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#1 roles in like wild fire, demanding to be feed. I'm expecting a downhearted waif. She looks beautiful, her tan skin glowing from around her signature white tank top. I get closer and notice her skin sparkles with tiny flakes of glitter. She's gone all out for me, instantly my guard goes up--she wants something. Looking like she does, she'll probably get it.

We sit and watch Gilmore Girls on DVD. I watch her devourer a plate of nacho dip, salsa and chips like she hasn't eaten in days, then asks for more.

She's on edge. She's got something wrong with her insides and here doctors appointment isn't for another two days. 'Female issues'. It is more the she has let on, I should have known. Her nonchalant attitude is just a cover, sometimes I forget and allow myself to be sucked in by it.

We go on WebMD and check her symptoms against known causes. She wants it to be something easy to fix, not minor, just easy. She is past believing it is nothing at all and so am I. The results point to scary things like tubular pregnancies (unlikely) or cervical cancer. She is not equipped to deal with such things. Not emotionally, not economically. I've seen it happen before to people like her, people who live month to month. No insurance. No family to help. One illness throws their whole life into turmoil.

"I've got cancer," repeats for the umpteenth time after finding several of her symptoms on the list.

"You don't know that. Don't jump to conclusions," I reply. But silently I'm thinking, it is more serious then we thought before.

She's worried now, on the edge of panic, prowling the living room like a caged panther. "Now I will never have a kid. No being a soccer mom for me."

She pulls one of my coats from the hall closet, goes out onto the porch to smoke a cigarette. I sit next to her and wrap my arm around her. The night is dark and still. She talks about running away. Spouting-off several inane ideas in an attempt at self deprecating humor but neither of us are laughing. I try to instill the need for her take care of it. I tell her she'll be alright. One step at a time. Her appointment, two days, away has just become a lifetime.

"Will it hurt?" She asks.

"You are not going to die. If I have to live in this world so do you. You'll be in this world long after I am ash."

There is a death wish buried with in her well hidden beneath her excesses and partying. It's born from a well concealed depression, from a certainty that life isn't going to get easier, that she is in the deep end just treading water and soon her arms are going to get tired. But, she doesn't want to die. We don't talk about it but I can sense it. Like gravitates to like, clinging to the familiar like soap bubbles in a pool.

She decides to leave. Whatever she had in mind when she first came in has been forgotten. The night has gone like neither of us has planned. I hug her tight, reluctant to let her go, afraid she will runaway. Afraid she will not heed my words once she is gone.

Even if I say
It'll be alright
Still I hear you say
You want to end your life
Now and again we try
To just stay alive
Maybe we'll turn it around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late--Never To Late, Three Doors Down

Vindicate Me

Hope, dangles on a string,
Like slow spinning redemption,
Winding in, and winding out,
The shine of it has caught my eye
And roped me in
So mesmerizing,
So hypnotizing.
I am captivated.
I am vindicated,
I am selfish,
I am wrong,
I am right, I swear I'm right
I swear I knew it all along
And I am flawed
But I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now
The things you swore you saw yourself...

I stare up at the ceiling fan, feel it's breath dry the sweat upon my skin. She makes her exist, dressing quickly.

"Half the time I don't know what you are talking about," she says, avoiding my stare. She makes her way downstairs and I quickly throw on a shirt and follow.

"I know you so well though. You are like this house. These things are nice, " she continues, gesturing at the matted wine labels behind the kitchen table. " I know you put them together yourself but this place looks like it came straight out of Pier 1. You never just go out and buy cowboy boots."

It is an odd way of putting it but I understand what she is getting at. "You have your ups and downs like everyone else but you don't change. That is why I know you so well."

She looks and me, then softens her words. "It's not bad."

I can't help feeling it sounds bad hearing her say it. "But at least you know what to expect--right. That's a good thing."

"I'm not saying it's bad."

I want to tell her this cocoon of mine keeps me stable. That I am one thin thread this side of loosing it but she's not big on listening to explanations. She sits on the laundry room floor and starts folding clothes from the dryer. 'She is so pretty', I find myself thinking as I sit across from her. "You've learned as much about me through observation as the boys have through experience," she says, switching gears.

It is a reveling comment. 'You are still a mystery,' I want to say but I've already pushed those buttons to their limit earlier. We pack her laundry into the back of her Focus. She hugs me a bit longer then usual before getting behind the drivers seat, gives me an extra kiss-- because she knows me.

I don't think about her words that night, nor the next day but they come back to me later, because I can't help thinking and she knows that too. I want to explain. I want to vindicate myself. She has probably already forgotten the details of the night.

I know she is not the one that is going to pull me from my cocoon. I'm not sure if anyone will have the strength to be that crutch. That burden will be my own but miracles do happen.


Just one touch and I'd be in too deep now
To ever swim against the current,
So let me slip away
So let me slip away
So let me slip away...Vindicated, Dashboard Confessional

Cold Comfort

#1 comes in and plops herself on the couch with a pout. I smile, kiss her forehead and continue with my conference call to China. She makes exaggerated signs of thirst and mouths the word 'water'. I indulge her, going to the kitchen and pouring her a cold glass of water from the refrigerator, all the while keeping up my dialog with my Chinese counterparts.

It is 10:00 pm and my call has already lasted an hour. I return to my makeshift office on the coffee table in my living room to find that she has typed 'naked girls' into the search engine of my browser. A slew of thumbnail sized naked images fills my screen. I slap her hands away from the computer, and sit between her legs in front of the couch. Scrolling down to the next item on my open issues list, I try to get my point across with slow precise words. There are five people on the other end of the line but everyone is silent when I ask if they understand.

I idly stroke her foot while I talk. Content for the moment with her water, 1# flips through a book of short stories from the coffee table and waits for me to finish my call. I end the call feeling a bit dejected. I expected more things to be resolved. I rollover, wrap my arms behind her back and rest my chin on her stomach.

"I'm sick," she states tilting her chin up as if to expose some obvious sign of her condition. She is wearing a white tank top over a pair of low rise jeans. One pink bra strap is peeking out on her shoulder. Her store bought tanner hides any sign of being pale or sick to me.

"I know," I reply anyway, reaching up to feel her forehead. She does feel warm.

I offer to make her some soup. She rejects the idea by sticking out her tongue in revolution and announces she hasn't eaten all day. We go back to the kitchen but nothing in the cabinets appeals to her.

Turning around to face me she says,"ready...one, two, three," then jumps enthusiastically into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist, her arms around my neck and burying her face in my shoulder.

I wrap my arms over her legs and lock my fingers together supporting her butt. She begins bemoaning her condition.

"I'm tired, and sick and my head itches." She sounds pitiful, her words lacking her usual sharp edge.

"You are a hot mess, you know that?" I say, gently rocking her back and forth.

"Boy you are a dad. No one ever rocks me."

"Don't complain, it's nice isn't it."

We remain together in silence for a while. It's moments like this that I cherish. There is no invisible barriers between us. I -- an escape from her problems. Her-- my comfort at the end of a long day.