Only and Ever This by J. A. Tyler

Author:J. A. Tyler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Only and Ever This
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Our Mother tightens the straps across his hips and thighs, across his ankles and his chest and his arms. She tightens another over his forehead, circling the strap around the table where this son has eaten every meal of his life. The tools are set where she wants them, arranged while the boys slept. The setup is meticulous, but the night is already more than half gone, waves lapping at the shore, rain shifting to mist in the bay. Deep in her heart, she wishes Our Father would just appear, return out of nowhere, rowing his jolly boat to shore, eager to fall in love with them all over again, to hand out the last palm of rubies he’d ever need to chase. If only he appeared, all of this would be unnecessary. She could stop tightening the belts, put down the scalpel and concentrate on a different way to love. If Our Father returned, made a pact to stay, her sons would quit their grieving, their sadness would dissipate like a cloud in sunlight, and she could rest, focus on staying solid. If only.

In the folds of her heart, she still believes in Our Father.

The clock whispers in the hallway. The sun will soon be up, and his boat still hasn’t arrived.

She hammered this son just once, a blow right above the eyes, and after knocking him out, she worked the belts tight, knowing the strength of his muscles, the power of his persistence. Our Mother, bursting with the hope of forever. Done restraining him, each belt taut as a stringed instrument, Our Mother cleans his left forearm, his palm pointed to the roof, the skin easy to puncture, the incision a tremendous first step.

Our Mother doesn’t know how long she’s stood at the table with the scalpel hovering millimeters above his arm. She is a statue of possibilities, time stilled everywhere except for the clock continuing against everything, until the scalpel is cutting the skin of his forearm, making the blood run. The pans catch each droplet. Beneath the skin is a layer of wet tissue, the slow build of new skin and the wrap of fat, the veins and arteries undone and clamped with hemostats, a temporary closing off. His muscles are resilient, stunning in their architecture, in the way they cling to their boyhood armature. She puts her whole strength behind the teeth of a small saw, working on a portion of muscle near the elbow, sweat beading on her forehead and on her upper lip. Then it’s ligaments and tendons unburied, snapped from their holds, revealing the bones.

Later, it’s Our Mother at the table, the night bleary with clouds, rain falling. She is seated instead of standing. There is a cup of tea in her weary hands, a saucer beneath the dainty white cup. It was the bones that exhausted her. She needs rest, a momentary respite. They are delicate institutions, the structures around wrists and elbows, beautifully evolved in their complications, and Our Mother had a difficult time finding the emotional fortitude to undo them.

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