Pieces

We sat on the floor of my daughter’s room and cried.  We were completing a puzzle of sorts - pairing together halves of sentences to make full phrases like, “your singing voice __//__ gives me shivers.” and “I will love __//__you forever and always no matter what.” The sentences had been written in black ink on yellow sticky notes, and the notes - nearly all in half, but some in thirds, were scattered on the floor of her room. 

She thought I would be the best person to pair up the dozens of paper bits and hold them together so that the letters lined up while she removed strands of hair and taped them back together, because I made them. After a morning of cold stares and threats, I wrote notes saying how much I loved her and what a good friend she was and that she should trust her heart ... and I stuck them to her walls and her mirror and her guitar while she was out.  I felt giddy thinking about the surge of sweetness she would feel when she saw them.

We were having a dinner party when she got home from a long day out with friends. She seemed in good form and  went up to the attic and to bed and in the morning she didn’t say anything about the stickies on her wall. So I asked. And she replied, “What do you want me to say?”

I winced. I hate it when I wince. It’s a sign of weakness. It’s pathetic.  “I don’t know,” I said. But this morning, when I walked in to wake her up and the stickies were still on her wall, I backtracked. “I thought about it... and realized that I wanted to know if you feel loved…” and she said she did. Or, she nodded, and that was good. But there was a dispute at dinner tonight and her father got angry because she was rude - very rude to her wincing, silent cowed pathetic mother so she went upstairs and tore up the notes.

Later, she told us about the pain and she asked me to come patch up the notes. I found it hard to catch my breath sometimes, through the sobbing. “Mom,” she kept saying, “Mom…I’m sorry…” As if she was still ripping the stickies.  As if she hadn't decided to stay after all. As if the ripping actually hurt.  She reminded me that she'd ripped most of them just in half. On purpose, see? As if it was about the goddam stickies.

“We need help,” I said.
“Why?” The notes were all stuck back together now and her head was resting on my knee, a place it has not been in a very long time. All done! Not only that, but we have our health and we love each other and we are very very lucky...
“We need to figure out how to have a conversation before we get to this point,” I said.
Before we're ripped apart.