The Escape Artist

If my autobiography were a tombstone it would read, Here lies the escape artist of perilous feats.

I am twelve years old. My grandmother Shaké at the stove, whipping boxed potato flakes, frying chicken cutlets, dousing shredded red cabbage with vinegar. My mother grips a suitcase for my last exit. My Grandmother’s hands, holding a Pyrex bowl, tremble. How did I escape abandonment, the smell of a fresh corpse, the chimney chugging away as my childhood disappeared. 

My immigrant father. I would pretend to sleep when he kissed my cheek, the blue-black sky in the window. In twelve hours’ time he would materialize like a folklore, eating dolma. His calloused hand gripping a spoon of madzoon, his favorite condiment. He’d lay paralyzed in the same bed from which he rose all those mornings, building rich houses for his dead father. Nothing to outrun, but a lost genocide. 

My husband’s birthday and the fertility clinic calls to say, Your numbers are dropping. When he leans in to blow out the candles, his face aglow, I slug back a mimosa, the lining inside of me thinning to shreds. Motherhood is a hieroglyphic task. It’s fleeing from a broken mirror. A silver nightmare. Did I get far. 

My last heartbreak lived in a paradox. 

He didn’t make promises. Only declarations. His words bonfires, but he could only love himself. I’m hiding this time because there’s nowhere to go. 

I can find portals just about anywhere. Between the teeth of piano keys, behind my daughter’s sleeping eyes, an empty cup of coffee, white sunshine. It’s a cemetery of possibilities. To be brave, I’ve been running in place, blindfolded by time.