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Fault Lines

How... easy it is, to break things.
A careless snap of the fingers, a thoughtless twist of the wrist, a yank and a tug and suddenly there are broken shards on the floor and nothing whole, not any more. We live in a world of broken things; what once was pretty pottery, now reduced to mere fragments, incomplete memories that tell a long-forgotten story with gaps: Too many gaps, grandma, I don’t understand! Why can’t you just remember? That look in her eyes. She says, Because my memory’s broken, sweetheart. A chain with missing links is just links. My lip quivers and I tremble — it’s always pieces with her, I think, but I don’t understand that’s the way it is with everything.
We live in a world of broken things. We live in a broken world.

I’m twenty-two and I long to curl my fingers around his pretty little neck. So thin, so white, too large for my slender hands, but if I tried, at a stretch, surely I could—? At first it’d mean nothing. Just a tender caress; I want to feel his pulse beating under my thumbs, want to feel his blood rushing against the palms of my hands. God, it’d feel so precious, wouldn’t it? Holding his life in my hands, cradling it like I would my own child — carefully, cautiously, gently. I’d feel so alive — that thrumming heartbeat stirring my consciousness as easily as his kisses used to make my skin flush and my limbs quiver and my hands tremble. My heart would move in step with his, beat in time with his; for once in our godforsaken lives, we’d be on the same page — feet dancing, arms gesturing, hearts pounding to the same rhythm. There are birds flying in his veins. 
But then — another flit of blood’s wings and I remember. Remember what it’s like to be snapped so easily, like a twig beneath his cruel grasp. To be discarded without a second thought, like a speck of dirt, or a piece of gum clinging to the underside of his shoe. To be laughed at, mercilessly, shivering and naked under his cold gaze: "What are you? A whore, and nothing more." I don’t curl my arms for a passionate embrace, nor tilt my lips up for a kiss, nor lower my gaze like a coy lover, as I did Before. I curl my hands around his throat, tilt my lips into a mocking smile, lower my gaze out of smugness and nothing more. I feel the rush of his pulse — blood’s frantically flapping wings — beneath my hands, and I break. Funny. It seems even broken things still have the power to break, to destroy. To end.
My smile is bitter, broken, when it comes.
Just when I think I’m beginning to understand my grandma, I am put together for the first time. It is a different ’he’ now, and a different me. I am older and I am wiser; there are lines around my eyes, along my forehead, at the corners of my mouth. My skin now is covered in beautifully chaotic lines — not in ink, but in the fissures and fractures and cracks that show where I’ve been broken. We laugh together, cry together, grow together. He teases me, and I riposte playfully. He looks at me, and I shy away from his affectionate gaze. "I’m fond of you," he says. "I’m fond of you too," I reply. His expression turns serious. "I know." I frown — this is important, but I can’t grasp why. He breaks the moment, tugging at my hair with a light smile and heavy eyes. I let it go — forgetting is easy when you don’t know what something means.

But later I do understand. "I’m fond of you," he says. "I’m fond of you too," I reply again. He looks at me intently. "I love you," he says. I glance downwards, suddenly disappointed. "I love ... I loved someone, once. But I’m broken, now. Just pieces. And broken things are good for nothing — except to be discarded." I avoid his eyes, but he tugs my head up so that I am forced to meet his gaze. His hand cradles my chin tenderly, thumb pressed against a vein in my neck. He can feel the quickened rush of my pulse, the rhythmic yet erratic thump-thump-thump that tells him I’m alive. His gentle but firm grip seems to say, Steady on. I tremble, suddenly breathless and light-headed, and he speaks. "But what if you’re not broken? What if you’re a puzzle, taken apart by someone till you don’t know who you are? And maybe, with a little help you can fit the pieces back together again. Rebuild yourself. You’re a different person now. Stronger and wiser and more beautiful. I see the places where you’ve been broken, and I love you for them. I love the pieces of you and I’d love the whole of you just the same." I feel bent under the weight of the solemn promise that I hear, unspoken. "I might need a bit of help fitting the pieces of this puzzle together," I whisper. "If you permit me, I would help you," he whispers back. "Forever?" I ask. "For the rest of our lives," he says. I hold his hand.
He dies the same way — my hand in his, a smile on his lips, love in his eyes, and forever in our hearts. Though there is a difference now — we’ve been married for sixty-four years.

My memory’s not what it used to be. I can’t remember every smile I smiled or every sneeze I sneezed, every laugh I laughed or every tear I cried. My granddaughter looks at me with admonition in her innocent eyes as I tell her this. "You’ll understand soon enough," I say sadly. I cannot recall every moment, but I can read the cracks and fractures and fissures on my skin as clearly as a document in the Hall of Records. I can see every place where my pieces have been fit together and sealed with glue. I am broken and I am mended; I am fragile but I endure. I am the pieces of me and the whole of me, and I tell a story to anyone who cares to hear me sing. From my ashes I rise anew; amidst my ruins, I stand tall. I am human, and I am beautiful.

Mira Partha