NO MATTER WHAT POINT IN TIME

There is a loud BOOM and I jump in the chair. When I turn around, I see that my husband Dan has forgotten to place a laundry basket in between the bathroom door and its frame to prevent the wind from slamming it shut.

“Dan! What did I tell you about the door? Sorry, dad.” I say to my laptop screen and walk to the bathroom. Dan shrugs and says, “I’m in the bathtub!” like I don’t know. I shake my head as I move the laundry basket. I return to the couch to continue talking to my dad about our move to Paris. Dan and I are staying at an Airbnb for a couple months while we see if we can make it work. It’s a big leap after traveling the world for ten months. We’re both burned out and homesick. The same questions run through our conversations every day: Will Dan’s residency permit go through? Will we make enough money? Will we find an apartment? Will we love it as much as we think we do?

“So, yea, we’re meeting with our immigration advisor this week, and then I have an appointment with a doctor tomorrow to check out what’s going on with my abdomen,” I say to my dad.

“That still hasn’t cleared up?” he says, his voice stepping up a register from its usual baritone.

“No, dad, I’ve been dealing with it since we left home. Before then really.”

“Any idea what is it?”

“I think it’s chronic appendicitis, but honestly, I don’t know. At least now that we’re in one place I can get it checked out again.”

I’m frustrated that I haven’t known what’s wrong with my body for over a year. I’ve had to change my lifestyle in hopes of controlling the pain: I don’t go for runs anymore, I walk more slowly, I take more breaks, I don’t eat dairy. But there’s nothing that makes it go away. I’m always irritated and tired, being dragged down by pain or the possibility of pain. At times, it was heavier to travel with than my own backpack.

“How’s Dan’s back?” my dad asks.

“It’s… ok. Not great. Kind of the same.”

Then I think of Dan and my issues fade to the background of my mind. Dan’s had to navigate months of strange beds, couches, and chairs with two slipped discs in his lower back. When we came to Paris, we specifically had to find an Airbnb with a bathtub so he could relax in hot water everyday. It’s helped a little, but it’s not a cure. Nothing seems to be.

Over the past ten months, we’ve had many conversations about the future of his back, mostly filled with his fears about becoming more and more incapacitated. I’ve seen him grow depressed and hopeless about his ability to move without pain. Ever since I’ve known Dan, he’s been active and athletic. He was a football player in high school. He loves going for long runs, especially in new places; that’s his favorite way to get to a know a city. Much of that has been taken away from him now, both by physical discomfort and anxiety. I try to keep optimistic, knowing that the fact that we’ve been uprooted for so long is one of the reasons why he’s not well. But I’m also afraid I’m wrong and he won’t get better. The trip reminded me countless times that we were at a tipping point for our 35-year old bodies, where we were supposed to start protecting them instead of putting them at risk. We ignored the signs of age to have an adventure, but at what price?

Dan calls out, “Have you talked to Michael at all?”

“Michael from England?” I say, “No, why?”

“I think something’s going on…” he says, and trails off.

I raise my eyebrow. We stayed with my friend Michael when we visited the beach town of Brighton, England at the beginning of our trip. We’d hung out with him and his new-ish boyfriend, and they both seemed happy and in-love.

From the corner of my eye, I see Dan stand up in the bathtub. Water droplets run off his short, strawberry blonde hair and drip down his pale, freckled shoulders. He still has a broad chest and sculpted arms despite the changes in his level of physical activity. No one sees him as anything but a healthy, fit person. It’s what makes dealing with chronic pain so difficult; it tricks us into thinking we’re fine because we can’t see it happening.

Dan stares at his phone, his mouth slightly open.

“Honey, would you get me a towel and the bathmat?” he asks, not looking up.

The towel and the bathmat are hanging on a drying rack just outside of the door.

I tell my dad sorry again, frustrated.

“Way to think ahead, Dan,” I grumble as I put down the bathmat and give him the towel.

He dries off, puts on some clothes and sits at the kitchen table still glued to his phone. I grab my laptop and carry it past Dan to the kitchen counter.

“Dad, sorry if the screen freezes, I’m going to start cooking dinner.”

From behind me, Dan says, “No, don’t. You have to get off the phone.”

His voice is tense. I tell my dad that I have to go and I’ll talk to him later. I place the laptop on the counter, and Dan motions to the chair beside him.

“Sit down, honey. Come sit.”

*

El Confidential

July 7, 2017

El acróbata que falleció la noche del viernes en el Mad Cool… es Pedro Aunión Monroy, director de la compañía de artes escénicas In Fact y experto en danza aérea.

Google Translate:

The acrobat who died Friday night at Mad Cool… is Pedro Aunión Monroy, director of the performing arts company In Fact and expert in aerial dance.

*

Facebook, My Aunt Lisa, one of my mom’s sisters

September 6, 2015

I know a lot of you have been asking for updates on Linda. First, let me say she is a fighter. She’s been in some pain due to a compressed vertebrae, which is caused by a cancerous lesion. The doctor is hoping to lessen the pain with medication. She will be doing 4 more days of radiation starting this coming Tuesday. Our family joined forces and will be helping Dominic, Alyssa, and Damien take care of Linda. It’s a good thing mom and dad had so many of us that we can help where needed! Please keep Linda in your prayers as well as Dominic.

*

On our first night together, we went to dinner at a Indian restaurant with kaleidoscopic wall decorations, dark stone floors and candlelit tables, a welcome respite from the chill outside. Michael met us first, and I gave him a long hug. I hadn’t seen him in almost five years since we’d worked together in London, but he was still as I remembered him: tall and lanky with light blond hair that feathered across his forehead, and a charming smile that showed his perfectly straight teeth. He introduced himself to Dan with a quiet demeanor that belied his sharp, British sense of humor. His boyfriend Pedro was running late from work, so we sat down to wait, nibbling on the papadums and spicy, sweet sauce placed at our table. The corners of Michael’s eyes crinkled upward as he told us that he and Pedro had been dating for about a year.

As if he’d heard his name, Pedro bounded up to our table, his body a lithe, muscular ball of energy. His radiant yet mischievous smile was topped by a thick, black mustache, a combination that made me want to follow him into some good, clean trouble. He embraced Dan and me in tight hugs. As we thumbed through our menus, we exchanged background stories, and he told us that for many years he had worked full-time as an aerialist and choreographer in Spain; some issues with one of his contracts forced him to relocate and start over in the UK as a masseur and acupuncturist. While he still worked as an aerialist, he was going to open his own practice within the next year.

“You do massage?” Dan said, “I could really use one of those right now.”

“Call and make an appointment for tomorrow, then. I’m happy to work on you. Friend’s special,” Pedro replied with a wink.

Throughout our dinner, Pedro had his arm over Michael’s shoulders or a hand threaded through his hair. Michael joked that sometimes Pedro would text him, “I love you” several times a day or bring him flowers out of nowhere. “Why shouldn’t I?” Pedro said, beaming, “It’s how I feel when I feel it.”

The last night of our stay, all four of us went out again, this time to an indoor seafood restaurant by the cold, empty beach. We ate a smorgasbord of crab, crayfish, and clams. We took silly pictures using the claws to attack each other. Pedro snapped a photo of Dan and me that is one of my favorites from our trip, where our cheeks catch a glow from the lighting, our smiles relaxed and happy. Dan said that the massage with Pedro earlier was epic. He made Dan stretch and move in ways he thought he couldn’t. Pedro had told Dan, “You have to stop thinking you’re injured.” I agreed because I wanted to believe it, too.

As we said goodbye, we were already making plans to come back and visit after our trip was over. Dan quipped that he would travel back to Brighton just to be treated by Pedro again. I imagined all of us becoming closer friends, especially if Dan and I decided to use my Italian citizenship and live in Europe someday. We assumed we’d have an endless amount of time to choose from, like we always do. We always assume that the time will be there.

*

El Pais

July 8th, 2017

Google Translate:

It was 10:45 and the alt-J concert had just finished on the Koko Uk stage… Between group and group, the choreographer and dancer started, contorting into a cube about 28 meters high, held by a crane, while ”Purple Rain” of Prince by the loudspeakers. A giant screen reflected the spectacle. Suddenly, Aunión, who seemed hooked on a harness, lifted off the bucket. Some of the audience shouted, others thought for a moment that it was part of the number, until the camera that relayed it began to move abruptly and fell to the ground: for 40 seconds they saw the feet of the health workers running, someone who collected the camera without realizing that it continued to broadcast, and then the image of the live became a commercial. A medical team attempted a long cardiopulmonary resuscitation while a police cord plugged the scene and the audience watched, incredulous.

*

Alyssa Sorresso, MR ABDOMEN ENTEROGRAPHY WWO CONTRAST – Final result

September 14, 2016

Narrative

INDICATION: Right lower quadrant pain, unrelated to bowel movements. Constipation/diarrhea, bloating/distention, and flatulence. Evaluation of small bowel and terminal ileum.

*

I drink the Barium solution while standing up, staring at a football game on the television that I’d never be interested in otherwise. I pace my swallows so I can’t hesitate. I know hesitation will make it worse. That’s what my dad taught me about driving—that hesitation will get you killed—and I apply his teaching to everything in my life by default. The liquid tastes like pink chalk mixed with Pepto-Bismol. Every gulp makes me feel more metallic, like I’m growing a tin man inside my body. I look down at my feet and see thin blue socks that match my thin blue gown. My mom wore the same outfit about the same time last year for one of her many MRIs. “Fuck this,” I sigh under my breath and take another swallow.

I’m about to receive a 45-minute MRI for the entirety of my abdomen. The pain in the bottom right quadrant of my gut has gotten worse over the last few weeks. All I can do is rest and breathe through the pulsing heat coming from a hard place in my belly. I told the gastroenterologist that I thought it might be a chronic appendicitis, but he said that was rare, like I had to be special in order to get it. A quieter part of me thinks that somehow it’ll turn out to be cancer.

Dan and I are a week and a half away from leaving to travel the world for a year, and I don’t know if we’ll actually make it onto the plane. Traveling long-term is supposed to be an exciting adventure that challenges what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives: buying a house, having a kid, “settling”. It means we’re living a life of our choosing. But as I stand in the waiting room choking down Barium solution, I can’t help but think that we’ve been fooling ourselves. What exactly are we hoping to gain from traveling like this? Perspective? Stories? Bragging rights? Prolonged youth?

Dan is sitting on a lounge chair, his eyes flickering from me to the television screen. He’s been worried about me even though he’s been struggling, too. The flare up of inflammation around the slipped discs in his back has made it difficult for him to do basic actions like standing or sitting for long periods of time. We’ve been fighting to get him a cortisone shot in his spine before our insurance runs out. The treatment has helped before and we’re hoping it’ll work its magic again. Otherwise, what’s the point? We’d planned to climb mountains together.

I swallow the last of the Barium and walk over to Dan to touch my knees to his. His hands come to rest on either side of my hips. He looks up at me with a furrowed brow, and I hang my head and start to cry.

*

As the sun streams in from the skylights above, I lie next to my mom in her bed, reading a book while she plays Candy Crush on her iPad.

“So you know how I have to get an extra pair of contacts to take with me on our trip? They’re going to be $400,” I say, not looking up from my book.

“Oh my,” she replies, her pointer finger arched above the screen, “That’s a lot.”

“Yea, but I’d be shit out of luck if I didn’t have them. I doubt there’s going to be an eye doctor in someplace like Southeast Asia who can fit my prescription very easily, you know?”

My mom sits silent for a moment, her finger descending to pop multiple rows of candy, and then says,

“You know, I couldn’t see clearly until I was 8-years old.”

I turn to look at her, letting my book fall onto my lap, “What? Why?”

“I didn’t have glasses. When I got them, I looked at the grass and thought it was amazing. I could finally see how green it was and how all the blades were like little tiny soldiers. I didn’t realize the grass could look like that!”

“Wow, mom, that’s crazy. I never knew that.”

We settle back into a comfortable silence, flipping pages and swiping screens. I picture my mom as an 8-year old girl, standing in her parents’ lawn, new coke-bottle glasses on her face, her mouth open in surprise and delight. Her eyesight had always been poor, but during her past 2 years of chemo treatments, it had declined even more, to the point where she couldn’t read enlarged words on her Kindle. I wonder if her eyesight is as bad now as when she was eight.

I also have weak eyesight, but in first grade I got thick, pink-framed glasses that enveloped my face. When I came home from school, I would take them off and wander around my house, my world becoming a blur of color, light, and shadow. It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t see defined shapes. I’d let myself get lost in the obscurity, navigating my surroundings by tracing the edges of furniture with the pads of my fingers. But I don’t have the luxury of that freedom anymore. Whenever I see my mom, my eyes labor to capture all of her movements and expressions—as if it were possible to imprint every second of her delicate life into my memory.

*

Facebook, Associates in Pediatrics, S.C.

September 23, 2015

It is with great sadness that we inform you that Linda Sorresso, our Nurse Manager lost her battle to cancer yesterday, after bravely fighting for over two years. Linda was with Associates in Pediatrics for over 20 years. Her dedication and commitment were integral to our success and growth. Her generous spirit and infectious laugh made our days brighter and more cheerful. She fought a hard battle with dignity. She always had a positive attitude and never complained. She was an inspiration to everyone that knew her. No words can fully express our sadness at Linda’s passing or our gratitude for the opportunity to work with her. She will be sorely missed.

*

The hospice nurse who helped us on my mom’s first day home said that the dying go through an intricate, internal process of letting go that we can’t understand. I pictured the inside of my mom’s brain and how she must be peeling through memories, maybe starting from what I assume was her last clear vision of arriving home in an ambulance all the way back to her childhood days on a farm in Michigan. In my mind, she was falling through a vortex, snapshots and animations of her life swirling around her. I kept wondering how slow her descent would have to be for her to see them all.

*

The Telegraph

July 8th, 2017

An acrobat… was killed on the night that his partner had come to watch him perform live for the first time, it emerged on Saturday.

*

I don’t know what my dad imagined as he watched my mom die. I never asked.

*

Facebook Messenger, Alyssa to Michael

July 25, 2017

Hello my dear friend,

I’ve been thinking about you a lot and wanted to let you know. I know you must be inundated by messages, but if you ever need to talk, Dan and I are here for you. We are hopefully moving to Paris more permanently, and so we will be close by and would want to come see you as soon as you’d like us to. I hope I hear from you soon, but I understand if not. I hope you are finding some solace somewhere during this time. so much love to you, alyssa

*

When will it be us? When will Dan be my dad or I be Michael? How will it happen? Where will I be? How will Dan find out? I think about it everyday, mostly during the moments before I fall asleep, but even in the middle of being annoyed by something insignificant, like giving Dan a bath towel that he forgot in the other room. That’s what leaves me the most gut-punched, the most unbelieving—those microscopic gestures that bring our future into sharp relief.

*

Alyssa Sorresso, MR ABDOMEN ENTEROGRAPHY WWO CONTRAST – Final result (cont.)

September 14, 2016

IMPRESSION: Mildly prominent appendix without surrounding inflammatory changes. Correlate clinically for symptoms of appendicitis.

Otherwise, no abnormalities noted on MR enterography to explain patient’s symptoms.

*

When my doctor got the MRI report back, he called me and said, “Well, everything looks normal! Hopefully it’ll just clear up. Good luck!”

Dan got the two cortisone shots he needed in his spine. And then we left for England. What else was there to do but carry on with our lives?

*

Cardinal Bernadin Cancer Center to O’Hare Airport, Interviewing my dad in his car

August 11, 2017

“I thought about how I had watched mom die, but it had been so slow. It felt like… I don’t know… weeks were going by… even though I can’t even remember the number of days she was even in hospice. I think it was, what, like… ?”

“Four days,” my dad says.

“Four days. To me, it seems like it was at least a week. It doesn’t even seem like it was that.”

“She came home on a Thursday and died on a Tuesday.”

“Yea… And I remember the first hospice nurse who came to the house and checked her in and talked to us about what the process was going to be like. Also I was just thinking like, when is this going to happen? I thought about how this was like a birth. And I think the hospice nurse said that to me – that dying was like birthing where you just have to wait until the person lets go. And that’s how I felt, like, this is such a surreal thing. We’re all around here just helping her pass on… I was wondering what was on your mind and what you were thinking and what struck you during those whole four days.”

Here my dad pauses for what seems like a long time. I look out the front window of the car and see construction has finished on I-90, totaling five lanes instead of the three from before I left the country. I think about how much quicker it would be to get to the hospital to see my mom. My dad and I are driving away from it now, having just donated my mom’s two wigs at the hospital’s “imaging” center, which is just that: a place to create an image of normalcy. The wigs – a light brown bob with golden highlights and a silver bob with dark grey lowlights – had sat in the back of the closet in my childhood bedroom for the past two years. We decided to give them away while I was visiting home from Paris. Seeing the building where my mom had struggled with the disease was hard enough, much less walking inside and giving back the wigs my mom wore. I think my dad needed someone to go with him. I know I did.

I wait for my dad to answer. He is also looking out the front window, his face pinched like he is going to sneeze. We’ve never been good at talking, but since my mom died we’ve had to be. Having emotional conversations with my dad feels like plunging into cold water, something both of us hate to do. But I have to do it. I feel it’s the only way I can survive now. As he answers, his voice wavers.

“I never thought mommy was gonna die. Even now it’s… I really can’t think that she’s dead. She’s just gone. She’d been reduced to just…”

He stops. The word “nothing” fills my mind. “She was reduced to nothing,” I want to say, but don’t.

“…and then the other image for me was the guy… from the funeral home just carrying her down the stairs… in a garbage bag…”

He chokes on a cry. I try not to think about what he’s describing. Try not to think about my mom’s body wrapped in a cheap plastic shroud. My throat feels swollen and heavy like flooded wood. I reply,

“That’s awful.”

He changes lanes, barely glancing in the side mirror and neglecting to use his turn signal, actions that never fail to make me grip the armrests and press an imaginary brake with my foot. He continues, “The rest of it’s been as surreal. Even these last two years.”

“It’s just so… I don’t know,” I say as I stare out the passenger side window, watching a never-ending stream of ugly billboards fly by, “No matter what… no matter at what point in time, whether you’re watching it happen, or two years later… it’s still unfathomable. It’s just amazing to me how like…my brain can literally not understand it.”

“Yea, well… because forever is a long time.”

“I think that’s what makes me the most sad…”

As I say the word “sad,” my voice cracks. It surprises me that such a simple word can cause so much ache in my chest.

“…Is knowing there are more years like that. Is knowing there’s the rest of my life, and it’s without her. And like you say, there’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t think there’s any other situation like that… when it comes to human life. There’s simply nothing you can do when someone dies.”

*

Facebook, Michael 

July 10th, 2017

I met Pedro on New Years Eve. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We kissed at the door under some holly and agreed to meet for a coffee. I fell in love with this man this year, and we talked imagined futures. We wanted to adopt some kids and build an empire based on a school for aerial dance. Before he came away to rehearse, he bought us a kitten to keep me company while he was gone. The last few moments I saw him, he was dancing to a track by alt-J that he’d played for me many times. He was so excited about the performance he was about to bravely create. Pedro was deeply connected to music. All my favourite memories are of him improvising a dance at home in front of the oven. While he was dancing to that song on Friday night I knew he was thinking of us. He thought of us all the time… He spotted me in the crowd and pointed to his eyes and then to mine, “I’ve seen you.” He knew I was there watching the biggest adventure of them all. Now I’m here and he’s not. Te quiero cariño. Creo que sabes lo feliz que me haces. Present tense.

*

Dan and I are in bed in our new apartment in Paris where we’ve been living for the past nine months. Just a month ago, I was diagnosed with IBS spasming. I’m on a 6-week regimen of antispasmodic medication, and the pain in my abdomen is subsiding. It’s not something that will ever go away, especially in times of stress, but now I know it’s manageable. I’ve been helping Dan find doctors: a physiotherapist, a chiropractor, a psychologist, an orthopedic spine specialist. While his pain is still constant, we’re both having an easier time believing he can get better, or at least that we have ways to lessen the burden.

I track the rhythm of Dan’s chest in the blurry, muted dark as he softly snores. I think of a video of my mom that I have on my phone. In a rare moment, I was alone with her in her hospital room not long before she came home for hospice. She was lying on her side with her back toward me clothed in an ubiquitous blue gown. I watched the rise and fall of her breath, and, after a few moments, I pulled out my phone to record it. It was quiet. Peaceful. I don’t know what compelled me to document such a thing; I didn’t know then that she was going to die so soon.

As my eyelids fall, I stretch out my arm over the solid expanse of Dan’s body. I drift off to sleep, holding onto what is present yet already gone.

___

Alyssa Sorresso is a creative nonfiction writer, editor, and writing coach living in Paris, France. Alyssa’s writing is published in PANK, Calyx, Creative Nonfiction, TalkingWriting, 9 Lives: The Life in 10 Minutes Anthology, and elsewhere. Her essay, “Don’t Borrow Trouble” was listed as “Notable” in The Best American Essays 2015. She was nominated for a 2016 3Arts Award in Teaching Artistry and is a 2018 Ragdale Foundation resident. Alyssa is currently writing her first book about mothering and motherhood. Read more at alyssasorresso.com and follow her on instagram at alyssa.sorresso.