Open Spaces

He made promises he could not keep, in the beginning he did not realize this; he went with the newness of everything. He went with the excitement of something new and fresh, untouched by expectations. She believed him through his kisses and caresses, and even now with the wind slapping at her face as she climbs the spiral staircase up to the cave to find some solace from the weather, and her anger, she still believes him. Even though she knows he will never be the man she thought he would be when everything was new and fresh, and she had expected nothing from him or he from her.
He had argued that it had nothing to do with his nature; it had to do with his circumstances. He did not know how to make time for her, when his life revolved around his boys.
‘It’s tough, Lynn,” he whined, after canceling another Friday date on her.
“Your boys are 13 and 18, Tom, can’t they fend for themselves for a couple of hours,” she snapped back.
“I don’t want to argue about it,” he said, making another excuse about how he didn’t trust his older son to take care of the younger, and how they needed him now.
“And when are you going to start making time for yourself,” she asked, but got no response.
Then no phone calls or text messages throughout the whole weekend.
She felt after six months that she was harassing him to love her in way, to give to her, to want to be with or make time for her. In the beginning, he made time for, scheduled her in, he liked to say when he called her, and wanted to see her, but only on Mondays and Tuesdays, because that’s when he didn’t have his boys, and sometimes, on Sundays. At first, he seemed to look forward to their outings, be it an art opening, dinner at local restaurant, or just coffee. He held her hand when they walked down the street; he reached for her whenever they sat across from each other. He bought her flowers, told her she was beautiful, and laughed with her.
She can’t pinpoint when he changed, stopped returning her text messages, began to make more excuses why he couldn’t see her. Maybe, at the end of the summer. It was still warm out, and Lynn remembered that she wanted to go for a ride in his Jeep with the top down, and he said he didn’t have time, that he needed to go and check on his father’s goats and water the horses. She offered to help, but he said no, he wanted to do it alone. She can’t remember if that was also the day he stopped texting her at night. He used to send her a goodnight text, and then those stopped. Maybe it wasn’t as sudden as Lynn believes it was, maybe it was gradual. Like when she would pop in at his art studio and he wouldn’t get up from surfing the internet and give her a kiss, or when she called and he didn’t bother to pick up. When she commented on his sudden withdrawal of affection, he flippantly said that he had a lot on his mind, especially now that his son had gone and enlisted in the army.
“But that’s a good thing,” Lynn remarked, “He will see the world, get out of this small village, have a career, a future”
“He can also get killed.” Tom snapped at her, ignoring her by turning his back on her and resuming his surfing on the internet. She went to him, giving him a hug from behind and a quick kiss on the neck, but he did not return the affection. Instead, he was stiff in her arms, not like before when he pulled her into his lap and made her laugh, and gave her a long kiss. She felt safe in his lap, looking up at his smile, but now all she got was his silence.
“For god –sakes, Tom, he enlisted; you make it sound as if he is going off to war, or something.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Lynn, you don’t have kids, and you don’t know what it is like, when they no longer need you.”
She left, got in her car, hoping he would send her a text and tell her to come back, that he was sorry, but he didn’t, there was no text that night or that next day. She was the one who texted him two days later, asking him if he was alright. She didn’t get a response, and then she called, and he picked up, telling her he was with his father, and he couldn’t talk to her, clicking off without saying he’d call her later, nothing. It was as if she was a stranger to him, a telemarketer, bothering him, and she did not want to become anyone’s bother.
It was as if he was punishing her for something, giving her the silent treatment, making her feel as if she had done something wrong, but worse, making her feel as if her affection toward him was wrong. She didn’t understand his small town mentality to cling on to his teenage children, never leaving his village, going from his parents’ house, who lived a mile from his, to his studio which was a half mile from his house, and doing all of his shopping at Wal-Mart. She didn’t understand how he had to cook dinner every night for his teenage boys, who played video games all day, and never really ventured out of the house. She had remarked on this once to Tom, asking him why his boys didn’t do sports, or have any hobbies other than playing video games.
“It is safer this way, to have them at the house; at least I know where they are, at least, I know that they are safe.”
She didn’t get it, when she was their age she was traveling Europe, she was cooking for her parents. She was outside exploring the world. She told this to Tom, not trying to brag, but trying to make a point.
“I would never allow my boys to travel alone, anywhere. This world this not a safe place, at all, what was your mother thinking, letting you travel alone to France,” he asked, stabbing out his cigarette and lighting another one, and checking his phone for the tenth time that night.
“Are you married, Tom,” she had asked ignoring his question. She was starting to get the feeling that something wasn’t right with his situation. She knew he had been divorced for six years. He had left his wife when he found out she was having an affair with the line-cook at the local Denny’s, and then he fought for joint custody of the boys, because he said his ex was a drunk and whore, and left the boys alone when she went out on her dates with her new men. There was such anger in his words, which made Lynn think that he was still in love with his ex-wife; but still, she asked that night again because she was annoyed with his lack of attention for her, and his overall recent lack of interest in her, and it always got a reaction out of him.
“No, Lynn, I am not married, nor do I have a live in girlfriend, or am I gay. You ask me this so many times that it is starting to get annoying.”
“Then why are you always checking your phone, Tom?”
“I am checking on the boys, Lynn. Jake texted me back, saying he is home, and Todd is on his way.”
“But Tom, aren’t they supposed to be with their mother tonight? It is our night, remember? “
“Yeah well things change, don’t they Lynn,” he had said rather curtly, and then with a quick kiss he got in his car, and said he’d call that night. He never called her that night or texted, and she hadn’t bothered to text him either, not until this morning when she was setting off for a hike.
All she got back was, “have fun.”
She sits on the lip of the cave, looking out on the Rio Grande valley, misspelled graffiti showers the cave walls, and it smells like mildew. No wonder Tom was not excited to join her, it was really nothing special, but a hole in a mountain, jutting out into the open space of the valley, a place where the local youth could come up and smoke their weed and screw. Some even say it was haunted by the spirit of a woman who had jumped to her death. Lynn had googled all the known facts about the cave before she headed out for her lone adventure. She skirted over the history of the archeological dig in 1935, she was more interested in the darker side—why would a woman leap to her death? A slight chill passes through Lynn as she leans over the same banister the woman had when she leapt to her death. She pulls herself back abruptly and looks out to the valley. The green leaves were changing into vibrant colors of reds, and rusts, and pinks. How beautiful nature is before it goes to sleep, she thinks as she leans back into the cave, sheltering herself from the wind, and the unease that came over her when she leaned over the banister.
Fall is her favorite time of year. She likes to layer herself with her sweaters and scarves, hibernating, seeking the warmth from her past with her sweaters that she has accumulated through the years. Tom likes the summer, he likes to shed all his clothes and feel the beating of the sun on his bald head. He had once remarked to her when they were swapping stories, and when they still laughed together that when he ever gets the chance to travel, when the boys are grown, and he has made it as an artist, he wants to move to the Caribbean, and live in a hut, and wear only a sarong. She had said she wanted to go back to Europe, and live in an Italian villa off the Almafi coast, and drink red wine and grow fat on Pasta. He had laughed, she too, and both had remarked that they could spend half the year on the beach and the other half in Europe, and when we are both rich and famous, he had said taking her hand and planting a kiss on her palm, we can have a house together, you can have the top half for your writing studio, and I the bottom for my painting studio. How bittersweet his comments had been, made in the summer months when their courtship was new and fresh, and loving. When the warm night air, enlivened them as they walked hand-in-hand to his Jeep, kissing and laughing, and thinking both had a future together. Then fall came, and he seemed to change, like the leaves on the trees, she thought suddenly, it was if he became a different man, removed, distant. He had done a 180 on her, and she mentioned this to him, countless times.
“Stop harping on it, please, I‘ve told you, I get like this, it’s not like I don’t love you, I just get this way.”
“Did you get this way with your other girlfriends?”
“Yes, the last one said the same thing you say, and like I told you the last time, my boys are my priority. They need me more than ever, now. “
Again, it didn’t make sense to her, as she stared back at him; he seemed to change in front of her. He looked haggard and withdrawn, he complained that he was having back pains, and that is why he was always grumpy with her. He complained of stomach problems, and that is why he no longer wanted to go out for dinner. When she suggested she cook for him, he said she lived too far away; he didn’t want to waste the gas. As the summer months moved into the fall, she began to see less and less of him.
She closes her eyes now, trying to forget those conversations she had with Tom in the first months of their courtship. She tries now to focus on the sound of the wind between the trees, and for a moment, a brief spell of time, she in transported back to the sounds of the ocean, lapping up to shore, the elements all meshing together, all appearing to be the same. The wind with her eyes closed sounds like words, tiny breaths, inhaled, and then slowly let out. She begins to breathe in unison with the wind, like in her yoga class, letting the wind settle her for a moment. It was no use. The sound of the wind only made her feel more unsettled with herself, angrier with herself for believing his words.
She opens her eyes, slightly out of focus, the landscape of mountain blurs into an ocean of flagrant colors of changing foliage, like a Pointillism painting made of dots. She steps back into the cave, and an assembly of colors all take form, causing her to rub her eyes, to really be able to see what is before her.
“I really do not have time for you,” Tom had remarked when they last had dinner. She had blinked, tried to refocus his large image in front of her, tried to see him as the man she thought he was, not who she wanted him to be. She wanted him to be in love with her, wanted him to make time for her. Now she laughs at herself, why was she really mad at him? Because he turned out not the person she thought he was when she had met him six months prior. He turned out to be just someone she went out on a couple of dates with, and after that nothing really came of it; except he was the one to confess his love to her at first. He was the one that wanted to see her, called her, texted her, answered her calls to “hey beautiful,” but in the six months they had been seeing each other, she has never been to his house or slept over, and he has never spent the night at her place. When she called him out on this, it was always the same excuse, “I have to get home to the boy’s,” or, “ the boys are home alone,” and now, it is how he has to tend to his father’s goats, and stay with his father so his mother can go do a bit of shopping.
“And when you are going to make time for yourself, “Lynn asked, again. Trying not to cry in front of him, trying so hard not to say something mean and spiteful, like how if he really wanted to, he could make time for her. If he really was in love with her, he would make time for her. Sadly, what she realized on that last dinner date was he was not in love with her. She had become the harasser, causing him to evade her; but, her demands were not unreasonable, her need to seek intimacy with someone she loved was not ridiculous, even if he made her feel that way, even when she watched him fumble with his cigarettes and nervously smoke one as he walked her to car, she knew that something had died between them, and what upset her the most was she could not pinpoint when it all happened, when it had died between them.
“As soon as my kids are grown, I am going to travel. I am going to get out of this village and see the world,” he laughed as he gave her a quick good-bye hug and a peek on the cheek. She had told him over dinner that she had traveled almost her whole life, and finally felt settled in her adobe house that hugged up to the Sandia Mountains. It didn’t matter that her husband was no longer there. It didn’t matter that she knew one day she would have to leave her mountain and find another home, but for now, for the right now, she felt settled.
That’s how she felt even after their first date, and when he had texted her and asked when he could see her again, she had said, the following weekend. He had said that was not soon enough, how about tomorrow? She thought his exuberance was endearing and slept well that night, knowing that a complete stranger was enchanted with her. Now she had become a bothersome annoyance to him, no longer a pleasant encounter.
As she sits on the mountain’s hip, she looks up at the south side of the Sandia Mountains, the air smells of fall, crisp. The leaves rich with the earth’s colors; rust, orange and brown, with a tinge of summers green. She is mad at herself for allowing herself to fall in love again, only to hold on the expectations of something more that she knows he will never be able to give her. She had cried long, hard tears up the bumping gravel road sheltered by the changing foliage. Each bump only made her curse louder and cry harder. She had pulled into the abandoned parking lot at the foot of the hiking trail that would take her to the cave, parked her car and sat for a time with her forehead on the steering wheel, asking herself, why had she allowed herself to feel again? She had felt so safe not being in love. She had finally felt a comfort with herself, and then he came along.
She holds herself against the backdrop of the mountain, feeling the pressure of the cool limestone rock pressing up against her back. She rocks herself, back and forth, letting the slab of rock massage away the feelings of heartache, not from her recent break-up, but from the reality that she has no place. She has no place at this juncture in her life where she feels safe. Now her loneliness consumes her. She understands, in a way, how the woman had leapt to her death. She understands now, that sometimes there is nothing that can really fill the gaps between your heart and soul, and all that is left is open spaces of silence, a hollowness that takes root in one’s core. Is this how the woman had felt when she leapt to her death, or maybe she was dying from a horrible disease? The locals say she left her belongings at the village gas station, and when she didn’t come to claim them, the sheriff was called, and when he searched her bag, he had found the note, which alerted them to the cave, where they found her remains.
Spaces left behind, that is how Lynn feels now, as she walks back down the mountainside to her car. She always wondered, even as a kid, where does time go, where does the love one feels for another go when it dies, where does all the tiny particles of love that was once felt for another really go when someone says they don’t love you anymore? Is it like the wind between the branches, does it continue on, floating along until it takes hold again, or does it just drift along until one day the body that held all the love is found dead, alone surrounded by juniper trees, and limestone rocks?