A week before my birthday she packed her things and left.

I do not blame her for doing this.

Nor do I really understand what it meant for her to move.

In my memory it’s less the momentum of courage it must have been for her and more a coagulation of images in my mind. Binding together to reach towards some meaning.

A wide ramp stretching from the porch to a moving van.

Broad bodied men lifting finished wooden bureaus. Wrapping them carefully, like sleeping children, into quilted blankets.

Her curls bouncing as she carries a cardboard box down the hill, leaning backwards behind its weight.

Did I climb into the car and ride away with her? Or stay behind to watch him walk into his study and shut the door. The latter, I believe.

And then I was all alone.

And then it was the weekend and a new woman arrived. Long bodied and brunette with a daughter who danced in our garden. Somersaulted on our trampoline. I said I wanted to see my mother. I slammed the door.

And after that, after that brief uprising and the rage it incurred, I never did so again. My mutinous days were over. Perfection melded with self protection. And I was all alone.

I’ve never wanted to remember this before. And now that try to, I realize why. The indistinct recollections my effort dredges up affect a despondent pain in the core of me.

A hunger.

An ache so wide it could consume, from the inside out, the person I’ve tried to become. Despite everything.

Despite the nights he sat on the sofa, head in his hands, and sobbed.

Despite the pain I forged because I never did.