AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Perhaps that was the moment the lightbulb fully illuminated, that the fog began to truly lift. All he had said and shared until now, the details he had retained that I had repressed, none of it had fully landed until now. Finally, the full magnitude of what we had experienced landed on me: this was never one-sided. There was always enough hurt for two to share. There were enough ghosts to haunt us both.
“I’m sorry, Nao Kao. I was just so angry, and in that fog of anger, I don’t think I could see what it was like to be you. I felt like we had this amazing friendship – and that you had ruined that. And that the only way forward was to erase every last trace of that time.”
“But you couldn’t?”
“No, I could, and I did. But because the universe does its work in mysterious ways, at the exact moment I was presented with this whole CLMV project at work, I also found myself with time for both existential questions that were better left unasked….and more time still to paw through every last box in my house. The work project and the boxes pointed directly to you and once we started talking again, I realized how long it had been – and how, even across the distance of time and space, I missed your friendship. But also, I remembered. And so.”
My screen bled with blue bubbles and I gave it time for Nao Kao to read and digest so many words bursting forth from his screen.
“And so.”
“You’re not mad, Nao Kao?”
“No, never. Sorry, yes. I am so, so sorry. But never mad. I don’t even know what I would be mad about.”
“There’s no shortage of reasons. That I didn’t tell you at the time. Or mad that I’m telling you now. Mad at how it ended. Mad that I reappeared. Or that it took me so long to do so. I don’t know. I’m sure there are other reasons, too, that I could think of if you gave me time.”
“I just can’t believe you went through this by yourself. Entirely alone.”
“Well, I started this conversation by telling you that I was stronger than you were. You just couldn’t have known what I meant.” My intended levity was lost the moment I sent the message.
“No, I didn’t.”
“In all these years, I’ve never told anyone. What is it you’re always saying – just to live life? How little control any of us truly has. So that’s what I’ve tried to do for all of these years. Just live my life.”
I thought about the men who made war from the moment he was born, the treacherous and uncertain paths lain with mines, the myriad tropical diseases endemic in his part of the world. I thought of the men years later who sent him to Michigan and not Minnesota, who decided when he would leave, and under what terms. Of course, Nao Kao understood that a measure of autonomy was just that, a single measure. The rest was but an illusion, no more real than a shining mirage in the desert. Nao Kao’s imperturbability – his seeming nonchalance even – was, I suddenly realized, a trait unwittingly cultivated and honed over a lifetime of uncertainty, necessary not merely to thrive, but simply to survive. Learning to live with ambiguity is a privilege denied most of the world. It implies a learned skill to be employed on the occasions that life does not conform to one’s designs: the difference between learningto live with ambiguityand learninglife is ambiguous.
“I am glad you told me, Liss.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“No, not at all. Thank you. And always, you can share whatever you want with me. And I will not be mad at you.”
“I have no regrets, Nao Kao. Whatever else you might be sorry for, I want you to remember that.”
“And as much as I have babbled at you just now, I’m certain this was an easier way to tell you than it would have been in person. That was never going to happen.”
“Don’t underestimate life.”
“A girl only has so much courage. Even a strong girl. Anyway, it’s late, so I’m going to go to bed. Good night, Nao Kao.”
“You underestimate yourself and life. Good night, Liss. Sleep well.”
A picture of a blazing red sunset appeared on my monitor.
NAO KAO
Iknew shecould see me typing, formulating some thought, but the words would not emerge. Not from my brain, not from my fingers, and not, for her, from the screen. Pregnant.
Every philosophy student is familiar with Occam’s razor. It posits that the simplest, the most realistic, the least far-fetched of competing explanations is most likely the correct one. I have forgotten much of what I learned in my philosophy courses, but that I remember. And so, I had taken Liss at her word.
I reassemble the breadcrumbs she has been dropping. She was scared. She felt she had no one to talk to. She was stronger than me. Even knowing the outcome, I do not arrive. Pregnant.
I feel now how I felt when my twins were born. I’d just finished a soccer game when my brother-in-law rode across the field on his scooter to tell me I had become the father of two squalling daughters. Then he slapped my back so hard it knocked the wind out of me, a gesture for which I’d always been secretly grateful.
“I don’t know what to say,” I managed finally, an honest if underwhelming assessment of the moment.
She started apologizing then, the words on the screen serving the same purpose as my brother-in-law’s forceful back slap. Even speechless, I knew this was backwards. She had nothing to apologize for, whereas I, Icarus, had flown too close to the sun. My error was compounded by the conclusions I had drawn. Occam’s razor might dictate “when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras,” but zebras do exist. Liss herself, I was increasingly sure, was one.
