Wish You Were Here
Aliceanna Stopher
this postcard still has the yellow price sticker on the back, at the bottom, below the message
10/3/76
Baby boy,
You’re late; you, who were meant to have arrived on the twentieth of last month, are nearly two full weeks behind schedule. Last night your mother, silly woman, shot a spoonful of castor oil on the neighbor woman’s advice—but you and I are having the last laugh, aren’t we? Your mother’s been shitting herself all morning and still, no you. Where are you now? Much too cozy and comfortable? Dreaming of us?
–hoping to be your dad soon; come on out, the water’s fine
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this postcard has, on its front, a cup of stern looking black coffee
11/18/77
Finian James, babiest of boys,
Bad dreams, bad dreams. Your mother picks you up when you cry, right away, like it’s easy. Up and out of the cavern of our bed, cloth robe loose around her middle, she goes to you like she doesn’t have to make herself. I lie there, her shushing you, you waking up the whole neighborhood, wishing, desperately, I could trade you places. Since you, kiddo, I’ve been waking up different. That’s not the best way to say it but it’s too new, too fresh, for me to name. How to describe it without giving you more bad dreams? With what language? How to tell you who I am without frightening you? Will I send this? Do I dare?
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this postcard says, “the weather’s here, wish you were great,” in blocky letters
7/5/92
Fin,
Get it?
–Dad
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this postcard is written in pencil with, remarkably, little to no smudging
Summer, ’84
Finian,
You’ve got it so easy—linearity, a logical progression. Cause, effect. Piece of cake. For me? Much more complicated. Example: while you’re seventeen saying you hate me—screaming how I abandoned you and your mother—I just stand there, taking it, seeing you as every you you’ve ever been or will be, every you I’ve ever known or will. Breakable baby; sunscreened boy; that flannelled, lost man wearing my face. How can I see you if, each time I look at you, you’re never just you? How can you expect me to be anything other than the man who brought you into this world, the man who knows exactly where you’re headed?
–Dad
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this postcard is perforated along its edge
1 of 2, 1989
Fin,
You didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway—I didn’t really get the hang of it, this time jumping stuff, until you were seven, and well, you already know how swiftly everything fell apart that year. I started to see, in my peripheral vision, this deck of moving pictures that weren’t just pictures they were real lived life; mine, yours, all of ours. Strange, obviously. I’ve come to think of it as a second language (speaking in tongues?). One minute I’m bumbling, mixing my tenses, incorrectly conjugating my verbs. Then, miraculously, fluency—keying in, somewhere/somewhen along my timeline—backwards, forwards, poof. There I am, again, or there I am, a little early. Can’t do much there, but I can watch. And that’s something, isn’t it? Anyway, who knows? This skill, this ability, this whatever-you-want-to-call-it came on me just after you, out of nowhere. Maybe someday, just as unexpectedly, it’ll vanish.
–your father who absolutely realizes he sounds bananas (but promises he isn’t)
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this postcard is torn in half but has been patched back together with industrial tape
11/10/12
Fin,
I’d take a word. Any word. You pick.
–Dad
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this postcard is weathered
12/16/83
Fin,
Every postcard I write I think Finian, really? as if we couldn’t do better naming you, couldn’t have given you an easier time of it. You know you were named for your mother’s brother, that ghost. How prophetic your naming would seem later—later, there’s that linguistic quirk, that imposition of order by consciousness. I know—but you don’t yet—that when you’re twenty-six you’ll move to Chicago, try going by Ian. It won’t be until you’re leaving that city, your suddenly precious heart swaddled in your hands, that you’ll decide after all Fin suits you just fine, that you like who you are when you’re him. I digress. What I meant to say is that I’ve cracked it, finally, and I’m only sorry it took me so long. Everything is, Finian. Isn’t that something? Think: my perception of time isn’t travel so much as awareness. Open your eyes. Everything is right in front of you, right in front of you all the time.
–Dad
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this postcard is covered in ThunderCats stickers
6/11/87
Finian,
I thought I knew the rules of it; this thing, these jumps, but I woke up further back this time around. Before you, before university, before I kicked the Carlson kid’s shins hard as I could one dry Carolina winter walk home from primary. Because I could. Because I wanted to. (I didn’t have a firm hold on the relationship between cause and effect then; funny how that hold has disintegrated more, not less) What I’m saying is: this time I came to (slipped? arrived?) amniotic. Panicked. Forgot to stop and smell the fluids, as it were, to marvel like one who calls himself a scientist should at how amazing it was I could return there, to that primal cave. I wasted it, Fin. When I resettled into my forty-six-year-old bones I could hear you playing in the backyard by yourself and it was just like the first time all over again. I was so afraid of getting stuck somewhere you didn’t exist yet or didn’t exist anymore. What I’m saying is: I’m not letting go of that fear this time.
–Dad
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this postcard has ink-runs
10/21/10
Finian,
Must have looked strange at dinner. You’re younger still than I was when I had you (happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear boy, happy birthday to you), but you seem wiser. I know I was staring (sorry, kid) but it was occurring to me just then, for maybe the first time—I know you’ll roll your eyes at this, at my self-centered certainty that I was/am the only, lonely, all-seeing time-jumping super man—that maybe you can see it, too. See all the time, all the times, just like I can. Can you? Next you see me, blink twice if yes.
–Dad
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this postcard looks blank, in certain light, but isn’t
10/13/11
Finian,
Can you see yourself? Your next self, future self, forgetful self, sick self, rapidly-declining self? God, it isn’t fair. I see him, somehow. It’s hazy. I know I’m not supposed to be there (know that after complications post-op, when I’m eighty-six, I’m going to die) but it’s you, I know I can see you. Thought I could only move forwards and back on my own timeline, now this? This is new, Fin, I’m seeing more than ever before and it scares me. (What growth is this? What mutation? Blessing, or curse?) I know only this: it’s you in that hospital bed, it’s you who can’t tell your nurse what day it is, or year, or who the president is. It’s you. You can see him, can’t you? Can’t you? Time is of the essence, kiddo. There has to be something we can do, another path we can set you on. How can I get you to answer my calls?
–Dad
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this postcard has a diagram of a disassembled telescope on its front
5/6/96
Ian,
I’m worried you haven’t been getting my postcards. It’s curious: many return to me, as if I’d never addressed them, stamped them, or sent them on their way. Wires getting crossed somewhere? Or are you returning them? I can’t tell. (I’d believe anything)
–your dad, meeting you more than halfway
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this postcard smells like honeydew melon
1/1/04
Darling Mara,
You were shaking the change jar at the cat, your face scrunched up tight, and I knew you weren’t really upset with him, the cat, despite any damage he’d inflicted on the couch, the first one we bought brand new—tuft, and grey. You were on the verge of angry tears; remember? But it wasn’t the cat, not really, it was me; me that had done it, made you nearly cry. Finian was still toddling then but already you were holding him a little tighter, asking me, “Where are you right now?” me answering, “Jesus, Mara. I’m right here. Where else would I be?” Listen, I’m sorry for those years, how lonely you must have felt. You thought we were both all in. I couldn’t be, not in the way you wanted, couldn’t explain it in any way that made sense to you, and you can’t know how sorry I am. Enough of all that. What was that cat’s name? I can’t for the life of me recall. It’s funny—I see him trembling, see the change jar, but everything else about him? A total blank.
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this postcard, on occasion, lets out a long sigh
4/29/89
Finian,
Know this: the trouble between your mother and me has nothing to do with you. Or, to be perfectly imperfectly precise, it didn’t have anything to do with you, or it won’t.
–Dad
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this postcard is canary yellow
3/28/93
Finian,
I am slipping this in the hollow of the tree next to your neglected swing set where I know you will find it because I, believe it or not, was once also seventeen and angry and took my comfort in whatever I could and, like you, knew well enough what to hide and where. It isn’t going to make any sense to you—please don’t think I’m talking down; I know that, to you, I’m just some old myna bird with nothing new to say—but I want to tell you ahead of time (ha) so you’ll know that when you look out at the crowd on your graduation and you don’t see me there you won’t believe your mother when she tells you you were foolish to get your hopes up. I want to be there, kid. I wanted to be there. I will have always and will always want to watch you walk across that stage wearing the smile you smile when you’re trying to look cool. That smile like a geyser about to burst open. I love that smile, Finian; I keep the photo of you walking across the stage in my wallet, always. Maybe why I couldn’t, can’t, won’t be there doesn’t make any sense any way I spin it. I owe you so much more than excuses. Know, please know, that I don’t/didn’t/never mean to hurt you.
–Dad
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this postcard grew legs
Christmas 2004
Finian,
I feel like I am always writing you these postcards. It is maybe the only meaningful activity of my life. I know you’ll think I’m saying that to make you feel guilty but I mean it, I really mean it.
–Dad
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this postcard sings
9/2/11
Mara,
You don’t owe me anything. Don’t think I don’t know that. But listen—something is going to happen to Fin, after I’m gone. Well, after part of me is gone, anyway. Hard to explain. (Please don’t write me off—I’ve only ever tried to tell you who I am, how it all works. That doesn’t make me selfish or crazy.) Mara, tell our boy to start writing things down. It isn’t for me, or even for him. It’s for the son he doesn’t have yet, but will. Tell him it’s important a boy know his father. Especially when his father can’t be around (even if he wants to be).
–all my love, the shitheel
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this postcard tastes like charcoal
5/14/98
Finian,
You don’t have it, do you? This gift? This curse? When you’re there, really then, then you’re really there, then. What is that like? I’ve been shuffling in and out for so long; having trouble remembering.
–Dad
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this postcard was written in two different colored pens
I’m not trying to scare you when I say I know where you’re headed. Trust me—there isn’t an alternate path, any possible you, that won’t lead there. I’ve looked. I’ve wasted so much time looking.
________________________
this postcard sparks when you run your finger across it
7/23/98
Fin,
Don’t expect your old man to jump on that e-mail-Internet.com-http-I don’t know what. Pen to paper has always suited me. I like the texture, enjoy imagining you holding these little somethings. Things with weight, however light, in your perfect hands. Anyway, this e-mail thing? Trust me when I say not to opt in just yet. Give yourself time on the shore before the tsunami hits. You’re gonna miss the good old days before you know it.
–your father, the officious luddite
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this postcard is also perforated along its edge
2 of 2, 1989
Finny,
Of course your mother didn’t understand. (I don’t blame her) When it finally clicked for me that it was my choice what I saw, my choice when in my timeline I was, I had only just blinked out of a moment when I was thirty-nine and the teapot was whistling in the kitchen, and your mother was not yet hollering at me, saying “You’re going to wake the baby,” but I knew sure as rain it was coming and when she shouted down from upstairs, “You’re going to wake the baby,” I knew it was over, had always been over, had never been as real as it maybe could have been. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, huh kid? In that moment I knew all the things I wanted to give you I never could. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not suggesting that everything that came next was your fault so much as I’m saying that it, everything, was just my prickly path bringing me, always, to you.
–your father who is, he realizes, a touch longwinded
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this postcard is from New Mexico and undated
My dear one,
Miss you.
–the other lost fish circling the bowl
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this postcard came in a pack of twelve purchased at the National Gallery of Art in 1988
4/1/96
Finian,
Remember little league baseball? You were six and your mother signed you up on accident for the league in Cedar Hill, a forty-minute drive, which was lucky on the one hand because we never had to carpool. You hated the interstate. Do you still? You liked when we drove to practice on the back roads with all the windows down, the oldies station on—“Since when have these classics become old?”—as loud as we could get it for as long as we stayed in range. Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology. I want to take apart the word “remember” because, for me, I’m still driving down 739, can still smell the tang coming off the orchards and see the big white farmhouses straddling the ends of their driveways. I’m wondering if this drive, those drives, still exist for you. Don’t know much about a science book, don’t know much about the French I took. If they exist then they exist only in your memory, which is itself a dreamscape, an intangible place. No wonder when I reached for you last Thanksgiving at your Aunt Linda’s you backed away. But I do know that I love you, and I know that if you love me, too, what a wonderful world this would be.
–Dad
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this postcard has a photo of the lightest blue Bali myna on its front
6/15/14
Kiddo,
Must I put my failings into words? Make record of them? Is that what it will take to get you to talk to me? Okay, fine. Sometimes I wasn’t there like I should have been. Sometimes I didn’t even want to be. Happy now?
–Dad
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this postcard has an anthropomorphized breakfast sausage on a startlingly white background
10/19/12
Finian,
Are you getting these? Though I never expected a written reply—can I say never anymore? can never exist if there is only always, only all time splayed out between my twin palms like a deck of floating cards?—a knowing smile across the aisle at your cousin’s wedding would probably have done the trick. (We were both there. Would it have killed you?) Maybe a word to breach the silence? It wouldn’t have to be a big one, kid. I’d have taken anything. Shitheel, deadbeat, even just hi. Maybe next time we’re together on your timeline you could nod yes or shake your head no as an answer.
–your, he’s hoping, not overzealous father
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this postcard is sometimes home to a tenacious silverfish
10/1/13
Finian,
Not sure what I did, or when I did it. Not sure how I’ve hurt you. Being sincere. Whatever, whenever—I’m sorry.
–Dad
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this postcard is really two postcards stuck together
January 2022
Finian,
What is now? This now, my now, for you is over, and somehow-somewhere-sometime hasn’t happened yet. What I’m trying to tell you is this: there isn’t a right order in which to read them. Just read them.
–Dad
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the following letter is affixed to the back of a manila envelope by two thin pieces of masking tape.
presently, this letter is catching the late afternoon sun beneath a partly open window
1 March 2028
To [REDACTED]:
We hope this package finds you well.
Our office has tried several times to reach you by email and telephone, however our efforts have proved unsuccessful. Find enclosed a series of postcards discovered by a member of our staff on [REDACTED]’s bedside, 18 NOV 2027. Sending to you, [REDACTED], as closest living relative of [REDACTED]. We are unsure how [REDACTED] received these postcards.
Please respond with any information you may have concerning the contents of these communications or any insight you may be able to provide regarding their delivery. We take the safety and privacy of our patients seriously. We are concerned by the sudden appearance of these postcards as we have no record of a visitor for [REDACTED] anytime in the past four years. [REDACTED], as I’m sure you’re aware, struggles to recall events and people from his past, adding another layer of complication to this situation.
If you are aware of a more appropriate recipient of these postcards, please return them via enclosed SASE to [REDACTED]’s case manager, [REDACTED]. We look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
[REDACTED]
Residential Director
Palliative Care
Weston State
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this postcard is, was, is, was
Running out of time in 2014
Finian,
You’re not going to understand any of this until your son is born. Why do you suppose Mother Nature—that minx—sets us up that way? Pulsating heart of the human condition? Something like that. Listen—this morning I blinked into a moment my brain wasn’t built to remember. I was two, maybe three. The Andrews Sisters played out of rickety speakers, which meant I was at Nan’s. I was running, Finian, squealing and running, and I was me—my old, doddering, self—only dimmed. Tucked away. At the same time I was tiny toes and fingers. A warm creek of snot rushing down my nose onto my upper lip. My father was chasing me. Having a real riot of time. We both were. And all these years I’d been thinking of that man with his jar of chew and his temper and thinking he was nothing but a son of a bitch and all along my brain had been hiding this memory from me. This joy. This moment. All I can ask is that you remember me well. Even knowing I don’t deserve it. Have to ask. Human condition. Remember me, Finian. Please.
_____
Aliceanna Stopher‘s short fiction and essays can be found in Split Lip, Hobart, Gulf Coast, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. She lives offline in Colorado, and online at aliceannastopher.com.