It has been four years and eleven months since I boarded a plane by my own choosing. There was the sudden passing of an uncle. The second wedding of a formerly close friend. My sister struggling with a medical diagnosis she wanted to return like a sweater that clung in all the wrong places. Not a single event I chose myself. Not even the assortment of candy-coloured cereals in the cupboards is my choice. There is only so much room in the cabinets, only so much room in my mind. The child’s needs take precedence. Even before he arrived, his needs took precedence. I should have known. We slept when he wanted. I ate things—runny, grainy, stenchy things—that repulsed me. My body transformed so that I could not find myself in the mirror. My hands grew into stop signs blocking my partner’s every approach.

I am not a complainer. Was not a complainer.

When we (back when Stefan and I were still a “we”) brought him home, the child’s eyes were dark as volcanic glass, his mouth like the slash of a raincloud ripping open the blue sky. That description is accurate, yet only possible now, brought into focus by the clarifying lens of hindsight. All the signs were there though. And not there. The way a relationship can hang in the balance, sent soaring by a hand placed on a hip at the right moment, or cleaved by silence that extends a beat too long.

I’d waited years for this child, slogged through interminable hours at one temp job after another, researched and recited my way through six years of graduate school, plodded through the ever-widening search for a partner I would not tire of in two weeks’ time. Then, waited until we could afford a two-bedroom that could fit a crib and a changing table, then, for a position closer to home, then, for my body to build a proper nest. When the child finally arrived, he fit in my arms as if he’d been molded from them, as if it was his body that made my heart beat.

From the beginning, the boy had hungry fingers. They clutched at everything, devouring objects as if they were food. His mouth, he used like fingers, testing the shapes and textures of all objects around him. His eyes, he used for subtle tests of my patience and humour. Before words began spilling from his mouth, as insistent as the protests of a pup penned in against his will, he communicated through glances. Can I touch this? No? And if I do? And if I mean not just to touch but to break? His dark eyes glinted. I laughed. I was amused by the devil that cavorted in his mind.

Other parents commented on his development, not without, I noticed, a tinge of resentment. (I would recognize this sentiment from the reverse side soon enough.) At the time, it took all my self-restraint not to mention that he was matching colours and shapes, stacking plastic doughnuts in size order. Meanwhile, his cohort were applauded for simply turning objects over in their stubby fingers. Yes, I was smug.

Fast forward four years. I believe in the cruelty of the gods now. A riverside café, menus in English dotting every other table. A woman sits nearby. Her child grabs repeatedly for her sunglasses and shudders with laughter when asked to stop. It is enough to shatter a person. I ask for the check.

By the third day in this city of castles, I can no longer stomach the sight of half-moon fingernails sunken into the soft plush of stuffed dragons, which abound here in various, difficult-to-miss colours. When a toddler leans back onto the steps of a fountain and reveals the orange soles of his sneakers, waves of reverse peristalsis threaten to return whatever it was I had for lunch. If there were taxis about, I might flag one down, but the centre of town is designated a car-free zone after 10 am. As it is, it’s easier to pound my way along the cobblestones without the need to take heed of anyone else’s direction. I don’t look up. I use the river as my guide. I wince as high bright voices assail my ears. Without the hum and honk of cars, there’s nothing to drown them out. The only other sound: adult voices tolling like church bells calling for atonement. I am relieved when the river bends, and the big pink church looms into view in the plaza ahead.

In the sterile box of my hotel room, I turn off the lights and stare into the sheets. White sheets. Plain white sheets. It was his teeth. That, and the long sleeves I was forced to wear in the height of summer in order to avoid the explanations I did not have and did not want to spin for people who had no right to ask. It was the emptiness of my arms molded to hold the shape of his body.

I chose to escape to a place I could not spell. I wanted to be lost by choice.

The boy had started speaking early, at nine months, his syllables interlocking, steadfast as snowflakes. Soon after his first birthday, a cake with a sailboat for a candle, his words scattered as if swatted out by a many-tentacled wind.

And while his eyes remained the same colour, they became a portent. A flash from them created the same atmospheric change in the air as before a violent storm. I instinctively knew to take cover. I dared not touch him. I backed away. On those rare occasions that I fought instinct and attempted to revisit the past, and tried to stroke this child, my child, his teeth reminded me that the past was just that.

I lived as if holding a large sheet of glass that would fall and shatter and pierce me should I ever let go, and yet, each day it sliced more deeply into the flesh of my fingers, carving into the thin bones of my hands.

I order a glass of wine. My intention is to savour it, not use it, as I’ve tried in the past, as a means of obliteration. When it arrives, before me I see a glass chalice filled with blood.

It is 14:18 here, after 8 in the morning there. The long weekend is through. Stefan will need to leave for work in ten minutes, if he possesses the wherewithal after days of caregiving on his own. He will expect that I will return before then, though doubt may be creeping up as the minutes tick away. He is accustomed (as am I) to dedication from me. By my usual measures, I would not have left at all. Even adjusting for the imprint of a full set of teeth across the tender bones of my right hand, I still should have returned by now.

I expect Stefan has placed a wholegrain waffle in the toaster for me, breakfast in one simple press of a lever, his nod toward the turbulent nights he must surmise I spent this weekend.

He would not guess the flight, literal, across an ocean, also literal. He would not guess the degree of departure even if he noticed the empty place on the shelf in the closet where my suitcase lay, forgotten as my own pleasures for so many years. He may not even know what left the empty space. It has been so long since we looked up there. The last time we did, it was together. On flights, they instruct you, in the event of an emergency, to put on your own oxygen mask first, before assisting others. Two confirmations sit in my inbox: one for a return flight, with connections to Toronto, the other for a rental car cleared for border crossing in the E.U.

I drop my phone in my bag. I had always wondered if I would be able to refrain from helping a child—my child—first. I know that answer now. What I don’t know: How many days on the road before my mask is within reach?

Barbara Tran’s poems were shortlisted in 2021 for Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest and The Puritan’s Thomas Morton Prize for Poetry. A member of the womxn writers’ collective She Who Has No Master(s), Barbara is indebted to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for essential support. A video poem of Barbara’s will tour with a Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network traveling exhibition in 2022.

Image by Quinn Buffing @qbuffing