He follows, and he listens to her, the tales of the spectacular children and grandchildren. He feels a strange ache in the hollow of his chest when they speak of children, and he wonders, not for the first time, if he has any of his own. If he was good to them, and what they’re doing now, if they’re even alive.
They make it to Ischia, a kingdom unknown to him in all lives, and they find Agetta’s daughter – Beyza, she had said her name was. The magician. Garbage smiles at her, still feeling that gnaw of hope, and though a strange look crosses her face when she sees him, he tries not to ponder on it.
He greets her, and they explain his plight, and he locks eyes with the magician. There is something still in her gaze, something he cannot put a name to but feels it on his skin, and he wishes she would articulate it. Perhaps he is unfixable, after all, and she is trying to find the kindest way to tell him.
Are you sure? Beyza asks, and there’s something in that tone, too, but Garbage doesn’t dwell on it. He’s too damn hopeful, the taste of his old life on his tongue, and he, so blissfully unaware of all the sins in that old life.
“Yes,” he says, and his voice resonates with surety, because he thinks, in his naivety, that there could be no worse life than one lived without a past.
“Please,” he adds, “please, I want to be whole again.”
The magician sighs – or maybe he just imagined that – and she touches him on the forehead. It’s a kind touch, but it does not ignite him in the way Agetta had, and he wonders, briefly, why that is. He feels a sense of opening, recesses of his mind waking, and then the memories hit like earthquakes.
He remembers his mother, her screams, he remembers the way she had broken beneath him, his own skull breaking, eyes on the sand, is this enough, is this enough--
He remembers the magician making him whole and loving him until he didn’t, leaving him with that magic-got son who he raised alone until it became too much—
He remembers the boy, too young, shivering in the cold, and him, too old, saying I could keep you warm--
He remembers dying, seawater in his lungs, following a dead woman to the bottom of the ocean and thinking finally--
He remembers bodies, so many, and some love him and some think him only a passing fancy, and he deserved none of them—
He remembers her. That kindness. That forgiveness.
And she does not remember him. He knows this, now, too. Hindsight is so glaring in its obviousness. He doesn’t know why she doesn’t remember him – maybe she’d died, too – but he knows she doesn’t. She had brought him here out of that same kindness that had made him fall in love with her, but not because she felt anything other for him. And perhaps that is for the best, he thinks now, fully reacquainted with his host of sins. It must have been a burden, to love him, and he is glad she is free from it, even if he doesn’t know how he can look at her, because it will be obvious now, surely, writ plain upon him.
His eyes have been closed as the inundation of memory took place, but now, he opens them. Looks at the magician. Wonders if she knows. Surely she does.
He looks at Agetta. How could he have ever forgotten her? He manages a smile, and maybe it’s genuine enough, because how can he not smile when he looks at her? He doesn’t need to be remembered to love her.
“Agetta,” he says, and oh, what a treasure it is to say her name with memory behind it, “you have a wonderful family.”
He looks back to the magician.
“Thank you,” he says, and maybe his voice breaks, and then he catches Beyza’s eyes, and thinks: don’t tell her. Please.
@Agetta