I’m a paid companion. I watch old folks, stroll around with them in the park, sometimes help them to the toilet. But my trick to avoid the inevitable is that I can tell when they are making what I call the “NIN” or the downward spiral as I tell my friends. Sometimes you can tell when an old person is going to change into another old person. It’s something in their eyes. A look of “Oh, fuck it.”

This is what I like: the quiet before the children arrive from school. I love my children, don’t get me wrong and more than anything I wanted to take them along on this adventure I’d undergone with my friend Josie. The adventure, ironically involves another child. A boy I gave up for adoption many years ago.
Maybe not so long ago, my friend Josie says She says I am still young and it’s never too late to to start a new relationship with one’s son.
I am now finding him at another school about a hundred miles away–who knew he’d been so near yet so far?
We are parked right in front of the school. This is also my first day as a substitute teacher here. This is really the only way to see him without it being such a big deal.
Josie says it will be a big deal no matter what. Be quiet and just be an observer she says as I start to gather my purse, coat, umbrella. It’s going to rain today.

I comment on how small the school is.

Yes, she says because she went to this school at one time. It’s so small the gym and the cafeteria are combined.

They eat in the gym? I ask.

Yep.

Okay, I say as I leave the car. As an observer?

Yep, she says again.

But I want more. I want to know he is well-cared for, at his other home. I want to know he’s happy now. Does he have a girlfriend? Is he on the honor roll? Captain of the football team? Is he handsome? These are things I will find out today so help me God.

Goodbye Caroline, Josie says just as I turn from the car and see a sheet of rain coming toward me.

The moment was ripe with possibilities and Caroline knew she needed to act fast. Already the plans had materialized at the south end of the hall, where the men gathered,whispering, looking over at her every now and then and whispering some more.
It occurred to her only after fifty years of wrist wringing and deep breaths and her whole life flipping through her mind like tarot cards, that she could just walk up to those men. Right now. If she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. Too much history with them, too many words and actions seared into everyone’s brains. When they saw Caroline they only saw trouble.

Well then, she though as her legs took over, as if they’d been emancipated from the rest of her, then maybe I am trouble. Or at least part of her was.
As she reached the mean (men), they stopped whispering, looked up at her and smiled.

She did not return their smiles.

Here it comes. The No People. I can’t Yes enough to them to stop them.
Yes!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Fine. You win.

The little girl shrugged after writing her sentence and handed her short paper to the kindergarten teach.
The teacher read the little girl’s sentence: the The saw the That and then that.
And then the kindergarten teacher said, “No.”
But the words the little girl wrote were now out there and there was no way to unread them.

The son told his father that he missed his mother.
“Well,” the father said, with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if she’s coming back.”
The two men were both adults so it was possible to have this conversation play out with more thought, precise pacing and respect, than otherwise would be expected, given that wife and mother left them to find another child. That did not belong to her current husband. And in no way was related to her current son.

She never saw it coming. And it came as a storm. Lightning, wind, rain. Clearasil. As a teenager, spots appeared on her forehead, or nose or cheek. Never all at once and the ointment kept her from going insane, thanks God.
But as things happen, she had more pressing problems on the night of The Storm. The ensuing flood swelled the creek that ran near her home. She could see the water rising to her backyard. It thrilled her. She beamed that night.

She loved storms. Both inner and outer. It was on that night that the pinwheel machine rose from the mud, washed to the surface, spinning providing its riches. To the tune of a million dollars. She became rich inside and out. And her face cleared up. A lot of things did. Boy oh boy, did they.

I never asked for this and in the meantime, the children are needing some movies to watch and you are still trying to decide where the last toys were left? The toys have been chewed up and eaten. Look for them in the toilet, really. I mean really, dear, you must know that I have been up and down this house all while on my phone talking a client down from the edge.

“Ledge,” her husband corrects her as he stands there among their screaming children.

“Ledge?” she cries incredulously.

“You said you were talking the client down from the edge. I think you meant ledge.”

She smiles. “Why yes, dear. Yes I did mean that.” She keeps smiling and this make him very nervous.

I’m just writing to tell you I will never write to you again. But before I begin (to not write to you), I have to tell you–or write rather–that Sundoo did not influence this decision. It was Fundoo that did.

You want someone and they come too early and too clearly, with so many angles and nuances and urgency and morning breath and you just want to say, “Hey, this is too much. Go back to the fantasy.”

But they can’t become a fantasy. Fantasy comes from you. So you’ll have to go back to your own fantasy and avoid this person who just became to real for you.