Off the Map2003

William Gibbs:
The moment I saw you, Mrs. Grodin, the very first instant, I knew my life as I had understood it was... I'd been up since sunrise. My second night in the car, I was completely lost. I must have walked ten miles to a clearing, to your garden. To you, standing there in all those vines, those vegetables. I saw you and pignon trees behind, and the hill, and everything completely still. So beautiful. It was almost unbearable, it still is. Then later, holding your hand, I remembered being at a birthday party, this children's birthday party, and my older brother was acting out. Me, discovering my mother dead. My mother committed suicide. But maybe she didn't. He was telling this story, how I'd come home from school carrying a pyramid I'd made out of foam core, and opened the front door, and walked in backwards and bumped into her, in the hall. She hung herself. Now I don't think it's true! I don't think it's a real memory, my memory. I think it's just the description that I heard from my brother. I don't even think foam core EXISTED back then, Mrs. Grodin. I always felt partly responsible, involved, being the one to find her, but now I don't think I did. I don't think I did! It was like the cornerstone of my childhood, the event upon which I built everything else, and now it's pulled out and everything is toppled. The only thing I can hold on to right now, Mrs. Grodin, the only thing I know to be true, is my love for you.