firsts

fourteen

"He came again," I said.

Adam looked up from his book, with a questioning curious look. Normally I would've given him a meek smile in response, but my eyes were fixed outside the windows, dreading the moment I might have to call for the ambulance again. By now, whenever I notified the police, they would not even ask her what happened but sigh and say "we'll be there in a moment". And they would hang up. I didn't have to say a word anymore and placed the phone down gently on the floor.

"John," I said.

"John?"

John. The name I gave for all the men who had climbed up those steps more than once. Sarah. The names for the nameless women. They would stay up there, standing on the edge, then edging backwards, then moving forward again, to ultimately go down the same steps after an hour. Some would cry. Some would stare blankly down at the ground like they had forgotten how to breathe, or how to be alive. Some would call someone for help. Often times that number would not be 911. Often times, it would be me who would have to press those numbers.

There was one time, during the first three months I moved into this house, I made a sign out of cardboard boxes saying "DO NOT JUMP. LIVE". But that sign had been drenched by rain. The sign didn't work. I called the ambulance again.

Now Adam planted flowers. Those were less direct than the sign I made, and it could have different meanings for different people, but it felt as if it were perhaps more persuasive than the sign might have ever been. Life gave you problems that you couldn't solve. And it gave you answers you couldn't understand. Something had seemed to fit, yet not at all.

John went back down the steps as he had done so yesterday. Another day, safe. I turned to Adam to celebrate this small moment but found that he was starting out, the spot that John had just left.

"Adam?"

"Do you think that he might have done the same?"

"Do you mean Sean?" I asked. Adam nodded. I tried to remember him, whether I watched him climbs those stairs more than once, but I couldn't. The thing about the ones who have...left, was that they try to take your memory of them with you.

"There must have been a reason right? There must be some reason why someone would do... that"

I didn't know what to say. Adam looked lost, clasping onto his mug cup tightly until his knuckles turned white. I placed my hand on his shoulders, and he recoiled slightly, then leaned against the chair next to me.

"I'm going to find out. He called me suddenly to watch him die after seven full years of ignoring me. There must be some reason why right? Or else...or else"

He closed his eyes and fell asleep. I keep the lights on and sang him his lullaby.