By Abigail Ottley
there will be, so she imagines, this one, final encounter. She skips
over the details, such mundane practicalities as where and when it
might happen. And whether, after the best part of a lifetime, some
form introduction would be needed. He was twenty-five when she
last saw his face. Do people change so much as they age? The bit
she takes her time with, imagines frame by frame, so that she can
properly enjoy it is the bit where she confronts him, his puzzled
expression when, scanning her face, he cannot remember who she
is. She would like to stare straight into his rainy-day eyes until her
pin-sharp gaze winkles out a memory but his gaunt face, when she
conjures it up, is always half in shade. It’s shrouded. She wants to
say shrouded. Shrouded is the best of all good words. There are so
many questions she wants to ask. Has the life he has lived been a
good one? After the gossip died down, and the fuss in the press, did
he go on to raise a family? Did he father children? Little boys or
little girls? Were they happy? Did they grow up safe? She hopes
they did. Were it not to turn out so, that would be a hard thing to live
with. She couldn’t bear to imagine the same sordid scene, played out
again and again. So much human misery must become like a
haunting, imprinted on the air. And she wants him to know how her
own life has been. So much smaller and bleaker than it might have
been. She wants to paint him a picture of the little girl she was,
maybe even show him her scars. She wants to do these things but
she knows she won't. It can happen only in fantasy. Because how
would she find him? And, even if she could, she doubts she could
make him understand. Never mind the nightmares, the sharp, white
nights, and the poisonous fallout of a lifetime. Never mind that just
lately she calls herself a poet, for this one thing there can be no
words.