Page 2 of Befriending the Bear
Back in my house, I sat at my desk and opened my laptop. The cursor blinked on the blank page, patient and demanding.
Back in my early twenties, I’d started writing short stories. It had taken me a while to get a few published, but then it had been a constant for me. I’d even found an agent, who managed to get me a publishing deal for a collection of essays. It had never earned out the already meager advance, but I had been so proud to see my name on a book at Barnes and Noble.
Even after Marcus had passed, I’d written some. Maybe because the grief hadn’t fully hit? Or maybe it had been because I’d written about things that felt far away from myself, detached from the deep, dark void inside me. For whatever reason, it had taken a few years for the writer’s block to hit.
Then I had the brilliant idea to force myself to process my grief by writing about it. I’d been working on my memoir for three years now, though that was a generous term for what mostly amounted to staring at the screen and typing the same paragraph over and over before deleting it.
The early chapters had come more easily—childhood in Forestville, the development of my stutter after the quarry incident, the careful navigation of small-town life as a queer kid in the eighties. I’d even managed to write about meeting Marcus, though it had taken me six months and more tears than I cared to count.
But now I was stuck on the chapter I’d titled simplyAfter. How did you write about a life that felt like an epilogue? How did you explain the peculiar grief of being left behind, not just by death but by your own voice, your own ability to connect with the world?
I closed the laptop without typing a word.
The afternoon stretched ahead, empty as always. I made a sandwich, ate it standing over the sink. Watered the houseplants. Folded laundry with the kind of precision that would make a Marine proud. By four o’clock, the walls were closing in, and I grabbed my jacket.
The library was quiet this time of day, that particular hush that came from old buildings and older books. Eleanor sat behind the circulation desk, her silver hair pinned up in an elegant twist that belonged in a different era. She looked up when I entered, and her face softened. “Calloway, I was hoping you’d stop by.”
I raised an eyebrow, a question without words.
“Book club tomorrow night. We’re starting with poetry, and you know how Gladys gets. I could use someone who actually understands metaphor.” She stamped a return with more forcethan necessary. “Seven o’clock. I’ll save you a seat in the back corner.”
I shook my head, already backing toward the door. Book club meant people, meant discussion, meant the inevitable moment when someone would turn to me and ask what I thought, and I’d have to watch their face shift from interest to discomfort as I struggled through a response.
“Just think about it,” Eleanor called after me. “We miss you.”
I continued down the sidewalk, Eleanor’s words echoing in my head.We miss you.As if I’d gone somewhere instead of retreating into myself, layer by layer, until I was more ghost than man haunting my own life.
The evening ritual began at six: dinner—soup from a can, crackers arranged on a plate because Marcus had always insisted on proper plating—dishes washed and dried immediately, counters wiped down twice. By seven, I was in my reading chair again with a glass of wine and my laptop, ready for the one social interaction I could still manage.
The book club forum loaded slowly—I’d been having issues with my Wi-Fi lately—but soon the familiar usernames appeared. ForestReader, that was me, hiding behind anonymity and the safety of text.
TolkienGirl77
Anyone else completely destroyed by Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous?
ForestReader
The way he writes about the silence between lovers hits particularly hard. When he points out that in Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same, that gutted me.
BookishBen
@ForestReader, you always catch the details that wreck me most. Have you read his poetry too?
My fingers flew across the keyboard, no stutter here, no watching people’s patience wear thin as I struggled with consonants. Here, I was articulate, witty even. Here I could be the person I’d been with Marcus—someone worth knowing, worth hearing.
The discussion flowed for an hour, ranging from Vuong to James Baldwin to whether romance novels deserved more literary respect—yes, I argued, they absolutely did. When someone mentioned they were forty-five and feelingtoo old for love stories, I typed before I could stop.
ForestReader
You’re never too old for love stories. They may become different stories. Quieter, maybe, but no less vital.
MidlifeMuse
@ForestReader, that’s beautiful. Speaking from experience?
I stared at the cursor, then closed the laptop without responding. Some truths were too heavy for even anonymous forums.
The wine had made me restless, and I wandered into the spare room I’d converted to a library. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined three walls, organized by a system only I understood. Not alphabetical or by genre, but by feeling, by the mood each book evoked. The books I’d shared with Marcus had their own section, though I rarely visited it.
