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“No, I don't have anyone.”
“Yes, I am alone.”
“My family is gone.”
However, seeing their pitying looks made it so that I stopped telling the truth, too. At least when I lied, I didn't get those. I can deal with people’s inquisitive natures. It’s their pity that I can’t handle. So now I feign ignorance to their probing glances and questions, and change the topic as soon as someone brings family into the conversation.
Family.
Yes, I used to have one. I had a father I adored more than life itself and three best friends who meant the world to me. I lived and breathed for them, until I couldn’t do it anymore. My gaze falls back onto the photograph in my hand, where those same three beautiful boys were all smiles and joyful gazes, and me right smacked in the middle of them with my own goofy grin shining brightly at the man behind the camera.
That was my family, and until I take my very last breath, they will remain so—even if only in my heart.
I wonder if they’re happy.
If leading the lives they aspired to when we were children gave them the fulfillment I couldn’t offer.
Against my better judgment and to my heart’s chagrin, over the years, on those lonely nostalgic nights that I desired to feel close to them, Google had been the one friend I could rely on. It gave me small glimpses of all my boys’ accomplishments. Now men with established careers, they were able to succeed in all the goals they set out for themselves, while I failed mine so miserably. Pride and sadness breathed simultaneously in one hollowed breath as I got a small peek into their lives. Lives I had been deprived of sharing with them, because of one decision that separated us all.
God, we had so many dreams back then. A bucket list of things we wanted to do in our lifetime. I even wrote mine down and forced my three best friends to do the same, just so we could lie down on the San Antonio grass, look up at the summer sky, and daydream about our lists together. We were so confident we were going to take the world by storm, hand in hand, and that nothing would ever get in the way of our happiness.
It’s funny what the memory latches onto. How it chooses to keep some memories so vividly intact, while distorting others so ruthlessly. But those summer days, of whispering our wants and desires to each other, are as much a part of me as is this disease that’s killing me.
Those same ambitions seem like nothing but pipe dreams to me now—unattainable and hurtful to recollect.
As expected, the vodka is starting to do its job, pushing my mind to wallow on what could have been if things had turned out differently for all of us. Images of all the places we would have traveled to and visited together, of all the exotic foods and cultures we would experience and delight ourselves in, dance in my head as a cruel joke.
But my wayward thoughts don’t stop there. As foolish as the idea is to me now, I can even see myself wearing a white coat in some prestigious hospital, treating the sick and infirm instead of being one myself. And since I’ve let myself fall into the rabbit hole of regret and failed dreams, another painful image assaults me—one where my belly is bigger than life and four pairs of hands cradle it. Pure love emanating from our entwined hands on the life I would bring into the world.
A drunken tear falls onto the photograph in my hand, and I wipe it off clean before it ruins this small physical memory beyond measure. Just because that life will never happen, doesn’t mean I can’t hold on to the keepsake that gave me hope it one day could.
Enough, Valentina. Stop wallowing on what could have been and start thinking about what still can be done, I inwardly reprimand.You want lists? Then let’s make new ones.
I pull myself up from the floor, grabbing the vodka bottle with one hand as I solidly grip on the photograph with the other, making my way to my living room. I sit at the little desk I have in the corner, pushing the medical journals to the floor to make room for what I'm about to do. I grab some stationary paper and write down everything I wanted to do in my life, adding two columns next to it with the titles ‘Plausible’ and ‘Maybe.’ I write down each and every thing I at one point in my life dreamed about, while drinking right from the vodka bottle to numb the pain those same written words provoke. I'm not sure how much time passes by, but the buzz I got is a good indicator that I’ve been sitting in the same spot for hours.
Once finished, I take a good long look at my list. What I had hoped would give me some sort of control and comfort, only deepens the frown on my face. As I start to draw a line over the ones I will never be able to accomplish in time, others stand out as strong candidates for what I can still do.
Visit the Louvre and eat small pastries in a café in Paris.
Dance in the rain in Prague.
Take a nature walk through the Swiss Alps.
Drink wine in the south of Spain and nap under a tree.
Eat gelato while walking through St. Mark's square in Venice.
Skinny-dip on an exotic beach in the Greek islands.
I tap the end of my pen onto the desk as images of fulfilling these dreams accost me. Yes, I want to do all these things, but I don’t want to do them alone. When I craved to visit all these places and embark in such an adventure, it was in the company of the men I loved above all.
What would it serve doing any of this without them? It would be pointless and a halfhearted attempt at happiness.
Either drunk on bravery, or too out of my mind with sorrow, I pull three new stationary letters, and on each one, I write the names I haven't uttered in almost ten years.
Logan.
Quaid.
