All That's Left of Me by Janis Thomas

Author:Janis Thomas [Thomas, Janis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503901148
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2018-06-11T22:00:00+00:00

In my new life, or lives—as every wish I make impacts the world around me in some way, large or small, and creates a different me on some level—I am a participant in social media. I have a Facebook page, a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter account. These online outlets fill in some of the gaps in my memory banks. I scan Facebook daily now, beginning with my home page.

Some of my own posts are foreign to me: my family on an outing to the shore, Colin and Josh laughing as Katie tries to wrap her mouth around the famous triple-decker lobster roll; Katie receiving an award at the end-of-the-year high school banquet, smiling into the camera as she clutches a gold trophy announcing her prowess in creative writing. Some images are familiar—cheers for a job well done, posted by Valerie when I landed the SoundStage account; a picture of my smiling son, flanked by Lola and her daughter at Mimi’s after his successful haircut, posted by me. Regular updates from a page called CP Parents, on which people share stories, concerns, and questions about their lives with children who have cerebral palsy.

At some point I liked this page, although I have no recollection of doing so. I’ve never been the kind of woman who reaches out to strangers or discloses my personal challenges to a faceless, nodding crowd. From the looks of things, I don’t post regularly on CP Parents, but I like other parents’ posts.

One night, when the house is quiet and Josh’s breathing wafts through the air in the family room, I read through the timeline of CP Parents. And I become the nodding crowd, covering my mouth with my hand when certain passages hit close to home: the struggles, the conflict, the endless battles. I’m surprised by the candor of these men and women. They admit to feelings of inadequacy, of resentment, of unendurable fatigue. I relate to them, but I’m not strong enough to admit to those emotions I consider flaws, those feelings I have but despise myself for having, not even anonymously on an open forum.

On this same night, when I can’t read any more war stories from faceless CP families, I do something about which I have only fantasized up till now. I move the cursor to the search bar on the top of the Facebook page and type in two words.

Dante Forgionne.

There is only one match. Of course.

I click on his timeline, and for the first time in twenty years, I am gazing at the beautiful face of my first, and perhaps only, true love.

Dante’s sleek black hair, previously shaggy and unkempt, is now cropped short, but he counterbalances the lack of hair on his head with a scruffy beard, more salt than pepper. There are deep grooves at the corners of his sky-blue eyes, and I can tell these lines were etched through years of smiling and laughing. A prick of bitterness pokes at my chest. Laughter, smiles, joy, irreverence. Had Dante

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