the blanks

Lilyth was everything we’d hoped she would be.

I liked her from the instant I heard her voice in the downstairs hall, before our ancient wooden from door clamped it’s teeth shut. Gay, young and hard, I could hear the  nonchalance of her tone, as she pretended at first that her visit meant nothing at all. She wore her namesake heartily as they exchanged idle chatter.

The hole in the ceiling and place settings around a coffee table with cushions on the floor bore witness as apologies were issued for receiving guests in a house half-renovated.

Our guests entered and seated themselves as I innocently slaved over dinner , hiding behind my roast as the conversation unrolled, unexpectedly unawkward if only prematurely intimate. Apéritif and saucisson helped smooth the passage as each swallowed bits and pieces of history, questions, and connections explained.

My father in law had graced our threshold for the second time since the weather has warmed this year. That, in and of itself, was already a great progression from these past four years during which everything has been so cold.

I looked over from behind my glass and momentarily forgot about the chopping of vegetables as I listened to each of them, examining from a safe distance the exchange. I felt privileged to be an observer.

Lilyth frolicked and flitted verbally as she skipped from one subject to the next, touching upon subjects that had haunted MB’s childhood with their minefields of non-dits.  His eyes sparkled with excitement as he stoicly sipped his glass. She dared speak of what had been so carefully hidden from him for so long -barely twenty years old, and she was already farther into a quest they two shared.

“You do look like him, as do I… everyone tells me so.” Something about the eyes, pronounced browbone, severe gaze… she was right. I looked from them, to my father in law, to them once again. She herself was blonde, which made her an even closer match over MB’s chocolate locks.

“I have only seen one picture,” Manboy cleared his throat, “it was the reception  of my parent’s wed-”

“I knew him for seven years,” she interrupted with a curt flipping of her halo to one side, “and that was long enough.”

Her father was indeed a mystery to my husband, his brother, a phantom who had disappeared years ago, changed his name and today lives a  life separated from the one he was born into. We have never known much, and only from the rants of his father, their father, accusing and judging, justifying his own actions, justifying giving up his firstborn child… justifying what no one had ever attacked.

We passed from one course to the next as her singing questions continued to unroll, still the seven years of knowledge she had remained a mystery that Manboy did not ask her to clarify. We did not invite her to answer our questions, we invited her to know her. It’s not every day you learn you have a 20 year old niece. As I tried to make out the color of her eyes I couldn’t help thinking of how she reminded me of some sort of tropical bird.  

She spoke of her boyfriend and of her mother and future. Social work, she stated, because she can understand what it is to fight and to suffer. She tried to appear tough, and I could see that she was bright and strong, even interesting. I was sure that she would have like to intimidate us, just to amuse herself. I was sure that sometimes she succeeded in intimidating others. We took photos and exchanged emails and promises were made. It was easy.

“Why don’t you visit your little brothers?”

It flew out of nowhere in what I am sure was a perfectly calculated moment. Our abscess was revealed in an instant and I knew, as a woman, that the inquiry wasn’t innocent. I forgave her, blaming her insistence on her being young.

They were born last April, one year, almost to the day, of when our child should have been. It was an irony weighty to bear, that MB’s father, who was over seventy years old with a defunct prostate, could begin anew while we were left to struggle in our own barren state. It was painful for him to know that his father had abandonned another family to offer the privileged innocence in which he himself had grown, and now, even in his old age, was willing to leave them to start another.

 But that was not the reason that he (or we) had not seen the twins. They themselves were innocent. Still, for Lilyth, we remained silent. We allowed her to think ill of us, should she choose. We allowed her to judge. What else could we do?

 The truth would have only brought pain in a moment so fragile.