It was a slight sting in my foot. I noticed it as soon as the airplane landed, a pinch that caused my toe to tense inside my shoe. At first it was gentle enough, like a pine needle caught in the cotton of a sock. I stood up from my seat in the airplane and it was there, this little sting that had stuck with me all the way across the country. Perhaps when I took off my shoes at the airport it slipped inside me. I shook my foot to make sure it was not just asleep from the long flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, but it felt different from a foot falling asleep. The pain was more specific, located only in the edge of my smallest toe, where the fleshy meat of the tip folds underneath the nail. Now I could only guess how long it would stay with me, this tiny pain in my smallest of toes.
I had to leave many things behind when I moved. I knew this was inevitable. My sister had made the same trip several years earlier and I remembered her leaving me large boxes full of items she could not take across the country. Now I had filled my own cardboard boxes and paper shopping bags full of photographs, clock radios, and soap dishes to leave behind. It is a sad thing to say goodbye to your home. How do you tell your coffee maker that you are sorry, and even though it has been faithful you must now part ways and find a new coffee maker to greet you in the mornings?
Take me with you, the coffee maker pleads.
No, I couldn't possibly, you reply.
Then promise me you will find the same model, so even though I am here and you are there, you will be reminded of me.
Yes, that is exactly what I'll do, you consent.
But you both know the lust for a new coffee maker is very strong. And when you are in the store, with so many shiny coffee makers to choose from, that former model will appear bland and old fashioned next to the newer ones. And you will think to yourself, yes, I loved my old coffee maker very much, but this one has an automatic timer.
Before I left I made every effort to tidy up my life. I folded my friendships neatly so I could place them in my suitcase without wrinkles. I gave my job to someone else so it would not go to waste. I donated my romance to charity so it would not be left out to spoil. I canceled the subscription to my daily routines. I even wrote a very nice goodbye note. It started with Dear Chicago, and ended with if you ever need a place to stay in Los Angeles please do not hesitate to call. I had a very long checklist and by the night before my flight every box was ticked and all I had was one suitcase and an empty apartment.
When my sister and I both lived in Chicago we would sit for coffee and she would delve into tales of whomever she was dating. I would listen while she talked about the men in her life. She was very good at falling in love and did it often. Sitting with my sister was a time for me to learn about falling in love because I was not as good at it as she was. That is the way with siblings: often one is better than the other at certain things. I was very good at piano, and she was very good at falling in love.
After my sister moved I no longer heard about the men in her life in the same way I did when we lived in the same city. At first I thought it was because casual conversation necessitates proximity. Over long distances our correspondence became formalized. I thought that maybe she stopped telling me about the men in her life because she could no longer say, you know that Indian restaurant on Devon we went to with Aunt Molly, he took me there. I hoped that now, since we would be walking past the same restaurants again, she would be able to resume these stories. Having just ended a relationship where I was very much in love, but could no longer remember falling in love, I was longing to hear her talk of men and romance.
Emily opened the door of her apartment. Her hair was damp, and shorter than the last time I had seen her. She had a slight frame and looked healthy. The interior was tastefully furnished. A built-in bookshelf stood next to a low leather couch and several hardcover photography books lay open on a dark coffee table. My sister had an eye for aesthetics and it seemed her move to Los Angeles and her new job allowed her to realize the decorating style she desired. It was comforting to know she was doing well, but I still felt a touch of intimidation, like a frightened skier watching a companion successfully glide down a steep slope. I was still on the top of the mountain, looking on with envy as my sister walked about her apartment with no concern for tiny pains lingering in her foot. She was older than me and this never showed itself more than now. I lagged behind her. She had finished moving; she lived here now. For me the palm trees I saw out of the taxi window were novel. I had only seen palm trees on vacation.
We made small talk as I sat. My sister listed restaurants and neighborhoods where I might enjoy living. She commented on the weather and on her favorite theaters that played old films and served beer. She talked about her work as a layout editor for a high-end magazine, the type with oversized pages and glossy photographs. I listened, and wanted desperately to ask her if any men had made her fall in love, but the pain in my toe was very distracting.
How could I have been so careless, I thought. I should have taken more precautions to ensure this pain did not sneak inside me when I left. I should have worn two pairs of socks and watched where I put my feet more carefully. Now I have this twinge inside of me wherever I go.
I woke up on the couch. A thin patchwork quilt I recognized as my mother's was wrapped around me. I wiggled my toe, but felt no sting. This is very good, I thought. But as soon as I stood up I felt a rattle in my ear. It was not a heavy rattle, more like a small washer that had become loose inside of an old wristwatch than the metallic clang of a noisemaker. It must have happened while I slept. The pain in my toe had wiggled itself loose. I slept with my feet raised onto the arm of my sister's couch and that must have caused the prick to float down toward my head until it was inside my ear. It had gotten stuck there, and now it rattled when I moved, like the faithful snare of a drum. I tried to soak up the rattle with a cotton swab. When that did not work I tried to drown it in the shower. It was trapped there, and now I had this pain lingering about in the folds of my ear, like a tiny marble lost in a child's maze. It was frustrating because it was taking up space inside of me that could have been used for something more pleasant. I could have taken the scent of Lake Michigan in October with me, or the sound of Grant Park in the spring, but instead this space was filled with a sting that rattled inside my ear.
At dinner that night Emily sat across from me. We had finished our meal and were chatting over chocolate cake and very small cups of coffee.
You have not told me any stories about men, I said.
No, she answered. It seems I left falling in love in Chicago, with my scarf and microwave oven.
I could picture the scarf easily, soft gray cotton with pale stripes of cobalt, but I did not remember falling in love. It could have been in one of the other boxes she left behind, far away from the scarf, buried beneath old address books and unused light bulbs, but I found it odd that of all the things she could leave behind she would choose to leave falling in love. Perhaps she thought she had packed it with her, but accidentally left it somewhere else. Or maybe she got two boxes confused and left the one she meant to take and took the one she meant to leave. That must have been awful, I imagined, to open a box expecting to find falling in love, only to discover decks of old playing cards and back issues of magazines.
I've been on dates, she added. But none of them have been the type of dates you can turn into stories.
How sad, I said. But I suppose that is the case when you want something, but realize you have left it somewhere far away.
I have been trying quite hard to fall in love, but I can't. It is like trying to play a song I once new by heart, but have not practiced for years. I feel like I remember all of the notes and rhythms, but when I sit down at the piano to actually play it my fingers are sluggish and sloppy, instead of the quick precision I remember them having.
But surely you can get better, with practice, I add.
I am trying to retrace my steps, my sister says. I found a restaurant I want to eat at and tomorrow night I have a date, so there is always a chance, but I am not optimistic.
It was difficult hearing my sister talk about her inability to fall in love. I desired the comforting familiarity of the way she spoke about whomever she was falling in love with. I needed her words to distract me from this pain in my ear. I wanted to believe my sister's love stories could survive a five-hour flight and the stress of moving into a new home.
Two weeks later I moved into my own apartment. It was modest, but it was all I could afford. I did not have a job yet, but hoped to find one soon. I had written warning labels for industrial machinery in Chicago, but now I wanted to write for television. I placed my suitcase in the center of the barren apartment. Standing there with all of my belongings inside of my luggage I thought how similar this emptiness of my arriving was to the emptiness of my leaving. You could go your whole life leaving and arriving, but if you tripped and the arrivals and departures flew through the air and landed on the ground in a shuffled mess it would be impossible to put them back together in sequence.
There were many decisions facing me at that moment. I had to decide in which drawer I was going to place my silverware and in which drawer I would keep my phonebooks and take out menus. I had to pick a side of the closet to hang my shirts and a side to hang my pants. I had to select upon which shelf of my refrigerator I would place my milk and where I would keep my pasta. These are not easy questions to answer and are made more difficult when a twinge of pain is loose inside your body.
My process of settling was a constant negotiation between this pain and my apartment. Alone, unpacking my few belongings and trying to make a strange place familiar, the pain grew most uncomfortable. I did all I could to appease it, but it was unpredictable. It threw a tantrum in my hip when I hung a photograph of my sister and me at Wrigley Field. It squealed and pounded until I had no choice but to relent and place the photograph in any empty drawer. At other times it would be conspicuously quiet. When I spent two hours trying to assemble a desk I bought at a furniture warehouse it did not make a sound. I eventually grew concerned and whispered to it under my breath. This was when I first started talking to it. Initially I only made threats.
I will find you and cut you out of me. I will swallow poison and kill you, I told it.
But I soon learned it did not respond well to such hostile language, and before long my tone became more somber, often pleading.
Just let me fall asleep, I would beg in the evenings when it was worst, just after I turned off the television or while I was brushing my teeth.
Leave me alone just for tonight and you can bother me all you want tomorrow, I begged.
It did not cease altogether, but it softened itself enough so I could close my eyes and drift away, still in its presence.
It was shy at first, but as we spent more time together we grew increasingly comfortable in each other's company. This comfort did not make it hurt any less. Now it moved about inside of me more freely, often showing up in unexpected places. If it was in my elbow one day I might find it in my wrist the next. I began to know its behaviors well, as is the case when you live with someone in intimacy. At night we fell asleep together, the pain tangled inside me. It would stir in the mornings and wake me earlier than if I were sleeping alone.
On a sunny morning I met my sister at a coffee shop she recommended. We sat outside, across from each other at a small iron table. My sister hid behind a large pair of sunglasses. We talked about my new apartment until the topic of her date inevitably came to the surface of our conversation.
I just couldn't fall in love with him. It wasn't like I didn't try, I did everything I could to fall in love with him, but nothing would work, Emily admitted with a tone of disappointment.
Don't be too hard on yourself, I said. Maybe he wasn't the right man for you.
But he was the right man for me. I could tell immediately. He was perfect for me.
I'm sorry, I said again and took another sip of my coffee. My pain was lingering in my throat and I hoped the warm coffee would sooth its presence without making it disappear altogether. While the pain was discomforting it was a discomfort I had grown accustomed to. I found myself able to tell it things I did not usually tell other people.
One evening after a particularly long and violent argument we sat on my floor exhausted, the way people do after they fight and yell at one another.
I'm jealous of my sister, I admitted. She has always been able to move more easily than me, even when we were young. She was very good at gymnastics. You have to be good at moving to be good at gymnastics, I added. And I am jealous that I have you inside of me and she is able to live without you.
After that night things changed between the two of us. It became clear we would not be living together much longer. My pain would disappear for long periods of time without explanation, and then show up while I was doing my laundry as if nothing had happened. We fought with increasing frequency. Our quarrels were intimate, which made them all the fiercer. However, I could not help but feel the vulnerability and ugliness we exposed during these arguments brought us momentarily closer even if they were ultimately heightening our frustrations.
One evening my sister invited me to a party a friend of hers was having.
You should go without me. They're your friends and I don't know any of them, I told my sister as she was putting on earrings in her bathroom, the door open.
That's exactly why you should come. You need to meet people. And I want you there as my date.
Emily wore a black dress with an open back that was both tasteful and alluring. She had always been a better dresser than me. I decided to go, because while my pain was fluttering in the small of my back, I knew my sister was hoping she might meet a man at the party, and I desperately wanted that as well so she could tell me a love story and things could be like they were in Chicago.
The party was at a friend of her co-worker's house. The women wore delicate handbags and expensive necklaces. The men wore sport coats and shiny shoes. The atmosphere was warm and cheery. If the party were in Chicago it would be in the springtime. But we were in Los Angeles and it was nearly winter.
Come over here, my sister said to me. I want to introduce you to someone. She pointed to a handsome man in a well-fitted charcoal blazer. Our introduction was an excuse for their conversation.
Daniel, this is my brother David, she said.
We talked about moving and about Los Angeles. Emily said witty things and Daniel touched her arm as he laughed. I excused myself to get another glass of champagne. While my pain and I had arrived together, I had not felt it for quite some time. I remembered it saying something about the bathroom, or maybe it was fresh air. At the time I was happy to see it disappear amongst the crowded living room, but now I wanted it back, or at least to peer across the room and know it was nearby. I circled the living room, weaving between the small clusters of remaining guests, looking for that tiny pain. I knocked on the door of the bathroom, but it was empty. I checked under a pile of cocktail napkins and empty glasses, but it was not there. I walked onto the balcony and searched the lawn, but I did not see it.
From the balcony I saw my sister talking with Daniel. Peering inside through a large window, they were framed perfectly, like a still from a movie. A dim light from an overhead lamp fell onto their shoulders, adding a silver glint to their hair. They had moved to a couch in the center of the room and were sitting next to each other, taking turns sipping from their glasses. They appeared happy, and I do not doubt they were, but my sister was not falling in love. Her eyes darted across the room, pausing to read a clock hanging above a marble countertop. When you are falling in love you do not care what the time is or study the bubbles in your champagne glass as my sister did.
I leaned against the railing, removed from the warmth of the party, I felt alone. I thought of that pain, and while I did not know where it was, I tried to cultivate it because it was one of the few things that felt familiar to me in this strange city.
I felt a tap inside my shoulder. It was the ache, tight and sharp. I smiled because although my pain and I had parted ways at the party, we had come back together at the end of the night, the way lovers do, drunk and happy to feel each other's presence as they whisper, let's go home.
I knew my sister missed falling in love terribly, the way I knew I would miss that pain when I awoke one morning and felt only its absence. I imagined sitting across from my sister, two cups of coffee between us, telling her how I missed my ache. She would laugh and tell me that I had simply grown accustomed to it, and soon enough its absence would fade. There would be a pause in our conversation and in that moment I would have to decide whether or not to tell my sister a love story. To admit to my sister that I had fallen in love would be to admit to an act of theft. I had fallen in love with this ache, and she ached to fall in love. If she asked for it back it would crush me. I couldn't help but feel I had stolen it from her, but that is what siblings do: they take things from each other without asking and do not return them.