Anthony, Anthony! Saint of Lost Things

My boyfriend had told me multiple dimensions existed within his home. And this was a fact I slowly processed, chewing on it with the ice from my water on our first date.

It emerged as a tiny voice, audible over the phone line, but never visible on Facetime.  It was the sometimes urgent to need to hang up the phone to attend to things minor and pressing, like untied laces. 

I lived in the city, in my one dimensional home. My boyfriend visited me there.

My laundry went to his house before I did. Just before leaving the city for a month, I shattered an unopened bottle of beer. Mid-morning, as I was about to sit down for a Skype conference call. I hurriedly threw towels down on the floor, and when he came to take me to the airport, he said he would wash them. They disappeared into his gym bag, and they were returned washed and folded, when I did.

Eventually, he pointed out the benefits of not using quarters for laundry. So, when I did finally go to the home that spanned dimensions, I brought my laundry basket with me. And offered magnanimously to wash my own things this time. 

I pulled back the curtains covering the machines. And there on top, in a pile fresh from the dryer, was a tiny pair of batman underwear.

My breath caught.

Ninja turtle t-shirts that seemed just Bandit's size filled the load. School uniforms. "Is it OK for me to fold these?" I'd asked. "DO you fold these?" I said, pointing to the doll-sized underwear.

I hadn't met his son yet.

I didn't for a long time. We went to bed that night, and I glanced sideways at the other bedroom door cracked across the hallway from ours. It wasn't fully shut. But it wasn't open either. No one told me not to go in. But still, I didn't.

So, he folded the tiny underwear that day. And it would be another month before I would even peek into the mystery room.

When I finally nudged just my nose through the door and saw the Star Wars lined walls, and Lego spaceships I couldn't name, my breath caught again. By now, this was a familiar house. I could find my way through the rooms in darkness. Except, here was the entryway to the other dimension. It had always been there. But only my boyfriend moved between the universes. I only saw the silent toys, which seemed to shift as if by ghosts, in between my visits.

Having never dated anyone with a child, I asked myself a series of questions. About commitment and responsibility and parenting and life choices. If he would like me. If I would like him. About how long it takes to love someone new. About where I fit in a life where we each existed in the same house but on opposite days. I never left anything there. No socks on the floor or bras in the bathroom. Tidy and invisible.

He wasn't an idiot, though. When his dad finally told him I existed, he responded simply with "I know."

And when it was time.
We met.
Questions ceased.

And the room was a place for bedtime reading and coloring books and Bandit snuggles. I had a key to the other universe.

Or, so I thought.

***

I walked through our house alone this weekend.

And I looked at his unmade bed.
From the last time one of us crawled into it in his absence.

Now is something like that early time.
Before the key.
But, instead of possibility behind unopened doors, there is grief collecting under the carpets.

It hits at odd times. How much we've lost him.

The last load of laundry held only one tiny pair of socks. I finished folding. I dragged my hand across the bottom of the basket, searching for more. A pajama top. Half a uniform. Even another lone sock. But we don't see him on school days now. There is nothing to wash. 

Or the broccoli we still buy for him at the grocery store. Even though he's not home for more than one dinner every other week. We keep it on hand. As if he might arrive unexpectedly and need his favorite vegetable.

And when he is finally here, it is sometimes worse. The minutes race past. The emotions pile up.

When he says he doesn't remember how to tie his shoes.

Or that he hasn't read before bed since he last saw you.

Or when he seems convinced this all must somehow be his fault.
Or that we've stopped loving him.

And there we are, with plastered smiles, trying to to build a bubble of protection even as we feel battered and destroyed by his absence. We reassure. We try to make our empty eyes seem bright. We fill the day with activities. We promise we are doing everything we can to see him as much as we possibly can. His father tells him he loves him, on repeat, to doubting sideways glances

It is not like before when one of us held the key between universes.
The dimensions of our home, it would seem, technically belonged to someone else.

And once I entered, I set off a chain reaction, invisible at first, like epigenetics.
But quite visible now, at the bottom of every empty laundry basket.
I fumble at the inevitability, and avoidability of our current epoch, knowing these chemicals were always highly combustible and present in large quantities.

This is not like before. 
When I had questions about if this would become my multidimensional home.
I chose this haunted place.

My boyfriend doesn't look at me. But I can't seem to help but stare. There is a calendar above his head. Hours counted in his breaths. Meetings with attorneys to dread and recover from. Time to murder between court dates. It becomes harder to pretend there are other things worthy of distraction.

Now, we just pray, silently and separate, to whichever gods seems least offensive today.

For any of us to live in the same dimension.

For any one of us to be here, and not feel as if we're walking these dark halls alone.