I listen quietly the whole way As you give your final pleas

Desperation for my success Brings you to your knees

Every bit of wisdom You wish someone had given you

You hand the universe to me And I’m tethered in everything I do

I nod my head, compliant Just as I know I should

Convincing you I’d never do those things But in my heart I knew I would

And I didn’t realize then But that final drive to school

Was the last time we would be this way The last time I would be your fool

Because when something’s all you know You think that’s how things are

But my horizons would open up And they would take me far

I wish I could give a whisper To the child in that seat

And tell her to hang on As she was held against the heat

For the cycle doesn’t break against The softness of the truth

It’s a violent hurdle toward the flame That incinerates ignorance of youth

So let those miles roll on by Don’t second guess yourself

For there is freedom just ahead And that far surpasses wealth

The plan was in place. Rosie and Frederich would help facilitate my escape tomorrow at dark, just after compline prayers had been said and the nuns retired to their personal quarters. The time of day when there would still be enough movement, and minds busy with thoughts of the day, that would conceal any noise that I might make as I furtively slipped through the convent.

My hands instinctively went over my heart, bracing against the deep ache that visited me anytime I thought of leaving Rosie in this abysmal place. But we both knew-I was with child and she was not. One of us had to find our way to freedom to help the other, but first we must help this innocent, delicate life growing in my womb, who would not be subject to the realities of this prison. My only hope was that Frederich, with whatever influence and protection he could offer, would keep watch over my dearest Rosie girl until I could return for her.

My hand moved from my heart to my side as I felt the twisting of my sweet one within me, little knees, maybe elbows, pressing into the empty space between rib and hipbone. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, envisioning the life Rosie and I were giving the child by finally executing this perilous getaway.

I knew every inch of this place in the daylight, I had gone about my usual business over the past several weeks memorizing the doors that squeaked, the paces between thresholds, the regions of brick walls that would give way to plaster. But would my knowledge be sufficient to navigate in the dark? I knew the moon rose on the eastern wing of the building, hopefully illuminating my path, allowing me to focus my energy and attention on any unexpected obstacles rather than blindly feeling my way through the black.

The what-ifs, the unexpected, loomed so large at this point that I knew if I looked it in the face I would be devoured. This fear is where I felt a small inward surrender to something larger than me. Despite all odds, with the nuns painting an angry and vengeful God peering down on me with judgement and wrath, I knew there must be a tenderness in God of which I had not yet heard. Why else would he send a Christ, a mediator? Why else send a Spirit to comfort and guide?

So in the dark, a mere 24 hours before I would slip between rooms unnoticed, just as mama had shown me how to do all my life, I parted my lips mouthing a prayer of protection and favor. If not for me, at least for the child that would be along for the journey, whose life had become so much more precious than my own.

I watch the hands of time tick in your eyes. Like a stopwatch counting towards the second this conversation can be complete. Behind us. Never to be discussed again. I knew coming into this meeting that there would be no niceties. No warm gestures or affection. And yet as I sit here across from you, practically a stranger to a man who once knew and owned my soul, I can’t help but wish that I could reverse the hands of time that have consumed your eyes. That may be for a moment instead of counting down the seconds to when you can get up from the table and never lay eyes on me again, you would want to revisit the place where we met. Say hello to the moment you knew you loved me. To dwell briefly in the years when you cherished every breath I took, sound I made, step I took. The days when you saw my heart and you tenderly cared for it.

I ricocheted off the walls of my own thoughts as soon as I hear you speak, realizing that you strategically avoid using my name or looking into my eyes, or acknowledging my existence. I am nothing more to you than a fellow patron in the coffee shop where you grab your morning latte. No more important than someone from the third-floor in accounting, that passes by your desk on the fifth, en route to a finance meeting. Just a stranger getting a haircut next to you at your biweekly barber appointment. If someone saw us through the window they would never know that at one time no one made you laugh harder than me. Or that I had that special place where I like to put my face when you brought me into your arms. My place.

But now there is no place. Just me with my regrets and mistakes. If I could reverse the hands of time I would bask in the warmth of being your only. And I would make sure that you were my only, my most precious.

I capture one last look before your eyes cast down to where your hand guides a pen that will erase every final tie that binds us, and I swear I could see that stopwatch freezing for a moment. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, maybe it’s cruel that I would hope you hadn’t moved on. But I will forever believe that maybe, for the briefest moment, you are no longer counting down the seconds to your escape, but you found yourself revisiting the place that we met. The moment you loved me. The years when you cherished every breath I took.

The flame of the kerosene lamp flickered away into black, forcing me to retire my paper and pen, and search for rest that I knew would not come. The August air was suffocatingly thick, even within the walls of our cabin. Droplets of moisture in the air had settled in my neatly made bed, dampening my sheets as I climbed into them for the last time and laid my head down on my pillow. There was a low tone that traveled across the wooden floor, like water flowing from an overturned cup. A slightly higher tone followed it. I knew it was the voices of my mother and father in the room next to me, The same familiar late-night voices, through the same smooth wood walls, in the home where I took my first breath 16 years ago.

But this night felt different than the others. The sense of comfort and curiosity those low tones had always given me, now felt like the damp air that covered my bed. Heavy and uncomfortable. I closed my eyes and envisioned what they might look like. Curled onto their sides, facing one another in the black night, softening their conversation as much as one could without even a splinter of light to illuminate lips that could be read. Maybe tears falling, mixing with humid sheets, whispering the things that could only be whispered. The things that they never would want to say any louder than they must. The things about me, what I had done, and where I was going.

Part of me wondered, as I listened to their indistinguishable, almost undetectable sounds, if maybe there was still a possibility I could stay. But I knew we had explored every option and all that was left was embracing the trajectory of my life if I did not go. I had stayed as long as I was able, and now it was time to face myself. I placed a hand on my abdomen, it was still mostly flat when I laid on my back. My hand travel to my hip bones, to my ribs, feeling the firm skin that would stretch beyond what seemed possible. I took in a full breath very slowly through my nose. I exhaled even slower through my mouth. Again and again I focused on the only thing that truly felt mine anymore-my breath.

Everything else seemed to belong to someone else. My present, stolen and possessed by every judging eye, that would never be given the opportunity to see my belly grow. My naivety belonged to this child in my womb, forcing me to become a woman who makes grown-up decisions and bears children. My future belonged to the women that would take me in with a scarlet letter around my neck, and send me off lily white to attend university. My dignity belonged to my mother and daddy, as the caretakers of the secret. And my heart…my happiness…my body… belonged to him.

How would I ever continue exercising the only autonomy I had left if I could not be with him? How would I breathe knowing that when he wakes up in the morning I will be but a vapor… vanishing like the fog at sunset. So now that I think about it, I guess my breath belongs to him too. And I’m left with nothing, my fate is sealed.

The feeling of youth. I could bottle it up and sell it for millions.

When I drink from that bottle I’m back to a place I didn’t know how to fully appreciate when I was there. That garage. That living room where we would collapse on the soft brown couches after taking shots in the kitchen.

The kitchen with holes in the walls from drunken behavior.

The drunken behavior that lead to slow kisses, silly laughter, dancing on tables, heartfelt words. Heartfelt words that felt comfortable in the dark and that we avoided in the day.

But oh the day, When the sun would shine and we would swim in the lake and find eachother beneath the surface of the water.

Water that flowed to the streams and down the sides of mountains, offering a place to drink as we drove through the forest with the top down on your jeep.

The jeep where lovers crammed one too many into the back. But I held your hand and my head rested on your shoulder. The wind blew through my hair and I felt sense of freedom I have never known. My fingers traced your palms like they traced ancient carvings on the cave walls.

The cave walls that shielded us as the rain fell and the sun set.

We made our way down the mountain, back to the house, wild, free and slipping in the rain and the dark.

And now we are back to the dark. With slow kisses and heartfelt words.

And all my youth had been leading up to these moments. And all my youth ended in these moments.

First you spotted me in the cafe. Sitting near the door, scarf wrapped around my neck, cardigan pulled tight, to shield me from the winter wind that blew in with every sound of the door chime. I looked up hoping for a warmer table, only to see you laugh- there wasn’t another seat in the house. My options were nil. You invited me to share a seat at your table- no strings attached. You would leave me to my reading, you said. But you didn’t leave me to my reading. Peppering me with questions, giving glances to my movements, seemingly captivated with my existence. Next thing I knew you were catching up to me on the sidewalk. We were running into eachother in the produce aisle laughing at the serendipitous pattern developing. Had our paths always crossed this often, somehow unnoticed? You seemed to think it impossible. You said that you couldn’t have missed someone like me. I would smile, deep down knowing I probably had missed a lot of things with a heart crippled by self protection, just beginning to heal. But I skeptically allowed you to trail after me. Not letting you know just how much I lived for those moments you would appear. I found myself stepping out of my building with a simultaneous scan of the crowded street, wondering if I’d catch your smile. You said that you knew I liked having you around. I would shake my head and wonder how much more cavalier I could pretend to be without you losing interest.

Soon we discovered our buildings were side by side. Same turn of the century architect, identical buildings. Just a different address. Which helped shed light on why we frequented all the same places. An architect yourself, you gave me all the fascinating insider details over a cup of coffee one afternoon. A couple weeks later my phone rang, you asked me to meet you outside. There was a pause on my end. I looked around my flat, hoping to locate an excuse. Why is that my initial reaction? Why not say just yes when all I do is think of you? You were beginning to pick up on that isolation tendency. “Don’t say no”, you said. “Meet me.” So I agreed.

Grabbing my coat and scarf, I paused briefly in front of the mirror. I brushed my chestnut bangs from my face. Ran my fingertips under my eyes, stuck my hands in my pockets hoping to find some color for my lips. There it was. I paused. Who am I doing this for? “Me” I lied. Lipstick applied, I headed to the elevator. It opened in the lobby and there you were, in my building visiting with the doorman. I smiled to myself as I watched you laugh at something he had said. You never meet a stranger. Your eyes met mine across the lobby. I watched you disconnect from your conversation and become completely enraptured with my passage across the marble floor. I felt heat rise to my cheeks with embarrassment and excitement. I was terrified and anticipatory. My heart said no and my soul said yes.

You took my gloved hand for a moment, said goodbye to the doorman, calling him by name, and your hand guided my lower back to the busy sidewalk before us. You had never touched me like this. Although I could feel myself stiffen against the unexpected intimacy , I longed for the closeness. I think I longed for the closeness with you.

You couldn’t wait to show something to me, you said. You had just made a discovery that fascinated you with every beat of your architect- heart.

Snow had just began to fall and the quiet it brings fell with it as you led me down the alley between our buildings. I had never made it this far down this alley. Come to think of it, I had never been stupid enough to venture down any alley in a city like this. But here I was, my hand in yours, and in this moment I rested completely in whatever lie ahead with you. We maneuvered past an area where the path was cluttered with dumpsters, and air conditioning units, the smell of garbage wafting through the air. And then there was a fence. “This is where it gets a little shady, you laughed. I watched, to my amazement and horror as you perfectly picked the lock. If I didn’t know what you paid in rent, I mIght be slightly suspicious of your questionable skill set.

You asked me to close my eyes. As I protested you came up behind me put your gloved hands over my eyes and said “for once, just go with it, okay? This is going to be great.” I sighed, smarted off, pretending to begrudge the moment but inside I was trembling in excitement to share a secret with you. I noticed the way your hand felt over my face. Your other hand grasped my arm gently, just below my right shoulder guiding me, several steps ahead. I could feel the snowfall picking up, melting on my lips, dampening my hair.

You counted down from five, building the anticipation, and then your hand moved to my left arm, holding me steadily on either side. “Open your eyes.” I did, and there before us was a bridge, somehow hidden in this alley, in a city crammed with with people, every square inch of this island tediously purposed. And yet this bridge had survived the over-development. It’s gentle arch, connecting your building to mine, windows giving a peek into this glorious little mystery. How had we missed it all along?

And for once, without hesitation, without my self-sabotaging tendencies calling the shots, I turned around into your arms and kissed you.

It was a sweet, full of knowing, full of feeling known and seen for the first time in a very long time. I pulled back and looked up into your eyes, you smiled down at me as your hand traveled to my chestnut bangs, pushing them to the side “Want to figure out how to cross the bridge?”

The River didn’t just suddenly stop flowing in an instant. In order for the River to stop flowing, many circumstances, much earlier, from many miles away must have led to this supernatural occurrence. And yet, in the moment, all I could see was the soggy River bed, and I had no concern of being carried away. So I crossed. And I continued my journey. Many miles, many nights, sleeping under the stars. Never looking back, only surviving the moment. Only intent on what was ahead. But when I reached my destination and contemplated every part of the journey, moments sprang back in full color. Dots connected and I could peek back behind the tapestry- every stitch and weaving of thread purposed to tell a story on the side everyone would see. The only side considered to be worthy of display. Yet, how could The Weaver have known from the first thread what would be and how it would be achieved? What vision!

And that’s when I knew the River didn’t just stop. It was grace and patience. It was foresight and understanding that circumstances build and some things must cease in order to give life to a new thing. It was was destiny that I must be here today to tell you this story. The story that began long before my feet came to the edge of a River and I watched the flowing water stand still, as if in honor of my crossing. The story that is often only told from the front side of the tapestry. The story that can only be fully understood from the back.