We Went to the Museum

We went to the museum, but we didn’t see anything good.

We sat on a long bench under the great T-Rex, frozen in midroar. Outside, your son wound his way through a fake rainforest, raised pathways running under and over each other. He had darted for the doors as soon as the tickets were paid for. Escaping.

“Go with him,” you told your husband.

The sun spiked its rays between the branches, every few minutes shining straight into our eyes. Every few minutes making us squint. Every few minutes causing us to raise our hands to block out the unwanted light as we lost sight of our families. My wife. Your husband. Your son.

“I can’t see him anymore,” you said.

We were surrounded by the past, but focused only on the future.

The adults laughed as your boy led them around in mad circles. They doubled over, out of breath. Even they, the healthy ones, couldn’t keep up with him. Or maybe they weren’t trying hard enough. Maybe they were letting him run, because, lately, it was all he seemed to want to do.

“They’ll be all right,” you said.

And I couldn’t tell if it was a question or not.

We came here to talk, but that turned out to be harder than expected.

The silence was much easier. It came naturally, carried aloft by the pain that enveloped us both, transmitted by senses dulled by pills and injections. I shrugged my shoulders and gripped my cane harder whenever I felt myself slipping. You shifted and twisted your hips every time your colostomy bag pinched your skin wrong.

Eventually, words came. Some anyway. College, stepmother, IRAs. Next husband, graduation, wedding. First girlfriend, prom. Remember to laugh, take care of my plants, don’t give away my comics.

Your son returned triumphant, pressing his breathless grin into the glass. Our spouses walking twenty feet behind him, talking with heads down, hands tucked deep into pockets, wrists clutched behind backs. They caught us watching and forced smiles onto their faces, sent too-enthusiastic waves our way.

We were the ones dying, but they were the ones it was killing.

“I’m going to miss it,” you said.

Slipping, slipping, slipping. I shrugged my shoulders. Gripped my cane harder. Straightened my posture.

The movie was about to start. Something about whales. In the museum we went to, different movies played every hour, but this particular one, only once per day. Your son loved whales, so we waved them all toward the theater.

“Try not to miss any of it,” you said.

“It only happens once,” you said.

They begged for us to join them, but we were too tired. Still, your son lingered. He leaned against your legs and glanced above you, straight at the giant teeth of the T-Rex. His curious eyes followed the old dinosaur’s bones from head to tail and back again.

He tore his gaze away from the old fossil, and his hands shot straight into the air. He winked his fingers open and shut. Obediently, your husband took one, my wife the other. They pulled him free from you.

And you did not reach out. And you did not try to force him to stay.

One last time, they—your husband, my wife—asked us to join them. They pointed up at the theater, not more than thirty feet away.

There’s even an elevator, they said.

We answered no. One last time.

Shoulders slumped, the two of them trudged up the ramp toward the double-doored entrance. Your son skipped faster and bobbed higher between them with each step closer. Closer to the whales and the ocean, to the deep blue, to the waiting nothingness.     

Closer, closer, closer. Closer and farther at the same time.

Because we followed them, but only with our eyes.