Hours and days pass and then slowly, guilt begins to pull me from the bed, lifting me up, bit by bit and at last, I rise. And so, the business of living returns. I have broken down but have no choice now but to get up. Get up! You have a war to win and a husband, a son who needs you.
My throat-lump has grown bigger, along with new more terrifying symptoms: a buzzing under my tongue shoots through me like electricity. My lips are numb one day, and on another day my arms tremble uncontrollably. My legs twitch, my heart flutters. Everything that was supposed to feel normal now feels dangerous. And still I keep putting one foot in front of the other. I have lost the ability to save myself. Surely, there must be someone, somewhere who can help me. Then I realize no one can. My husband tirelessly tries, but I only chain him by my sheer existence.
So I leave, taking my son, perhaps the only one who can save me, in order to free us all.
Please forgive me.
Sincerely,
Low-spirited Lilith
A: Dear Low-spirited Lilith,
You will never read this, for you have passed since you first wrote this diary entry years ago, not for me, but for someone dear to me. No one heard your cries back then, but I hope they hear them now. And I hope they will not be in vain. So this reply is not just for you but for the many women who share in your heavy burden.
Maybe you have trouble leaving the house, walking to the mailbox, driving to the grocery store. And yet somehow you do it again each day with heavy footsteps.
Maybe you can’t be left alone, wait in lines, cross a bridge, swallow food. And yet somehow you press on with a fake smile.
Maybe your husband can’t understand you, your doctor can’t help you, medicine only numbs you. Maybe you feel like you’re part of a tribe of troubled people, your own unique breed of brokenness.
Don’t lose hope that one day you’ll grab a piece of toast, bite, and realize it’s the first time in months you’ve swallowed food without thinking. Recovery will happen minute by minute, hour by hour—small gains some days, a step backward on others.
You may have a battle on your hands, a war you fight every day just to feel normal. We women go to war in our own ways, with no basic training whatsoever. We often fight alone, brave as a decorated soldier there in the trenches of our own kitchens.
They may think we’re worthless. But every day we must take our medicine—the sheer will to open our eyes to morning sun and remind ourselves of the immense worth our lives truly hold.
Sincerely,
Samantha
Chapter 34
Sam had never felt nerves like this. Spazzing and sparking and buzzing.
Even under the most dire of circumstances her heart usually remained at a steadfast rhythmic treble, but when Raul called on a random Wednesday night, a working middle-of-the-week night, asking to meet her for dinner, with something important to discuss, she knew. She knew he had read his mother Lilith’s letter in her column and he had pieced her web of omissions together.
Sam had intended to make it as clear as day for him, that she had met his father and published his mother’s diary, but she hadn’t considered the fallout of his discovery. Not until now.
“What is this?”
With Muhammad Ali looking over his shoulder, Raul sat across from Sam at the same restaurant Sam had met his father, in the same wobbly booth. She had suggested this place for Raul, so he might perhaps feel the lingering of his father’s presence in the very seat where he sat. Perhaps it would help soften the blow.
“Uh, well…” Sam stuttered.
“Explain why this sounds a lot like my mother. In fact, the writer even has her same name!” He slid the magazine across the table at her, and she realized perhaps she had made a terrible mistake in judgement.
As an avid truth teller, Sam spit it out as quickly and efficiently as she could. “Because it is your mother. It was your mother’s cry for help long ago. It’s the reason she left your father.”
Raul’s thoughts spun as he took this shocking revelation in. The man who chased scoops had missed the biggest story of his life! And the girl he loved was the one who kept it from him. It was too much all at once.
His face warmed, and his eyes swelled. His throat dried, and his nose dripped. Before he could stop what society would have considered an abomination to the male species, Raul cried. Not just cried, but sobbed. Sam skirted around the table, sitting on the booth beside him, holding him, rocking him, feeling every bit of the heartbreak with him.
“I’m so sorry, Raul.”
“How do you have this?” he sputtered, tears slipping down his cheeks.
“I met your father Gabriel. He sat right there where you’re sitting.”
Raul placed his hands on the table, still crooked, still wobbling, and ran his palms down across the plastic booth, his fingertips drawing life from the cold, stiff fabric.
