Companion to an Untold Story

Path (4)

169 Path (4). The snow, soft and heavy, is falling, and the blood is flowing to my heart. As I stop at a red light, I see a boy tearing down Hagadorn and sweeping right onto Burcham. I am alarmed at his speed, the danger he is courting. Where can he be going at this hour, what can he be doing in this weather? Has he no parents , no one to look after him and keep him home on such an evening? Hardly anyone is out this late in the snow, and the few I see are tucked securely in their cars. No one walks a dog or is out for a late run, no one but the boy riding a bike. The red light turns green, and I creep forward. The snowfall is thick and the wipers can barely sweep the snow aside before the windshield is covered again. I see fragments of the boy ahead, farther ahead of me than I’d ever think possible. Snow sprays behind him. It’s beautiful. He jumps his bike over the curb out onto the street, swerves into the middle where the snow is accumulating, accelerates, and turns left onto Butterfield. This boy on the bike has been outside a long time; that’s how he looks to me. My neighbors would say I’ve made him up. They’d say my ears deceive me when I hear his bike’s tires shifting among the shards of ice and the cold wind like one indrawn breath. They see and hear nothing unusual. And for a long time, until Joel died, I didn’t either. But now at night with 170 kitchens warm with children and stew, I can’t help believe Joel stands at the border of our yards. He carries me beyond the limits of my neighbors. There are always, at every moment, boys falling from the sky. His bike doesn’t seem to touch the road during these maneuvers , it flies left, lands softly, securely, without pause, into the snow, and proceeds. No slipping, sliding, or swerving. I’m closing in on him. I can see his green pants billowing against the white snow, and he’s only wearing a vest, a red vest. He turns onto my street, Orchard. He’s not my son, he’s not my husband, he’s not Joel. He’s just a boy out alone in the snow, and yet I feel a tremendous sense of concern that something might happen to this boy. When he passes my house and continues down the snow-lit street until he’s out of view, something is being ripped from me. I haven’t known him for long or well. I saw him for the first time a few minutes ago, and yet it feels like an eternity. He has opened a door of feeling. He’s become a regular visitor after everyone has gone to bed. He usually arrives by bike, wheeling it through the back door, its tires packed with snow, into the living room and leaning it against the back of the couch. The handlebars are freezing cold. Sometimes I find him asleep on the couch and I wrap blankets around him and say a silent prayer. His head of dark curls rests on the arm. Joel’s suicide happens in the corner of the picture no one wants to see. If I feel sheltered, there must be someone outside in the snow, exposed. If we are to feel safe and secure in our kitchens and in our beds, there must be someone in the dark, unwrapped. ...