting harder every day to say that this was really living.

 

Or maybe deep down she knew what was best, that small criticisms weren’t worth it anymore.

 

They were moments to be tended.

 

We had tried to plan something that was worth fighting for, and yet every day had wound up worse than the last. We had to choose living over dying and it turned out to be a terrible mistake. We drank another round, tried to let it wash over us.

 

“Tell him! Tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes! Reach out to him!”