Rafi Mittlefehldt - What Makes Us

There are no more words. She has said all the ones she wrote down.

She touches the space where more would be, as if searching for them, as if willing them to appear. The paper crinkles under fingers chapped from days of dry air. She smooths it against the fake wood of the podium, flat, light, cheap. She does not know why she lingers, when she wanted this to be over before it began.

She looks up for the first time, at the people standing before her. In those eyes she reads so much: anger, pity, grief, anticipation, disdain. Suspicion.

Her heart aches. There are so many who will still believe what they believe, she knows. In the new silence, now that shes able to measure the completeness of her words together, they feel inadequate, useless, impotent. In desperation, she searches for others, something, anything to communicate what she feels unable to get across, and says the next five that come to her mind.

This is not our fight.

My dad only exists in a memory.

Im so young, barely old enough to stand by myself. Can I walk yet? Id probably make it a couple steps, stumble, fall back on my ass like Declans little cousin in the video from New Years. Maybe the shock would make me laugh like she did; probably I wouldve cried.

Theres light everywhere in this memory: pouring through the windows, from the bulbs overhead, from his smile. Hes so much taller than me. I have to crane my head way back to look at him. My neck aches from the strain, but it doesnt bother me enough to stop. I dont know what room Im in kitchen? living room? but its not the house I live in now or the apartment from when I was little. This is someplace different, a home I only ever see in this memory.

He swoops down and picks me up, lifts me high, and now Im taller than him. Over his head I can see my mom, and I feel the grin bursting on my face. He spins me around in one great circle, and I laugh and close my eyes, watching the light change through the inside of my eyelids. He kisses me hard on one cheek, on the other, sets me down. He says goodbye as the warmth of those kisses spreads to the rest of my face.

I told my mom about this once, when I was younger. Maybe six or seven. We were eating dinner, and she was reading some old magazine. She didnt look up, just kept picking at her salad. I watched her eyes scanning back and forth across the lines of gray text, and just when I decided she hadnt heard me, she said, This did not happen.

You ever think about how lonely your oldest memory is? The only one from its time, nothing else to back it up. Those faint images that have been with you the longest at the mercy of your own self-doubt and mistrust.

This memory is hazy now, corrupted by the time thats gone by. I cant tell anymore if its something that actually happened or what I imagined that something to be.

Or even less, the memory of a dream.

My moms hair is all curls. They wiggle when she shakes her head, even a bit. Its a big, bushy mass, jet black, a birds nest. Id have to get close to see the roots, the tiniest bit of brown, probably not even a quarter inch. Eema will dye it again tonight. She wont let more than a couple weeks go by.

Why do you do that? I asked her once. Id watched her as she unwrapped her towel turban, quick but careful, practiced but vigilant, a ritual Id seen millions of times but never thought about.

When I finally did, it occurred to me how weird it was. Eemas not one to care about appearances more than is absolutely necessary. Shes not sloppy, not untidy; she just has no interest in cosmetics. If its not practical, its not worth doing. Ive never seen her wear lipstick.

She paused in the middle of toweling off her hair, as if she had never considered the question. I prefer black, she said. That was that.

I watch her now as she reads the Chronicle, curls shaking in tiny eruptions. The actual print version, so quaint. I look for the steam above her coffee and dont see it. She almost never finishes her coffee, lets it cool half-full, but still complains about how expensive chicory is.

Bye, Eema, I say.

Study hard, she responds, not looking up. I mouth it with her, something I do every time. She never sees.

Declan climbs in, clicks his seat belt in place carefully. I stare at him as he does, at the mismatched three-piece suit hes wearing under a giant overcoat.

He settles in, smoothing down his coat, then notices the stillness. He looks over, sighs.

Okay. I know. But I wanted to wear my new pants for the first Friday of the school year, he says, pushing his giant overcoat aside so I can see them. But then my only belt broke, so I needed this vest to cover the waistband, and then I needed a tie if I was wearing a vest, right? But then the back of the vest is kind of messed up, so I thought my jacket could cover it. Declan twists around, displaying for me all the things wrong with the pieces of his outfit. And then my jacket sleeves are frayed, since its really Dons old jacket he had in ninth grade, I think? So I needed the overcoat to cover that.

I wait for him to stop.

Its ninety-five degrees, I say.

Well be inside.

I stare.

And when I have stared long enough, I shift into reverse.

I drive Eemas old Ford Fiesta from the nineties. It has an ancient, musty smell and no air-conditioning, but Im seventeen and without a better choice. Declan still asks for a ride, even though he has other friends with newer, less shitty cars. I dont mind. Why would I?

Deck Lehn? Eema asked when she first met him, trying out the sound of his Irish name on her Israeli tongue.

Yes, Miss Sharon, Declan said, and I winced.

Eema frowned and shook her hair. No, no. Shah-ROHN, she corrected, as if expecting flawless Hebrew from this kid. I am not rich Connecticut housewife.

This was in eighth grade.

Declans looking at his schedule card now, scanning the misaligned print he memorized a month before school even started. We have three classes and lunch together this year, not bad.

Weve turned a corner past sunrise, and its golden out for the last stretch of road before school, that fire directly ahead, low against the ground, light pouring into the car. In a few minutes itll be blinding, but now its a warm, thick light, honey colored, sweet. No one ever talks about sunrise, no one my age, but I dont know why.

Donovan says no ones gonna come tomorrow, Declan says out of nowhere, in a tone I know means hes been thinking about it for a while, has been deciding whether to bring it up. He rubs his schedule card absently between his thumb and forefinger. The inks smudging.

For a moment, I imagine Avery Park bathed in the light I see now, brilliant and rich and intense as the sound of a thousand voices in our protest. My protest.