[A Lack of Concentration] by [Tetris = Therapy]

Undoubtedly, having my heart ruthlessly gashed and left behind to hemorrhage faith and pride was the best thing that ever happened me. Professionally.

Chances are you’ve heard the rag-to-riches tale, my eruption into the minds and mouths of the world at large. The publicity machine loves to tell the story of my luck in riding the early wave of new publishing, how I embraced a storytelling technique at the right time, in the right way, and exposed myself to untold numbers of readers and writers – and, of course, the tabloids – to great fervor and professional gain. But that's just one part of the story, one degree of many shades of truth.

But here’s the stark underbelly about this “unprecedented success” of mine: in all of my works, if you know where to look, you will find a love story. My love story. Whatever piece I am tasked to write, I need only walk through familiar scenes from a time long ago, lay them out as invisible guidelines to pattern a new story. Each time I just modify the medium and the message, and shift the nouns, and a new work appears, but within it lives my love story. I amputate and graft, and in each new story still lives the beating heart of a doomed love affair. The truth is, for years I have secretly, endlessly regurgitated my rationale for enduring sadomasochistic pain and loneliness in the name of love. In the unbelievable way miracles unfold, I owe my success to a Viking named Daniel.

Once upon a time, many years ago I fell wholly in love with a man who lived in a far away country called Denmark. Loving this man – loving Daniel – was a true test of my battered ability to trust. Our love was so different than any other I had experienced. It wasn’t that we met and fucked fell in love online that made it different. Even the molecular change in my body from the addiction and withdrawal of his presence wasn’t what made this relationship different. It was discovering  what it means to “follow your bliss,” and realizing that where bliss leads us is not for us to decide.

My prolific writing career was set in motion when I met my Danish lover. Because our relationship demanded heavy reliance on written words to close the gap of the physical space between us – using instant message conversations, emails, short stories, erotica – we took special care to perfectly craft our digital conversations. It was precious and it was challenging, and the words that shaped our love sparked in me a long-dormant desire to turn my way with words into a lucrative writing vocation. I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be Daniel’s great love; these things seemed plausible together, while apart they were utterly inconceivable.

But in the end, the power of the words that brought us together were not enough. My international love affair ended in an explosion of unresolved confusion that left me angry and determined to turn my intangible time with Daniel into something tangible. I refused to let sacrifices made mean nothing at all, so even though I no longer had Daniel to write for I kept writing.

First, I wrote a [love story]. It was the kind of love story that had no love in it unless you knew where to look. It took less than two hours of delirious punching at keys and inhaling tall glasses of ice-clinking gin and lemonade to write. I had painted a picture of love's turmoil in livid words on a hand-splined canvas of revenge

I released my spewed story into the hands of fate and a now-defunct publisher who was accepting short fiction submission. I sent the short story off without a query letter, or editing, or giving any thought to its future. I just returned immediately to stringing letters into words. I couldn’t do anything else but write. For a long time I had a lack of concentration for anything not related to writing the same story again and again – the love story of Daniel and Michelle – examining it from every possible angle, always disguised by topic or genre or mood. But it was there, the love story, between the spaces. For months and months I ached. I seeped in an anti-septic, alcoholic fog, and my fingers clicked the keyboard like bones on the stretched skin of my digital love story.

My frantic pace was broken by martyrdom irritation when I received a modest check in the mail for my first attempt at professional writing – for that vicious love story – a few weeks later. I took a photocopy of the rectangle paper that proved my writing was worth something to someone, stuck it to my refrigerator, and kept writing. With or without Daniel, I would write.

I wrote critical essays and short stories. I conducted interviews with online relationship counselors and social web proponents. I published informational articles on media ecology. I reviewed Scandinavian films and music. I gave away my stories and reminded readers they could send me money, if they so desired, which they sometimes did. I took on a lover or two. I became someone's girlfriend. And I kept writing.

Almost too quickly, my name was everywhere. A New York Time article published early in my writing career touted my “unprecedented success in redefining authorship and legitimate publishing avenues.” Wired magazine gave me the cover, a three page spread, and said I was “a svelte, temperamental multimedia artist at the intersection of good and evil.” But the swelling point in my writing career, as The Huffington Post will tell you, was the release of my first novel, The Miracle in July. The story of two international lovers drawn helplessly by chance into a doomed romantic tryst is the closest I've ever been to facing the brutal truth of the rise and fall of epic love.

My life, both professional and personal, became a pleasant routine. In work, I simply picked through the flotsam and jetsam in my memory banks, then a flurry of words came out of me, these words were sent off, and checks appeared in my mailbox. In personal, I loved who I wanted and let go of the question of a forever love. Slowly, in proportion to these checks and couplings, my heart unbelievably wise, leaving only an impressive battle scar and no worse for the wear. But the details of the Danish man who once promised to loved me forever – the facts of his dimensions and his intimate details – have eroded over time.

A well-oiled machine now, my writing career lies beyond single fingers and my personal, daily care. It's the machine that tells the story of my Danish love now, and rumbles in earnest with movie production details and rumors that Viggo Mortensen wants to read for the part of my tall, dark-haired Viking lover. Soon – just as I have imagined it stark against the blackest nights after my lover left me – The Miracle in July is under contract to become a Merchant Ivory film.

But I’m tired. I'm tired of the broken story of love's failure to turn distance into endurance. I'm tired of rehashing moldy memories and poisoned ash of a love that burned too bright. And I’m troubled with fairness, of motives. I know that over time new information in the brain reshapes what’s already there. We remember things that never happened and tint scenes with experienced reflections. I'm not sure which parts of the story of my impossible love are true. What of what I remember really did happen?

It is time to find a way to cease forever circling the drain of the past, rewriting the same memories like a CD stuck on a single musical hiccup. I’ll pick up a pen and plot out some fashion of the truth. I’ll view it cleanly and then commit to it. But rather than relying on flexible, rearranged memories of my love story, I’ve decided on a calculated whim to fly to Copenhagen. With me I’ll bring a shoe box I sealed tight and put away years ago that contains all the material evidence I have of the angel/devil man who loved me, once upon a time. I will reconcile the evidence of the past with the memories etched in my heart.

This is an honest post-mortem of my bittersweet digital affair, and the last time I'll exhume the corpse of inexplicably blissful digital love.

[Pathways to Bliss] by [Joseph Campbell]

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

[The Diary of Anaïs Nin] Volume Three (1939-1944) by [Anaïs Nin]

Darling I die inside it's true
Tomorrow I'll hide my love from you
It's like I always tend to do

[What Can I Do For You?] by [Illinois ]

The streets reverberated with anticipation through my early morning drive downtown. The night before had seen me tossing impatiently, the prescient taste of bittersweet resolution just out of tongue's reach, tantalizing me from the shoe box in my office. By the time the June sunshine had turned my office light from foggy blue to hazy yellow, I was already almost done sifting through the very last breaths of heartsick love.

I read three times Daniel's cruel plea for separation. I remember the first time I read the letter, years ago, sitting in front of the beige monitor and blinking dumbly at each razor-sharp truth. It seemed to be written in a language hard for me to decrypt, perhaps because it was stripped of any respect for my feelings. Gone were the vows to make things happen, no matter what. Our past efforts to bring Daniel's film-career to Oregon evaporated – erased from our history. Instead, Daniel's plea was [a cheater's armoury], its fundamental message quite clear: Let me go.

I choked on regret for that moment in time I chose to give my devoted heart to a repenting bad boy. Was I really so shallow as to believe in a love profound enough to make a devil turn saintly? Did Daniel's handsomeness – with that accent of his, and that devilish charm – so intoxicate me that I believed in the impossible and endured heartache just to call him mine? I was stirred sour by the words that led to the end of us. I had felt him struggling with the separation. I had asked Daniel to confide in me, his partner, about the beautiful, feminine faces staring into him, so full of motivations. And in response he flung at me an ignorant speech on the overpowering pull of his libido, cravings I could not geographically satisfy, and the natural affinity of The Actor to fall in love.

His "we hardly knew each other" statement instantly obliterated the hundreds of hours we'd spent online laughing and fucking, and falling in love. The cheesy expressions of love shared through music, and the sequences of events which had brought our paths together became something insignificant and random. A worthless coincidence had inflated itself in my silly eyes, that was all. The darkest part of me can see the outline of a deeper hiss between the words in Daniel's letter, one which calls me foolish for believing wholeheartedly in something that was obviously nothing but fantasy.

Everything Daniel had ever said or done to me was now suspect. In an uncharacteristically swift four hours, I sent Daniel a response. It was a relative record for me, a person who crafts and molds and situates the sequence of each word weighted by nuance and definition until its conveyance can never, ever be misunderstood. But I was misunderstood, and I had misunderstood.

After sufficiently berating him in my reply, I gave Daniel his wish and let him go:

....Let's not blame this on the kind of person you are, the acting or your libido. The truth is you don't want me bad enough and aren't willing to do what it takes to keep us alive. And that is your choice.

So I give up, too. You are free. Good luck.

Shell

I told the two women in my life – Lily and Becca – by CCing them my answer to Daniel. Lily captured her feelings about my [empty] news with a reply using Ray LaMontagne lyrics:

Well I looked my demons in the eyes, and bared my chest and said, "Do your best to destroy me. See I've been to hell and back so many times, I must admit you kind of bore me..."

Fuck the demons in us all.

I love you.

Becca, in turn, sent a message to Daniel, asking if he realized what he was giving up, saying "Please make sure you realize what you are giving up if you decide not to pursue Shelley. You seemed quite blissful with her during our webcam chatting session in November, and you deserve that kind of happiness. So does she." There was no reply.

I began an earnest effort to keep myself continuously numb. This was possible thanks to a flask of gin which followed me everywhere. To feel the full crushing weight of this convoluted betrayal as if it were a ridiculous scheme – a sin in the incompatibility of perceptions – would deny me the genuine bliss and goodness which had grown out of my "imaginary" love. Accepting the betrayal at face value would bring with it the idea that my plans to achieve success as a writer were also just folly. How could I face that?

I turned away from my Danish lover by severing all connections to him in my digital life. The unfortunate truth of my place in his heart left me raw and bleeding, and unable to endure the jovial holiday season. I attended none of the parties listed in my calendar. I cancelled Christmas, and sent Ryan away to celebrate in Washington with his father.

"I don't want to leave you," Ryan said, concerned. He was crying softly, pleading. We were both crying. My sadness was suffocating him, too.

We were sitting on our new, cheapish [Ikea couch], bought with the last of Pops' death money, waiting for Ryan's dad to come get him. The tree was up and decorated. A modest amount of gifts lay underneath it. It was a couple of days before Christmas, and just a few days after I'd given Daniel his freedom.

I was barely holding it together and fooling no one, least of all my son. And things that I had conquered and made painless –like looking Ryan's father calmly in the eye when discussing matters regarding our son – again became an insurmountable tasks. I remember that all that day my broken finger, my reminder of self-worth, throbbed with each squeezing tick, bulging with each painful tock.

My face, with its pink, swollen eyelids and dark expression, said it all. I needed time and space for a frantic release of grief and defeat. I needed to fall apart, to cry my eyes out and let the snot flow, I needed to wail [You won]! Are you happy? at the lessons I still hadn't learned.

For the first time in my life I had given complete pieces of myself to a man; I needed to figure out how to put the pieces back, how to re-create the bliss that the Viking had given me when he was now no longer a part of my life. I needed to start the ugly business of putting myself back together again. I did all that once Ryan left, but until I was alone, I did my best to pretend I wasn't hemorrhagic inside.

The arrival of my Christmas gifts in [Denmark] finally nudged Daniel into an email response to my charges sent three days earlier:

I dunno what to say - I didn't want this - never.

It wasn't just the physical thing, was the lack of all the other things too - all the things about you not communicated through a damn webcam. A poor substitute for the real thing yes, and I found myself hurting for more than just that.

When you say I'm not willing to do what it takes to keep us alive you're only partly right, cause I do want it, but it's a struggle. A struggle I'm not accustomed to and obviously cannot keep up because of the void it leaves in my heart afterwards.

I cried today when I got your package. So much effort you put in it. So much love.

Do you want me to send it back? I can hardly accept it sweetheart.

Daniel had resumed his expressions of kindness towards me. Abject sorrow pierced my fragile acquiescence with the poisonous hope of his use of present tense: I do want it. And, on Christmas Eve – the traditional day of present-opening in Denmark – a text message came. At the end of it, a digital kiss:

Everyone loved their gifts. Merry Christmas, baby. I miss you :*

My reply was curt and loveless:

I'm so glad. Happy holidays. Take care.

Was his love real or not? The darkness of my thoughts seeped into each day and rolled into the nights. My hours were spent in an alcoholic blur and involuntary, guttural sobbing. The nights were sleepless, motionless moonlit healing baths of barely-whispered mantras: This too shall pass.

Then, 20 days after the implosion of my supernova love affair, Daniel appeared logged into his instant messenger while I was at work.

Me: he lives
Lily: he's online?
Me: apparently
Lily: I just sent him a message.
"Go on. [Talk] to her."

I didn't know what to say to Daniel. I continued to mourn, to weep, and I knew I still had days and days of intense heartache left to endure. I had fallen deeply in love with a Viking – a real love – but what was there to say that would make things better? I missed him, I missed my partner and the feeling of knowing that your love won't leave you, no matter what. But mine had left me – if he had been mine at all – and in the most brutal of ways.

Daniel: hi Shel
Me: Hi
Daniel: the inevitable 'how've you been' and not requiring a long answer if you don't want to - I understand if you're still upset and hurt by me...
Me: I miss my boyfriend and dont understand why this happened.
What happened?
Daniel: I had to. As you noticed I wasn't good at this. I wanted it to happen between us but the strain of being seperated was too much for me. I wasn't happy deep inside. I miss you too
Me: what happened to make you not happy with me anymore? able to stay content and hold on until spring, when we could meet again? It's only a couple of months.
Daniel: it wasn't you I wasn't happy with. Was the emptiness. Words and cam didn't cut it. Content? I don't know - I think content just isn't good enough. I'm sorry Shell
Me: So you dont ever want to see me again, work towards our goals together to spend months together at a time, like we planned?
------13 minutes------
Me: I get it. The answer is no, but you don't want to keep hurting me?
Daniel: I'd like to see you again, but the decision I took took a long time realising for me - and took a great deal of sleepless nights and sadness. I don't wanna hurt either of us.
it was the only sane thing to do for me. I know that sounds harsh and inconsiderate, and believe me, I took a long time writing that email to you. Started on it several times.
And not a day goes by when I don't miss you, but at least I sleep better.
I couldn't stand being miserable and letting you down all the time - standing up for myself when I didn't do this and that - as you rightfully pointed out - I was no good at it.
so...
Me: are you still in love with me?
I hear what you are saying
I knew all of this as you were struggling
but you wouldnt talk to me about it or options or expectations
you said once you just needed to know the terms and you would do it, so why couldnt you share your terms to see if I could do it?
so...
are you still in love, or is it old love?
Daniel: what would the idea of that question be? I doesn't change anything - I'd only embarass myself or you.
I miss you every day - think of you daily - you figure it out

"...you figure it out..."

This rankled, this responsibility to root out the truth in words in a language I could no longer translate. The remark was cold and lacking; it is the catalyst that once again set me back on my path to bliss, a road built on the stardust of a grand love whose death I exploited.

Me: what is it you want? a friendship? a muse? to go back to being lovers? what place do you want for me in your life?
Daniel: you're one of the greatest and coolest persons I know. You have abilities - skills - and wit to match my own. Going back to being lovers would be confusing for me - for the both of us - muse, inspiration, friendship doesn't come cheap these days - but we had it - in abundance. I'd like that cause I respect you and all your craziness. Who'd ever say no to a friend like you?
but you're perhaps not able to, willing to or ready to - and I'd understand that.
of course
------6 minutes------
Me: I can give you that. but you must know that what keeps me there is that I am in love with you. I hope you someday want to be mine again. Thats just not going to go away, no matter who I'm screwing or youre screwing. thats why I asked if you were in love with me still. I still believe in us, even if you dont. And that will be in the background as you move through a life I'm not a part of anymore. Can you do that, knowing I am still wishing for you to return to me?
Daniel: yes I believe I can.
If that's the way I can still have a part of you - fo shizzle I can.
Me: Do you think about coming here still? To see me and Lily?
Daniel: yes I do. we both do. Soren and I.
Me: is that just a dream or can you make it happen?
Daniel: we'll make it happen alright. At some point. We need financing from a production company - but we have ideas as to where and how to apply.
Me: good
You will need to lead this relationship
Daniel: ok
I have some making up to do
Me: can I be your myspace friend again?
Daniel: I was torn apart finding out you left me
facebook too - but then again - I know why of course
so yes - I'd like that
please?
Me: can I be your number one friend?
Daniel: yes
Me: then make it happen
Daniel: I will - thank you
for this
Me: I need to make sure that you know my main motivation in this is that Im still in love. you know this, right?
Daniel: I know this - yes
Me: And you know while you know I'm still in love with you, I do not know one way or the other, for you. be kind with me about that fact, that I'm dealing with that, yes?
Daniel: yes
have to pop down for cigarettes - brb
Me: I have a lunch meeting, be back in 30
------22 minutes------
Daniel: I have to catch you later - I'm beat. But happy.

He was happy, in that way the Danish were happy. He was sleeping again, now that he was free of my restraints. He wouldn't tell me if he still loved me. Our words mortally punctured me like the [friendly fire] of a former ally. I thought it ridiculous that he wanted to be my friend, a cliche that smacked of formality, and that he agreed to lead the friendship was a joke.

I remember my desire to make him understand that any future interaction between us would be tainted with my yearning to be with him still. Yet, under all of these impossible conditions, Daniel agreed to endure in the name of our epic love. I was clearly asking a lot from a Danish bad-boy who had failed every one of the women who had fallen in love with him before. But from behind the curtain of the Internet, even the most devilish can play the saint for at least a little while. In Daniel's case, the ruse of our relationship lasted just over five months.

After a couple of weeks of silence, after promising to lead our friendship, Daniel changed his relationship status on MySpace to "in a relationship" and deleted me from his profile. He left blatant tracks of broken fidelity all over the Internet. I sent him a text message:

You're in a relationship?

Daniel replied almost immediately:

Yes. Please be respectful of that.

Much later I found out that he had started dating the actress he had helped to get a job on the movie that had taken him out of town on weekends. He had sent me photos of her.

From there I sunk further into the booze, and into words. At first I started to write a letter to Daniel, which I never planned to send and I never finished because of a lack of words that would make any difference. The message did not progress further than this:

I’m tired.

I’ve spent some time thinking over the prospect of being a friend to you, and what that really means.

I told you I was still in love with you, but I think it’s more accurate to say that I am still in love with the guy who believed in us. I believe that’s the guy you want to be someday, but aren’t yet. You’re too busy doubting yourself and making excuses about what you’re capable of.

But you don’t believe in us, so the guy I’m in love with is not you. You’re the person who brought about the end of us in such a hurtful, fucked up way. When you say you respect me, that you tried your best, I don’t believe you. So, what is the truth, and what is the fantasy?

The letter to Daniel a complete failure to convey my message, I turned away from him and lit some words on fire for me instead. Becca, who was working on her Doctorate at the time, began to meet with me weekly for writing sessions. We had serious goals, which we both kept. Becca wanted to walk down the aisle with her fellow classmates, and I wanted to try my hand at writing for a living. Did I have what it takes to follow my bliss without the man who introduced me to its untouchable possibilities? There was only one way to find out.

It was a gradual process. I had no focussed genre, or a solid plan, or any connected acquaintances. I simply surrendered myself to a compulsion to document feelings, sights, scents, scenes – all the complexities and symbols in life that make up a story. I scrawled snippets of scenes in small notebooks. I wrote long-form or disjointed narratives on the computer. Scribbled phrases which captured the nuances of my complicated hurt on post-it notes littered around the house, in my purse, and at my office.  The embers of my future bliss glinted.

And now, today, I find myself drenched in electric memories and sunlight as I lie on the plush purple sofa which is much too large for my tiny downtown Portland office. I have reached the end of my story. I've explored the rough and smooth parts as if for the first time, seeking my final reconciliation. I lay here imagining my love's bliss as a perpetually roaring [July flame] which burned so bright that its heat could be felt from 5,000 miles away. The heat then slowly reduces to a faintly crackling ember, fueled solely by my combustible pride and somber heart. It is my essence alone in that steadfast coal pulsating weakly, alive, to the beat of the hum of energy in the air which I breath now. Each breath in makes the light receed, barely ignited. Each breath out coaxes it to burn hotter, more brilliantly blissful than ever before.

Warm, toothsome smells waffle through the sliver of spaces around my windows. The vendors on the waterfront are frying elephant ears; the vendors on the street are steaming soft pretzels sprinkled with rock salt. My closed eyelids diffuse the light rays and give the scenes I'm recalling an aged quality, as if a century had passed since they first unfolded, instead of only years. There is a seep into a deeper existential sympathy where I'm both connected and disconnected to essential life. Life is vibrating with breaths taken and lost.

I hear a low undercurrent of green [Willamette River] waves swelling and retracting. The ebb and flow of murmurs on the Saturday morning sidewalks is punctuated by the squeals of the young. A siren calls for quiet order.

All at once, thundering echoes flood the spaces between the buildings downtown. My office windows rattle to the trilling of pace drums leading the patter of many feet stepping mostly in unison. Horseshoes clop on cobblestones. A shrilling whistle prompts synchronized shouts. Traces of a rousing horn section blast the chorus to Michael Jackson's [Thriller] in the distance. Spontaneous cheers erupt and trail into happy laughter. It's the Grand Floral Parade in full march, one of the biggest of several parades planned each year for the annual [Rose Festival] A celebration of the burst of fragrant spring and the heritage of the Pacific Northwest that lasts several weeks.  An essential Portland, Oregon experience, the festival includes carnival rides on the waterfront, a fireworks show, rose-growing competitions, pie-offs, auctions, auto and horse racing, crowned, teenage Queens and Princesses, costumed marathons, a music fest, and much more.

I peek outside. On the sidewalk between bodies sitting in chairs and on blankets I see the outlines where families had staked their [parade spot] the day or two before with tape and a cheap plastic chair, sometimes camping out overnight for a prime spot. The sidewalk crawls with life forces.

In the street, five rows of four teenage boys are swinging, opening, and collapsing aluminum lawn chairs in synchronized compliment to their manly grunts, a drill team parade entry. Coming up next are the [Royal Rosarians] tipping their hats to the crowd in their off-white suits and fluttering capes, after that a dance team from an out-of-state school, and after that are the [Pendleton Round-Up Court], the Queen and her Princesses, who look almost as beautiful as their coiffed horses. Just out of sight, behind the horses, is a colorful clown who is pulling a wagon with a scoop for shoveling shit. It's a wonderful sight on a beautiful day.

Sitting on the old-fashioned wooden desk with pull-out side tables my laptop purrs. My email is open to a message that I've kept in my inbox for years now, for those moments when a reminder that I am loved and lucky is most needed. And on this day of overwhelming significance, with the city vibrating with the currency of heart and soul and my ears booming with festive noises, I read it again to bolster my resolution and to celebrate my freedom from regrets:

Beloved Eldest,

Your little sister Ruthie died last night in hospice of liver cirrhosis due to complications to Hepatitis C. She was 34 years old. She was surrounded by her mother, my best friend Caroline, and the ghosts of our mothers who lead her to Our Heavenly Father. It was a peaceful experience.

It was good to have my daughter back again, Shell. You know, when her baby was small, Ruthie and Mark lived in Boise at the same time I did. Ruthie would come and stay with me when Mark wanted her out. Sometimes for a month at a time we would work on her parenting skills and her coping skills. She began to confide in me, a little at a time, about all of the bad things she'd ever done. All of them. It was if she was trying to find the right bad thing about her that would make me stop loving her. I will never stop loving my girls, no matter what.

When Ruthie and Mark moved to Las Vegas she always called me when Mark was out of control, to tell me what was going on. She called a lot. Mark would scream at her, "Why are you telling her that? It's none of her business!" and Ruthie would scream back, "Because she's my mother, and I tell her everything." And she did, too.

By the time Mark brought Ruthie here to live in [Ontario] she was in rough shape. She arrived without medication because Mark refused get it for her. Ruthie's abdomen had accumulated so much toxic fluid that she couldn't get behind the wheel of her car to drive to the hospital. Worse, Mark beat her badly a couple of days before coming here. He punched her in the belly, knocked her down, and forced himself to vomit in her face. I know this, because he bragged about it.

But Ruthie's last few weeks were peaceful after she stabilized. Her brain was already damaged from the toxins in her bloodstream. She was quite insane by the time she returned to me, but pleasantly so. She slowly deteriorated in the best possible way: without pain or cognitive realization.

Ruthie's priority was to take care of me. Isn't that dear? She hid plastic grocery bags throughout my apartment with unlikely objects, like a pair of socks and a plastic cup "in case of the aliens." She was also awfully concerned about medical appointments she believed I missed. "I've made several apppointments for you, Mom. You have got to get that vasectomy."

Another time Ruthie spent quite a bit of time lecturing me on my bad customer service. She was a Burger King shift manager again, and I was a new employee who was not keeping the condiments and napkin dispensers full. She was kind, but stern: "It's our job to take care of our customers. Never make the customers wait for napkins and mayo!"

One time she saw a pack of her smokes on the floor and admonished me for "starting to smoke at your age." She forgot that she smoked, that they were her cigarettes. She also stopped drinking. Five months before she died, Ruthie finally lost the desire for alcohol and tobacco because her mind forgot it gave her pleasure.

My Beloved, Ruthie is finally at peace. I know you struggled with your devotion to her Earthly body, with the hurt she brought and took. But now her body is Heavenly, and divine. She no longer yearns too much. She is finally alive.

But you are still here, on Earth, where I love you no matter what. Imbued in every digital element of this email is mother-belief. Your mother believes in you. Crawl inside this email and feel your mother's love.

Mom

Outside my window sirens blast a warning to parade watchers to clear the streets. The drone of voices gradually wavers in pitch and fades away. Rumbling cleaning trucks with jet-sprays and huge, spinning wire scrubbers crawl the streets to remove all evidence of what was, just moments ago, the collection of several lifetimes.

On street-level I catch the cleaning trucks rounding the corner, leaving the roads wet and clear in front of me and ready again for traveling to a new destination. I just stand there for a moment, feeling the electric imprints of the past flicker throughout me. I'm enjoying this moment of achievement, of telling the story of my digital love one final time. But, like the streets that still reverberate with beat of a marching band's pace drum, my journey will forever resonate from the time, once upon a time, that I gave my heart to a Danish man.

SAVE THE DATE! The Epilogue, the last piece of The Miracle in July, will be published July 6, 2010.

Never miss a segment by subscribing to this story by [web feed] or [email]. If you enjoy The Miracle in July, please consider making a [donation] to help the author follow her bliss.

The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.

[Spaces of Extraordinary Size] by [Valter]

Through the pane of my home office's window, I see an electric bluebird defending his suet from a starling. With squeaky notes the infuriated bluebird lunges. The experienced starling swoops and jabs. A natural mimic, it flippantly repeats each chirp from the bluebird. The fuming fight is a flurry of feathers.

This is the first time since my return to Portland that I’ve noticed any starlings. I’ve been sitting here in my comfy space for quite a while, somberly reading the downward spiral of misspoken words between me and my digital lover. The shaggy winter plume is gone and the dark beak is lighter, but it's the same catty bird, the same non-native species bent on its aggressive squatting. Daniel, once upon a time at the Copenhagen [Central Station], had called them "junk birds."

At the time I’d felt the label a bit harsh – but I hadn’t yet experienced for myself the sound of their constant cunty chatter amongst the trees which flanked the stone walk up the foliage-enshrouded door of my Copenhagen fortress. I’ve since learned more about the character of the fowl, including the fact that starling-scat is erosive enough to disrupt the structural integrity of a metal bridge – one splat at a time.

The bluebird outside my window finally gives up and flies away. The starling is suddenly alone with the suet. It flutters around the feeder to observe it from all angles, then flies off, as though winning had been all that really mattered to it.

I return to the documents before me – [the final rewind] of digital exchanges between myself and my Viking lover – and I finally reach an exchange from the final few days of my romantic entanglement with him. In these ancient words of mine I see jealousy and doubt and possessiveness. I see the white lies to misdirect from the truth. And I remember wishing to go back to the time before I had gone to Denmark, back to the many times when I could have curtailed my descent into emotional intimacy with Daniel, or by choosing a different response to the first time he typed "I love you" in the instant messenger.

I remember how my nights had been at that time – full of cryptic, unvocalized worries which would intensify while I slept, playing themselves out in viciously accurate and sensual scenes. In sleep I was a captive witness to the crumbling of my love affair with Daniel. Sometimes in my dreams he would coldly escort me to catch the bus to the Billund airport and refuse to kiss me goodbye. Sometimes he would take the shape of past lovers who had abandoned me previously. And sometimes I would dream of nonchalant infidelities and Daniels careless, shoulder-shrugging dismissals. All night my mind reminded me of what I worried about all day.

As I read the remains of my romance, the fluttering outside my window returned. It’s the bluebird again – this time with two other bluebirds, enjoying the suet feed. The starling will not return again today.

Me: Hi, do you have a moment to share with me?
Daniel: yes I do
Me: great
Daniel: have to be on set in an hour
Me: I am still thinking about how to best respond to your email
Daniel: yes
Me: It might be a few days or maybe less
Daniel: why is that?
Me: because I feel there are some things I need to clarify and I need to make sure I'm being factual not emotional
Daniel: clarifying is good - so is factual and emotional
Me: I dont want to say the wrong thing, esp since my main issue is perception of things said. language is hard to translate.
make sense?
Daniel: sure, but there's danger that it'll come out stiff
Me: I don't understand
Daniel: Are you upset?
Me: hm, no. and not mad. frustrated, that my words arent translating for some reason. disappointed maybe is a better word.

I was not mad? I was furious, and sad. As I look over words from that time I realize I felt the same way then as when Jake ignored the signs of our chilling romance, or when Lily wouldn't take me seriously at first about Rod. And I still stung from the effort it took to get Daniel to intervene on my behalf, to convince Lily to take me up on my offer to ship him out of town. I felt my voice as useless as standing outside my house in Oregon and screaming into the sky to ask my lover 5,000 miles away if he realized it was not a question of if he was going to leave me, but when.

Daniel: All I'm saying is that if you think too long and too hard, the things you say can come across too clinical
Me: ha
thats what I do, fo shizzle
but...
these things I need to say I have said before, and before, and before. Im ready to break out the data sheets and pie charts.
Daniel: sure you can do that. But still I can't just ignore what I feel can I
Me: nope
Daniel: I'm sure this is nothing, and we'll laugh about it later
Me: maybe. let me clue you in a bit?
Daniel: I know what you wanna tell me
Me: okay, tell me
Daniel: no you tell me
Me: ha
no YOU
Daniel: well, ok
basically it's no effort to just send a fast message considering the positive statement it brings
Me: thats right, and what I've been saying all along
Daniel: and that I agreed to do so
Me: again, yes.
that's why I am frustrated...we've talked about this very issue
since our first fight.
but I think there may be a different of perception as to the kind of relationship we're in.
Daniel: there's a difference in the ways we perceive a relationship is my bet.

These last words from Daniel were like cruel, tiny pinches to my ego. Pointing to my failed romantic past to justify an idea that our bickering and our struggles to communicate were due to my ignorance of committed relationships felt hard. Maybe he was right, but our problems went much deeper than either of us could admit.

Me: to me a partnership is what I've been in with you, and all my quote 'breathing down your neck' is me wanting you to reciprocate all the sharing of my life I do.
You are now offering me that only when you want to
There is very little day-to-day 'this is what I'm up to' sharing.
And this is a mind fuck, since in the beginning I was hesitant to share anything about my life with you because we were 'just fucking'
and i didnt want to get emotionally attached.
I feel you've encouraged me to contact you, share with you, etc. whenever I want to
and now you're telling me its too much.
Daniel: not at all
Me: yes, thats what I'm seeing and feeling from you.
Youve stopped initiating conversations with me drastically,
when in the beginning you've been the leader.
Something has shifted.
Its like this...
you're too busy to chat? THATS WONDERFUL! It means youre kicking ass, which makes me incredibly happy and satisfied
but I would like to know about the cool things youre doing, because I am your partner and invested in your life.
Daniel: yes I appreciate that - and you want it every day
Me: sure, it used to be every day
but to be honest I was glad when you got your job
cause all that IMing was brutal. thats why I like EMAILS.
It doesnt require an immediate response, and you can be sure I'm not going to expect a response in return anytime soon because you're supposed to be off kicking ass.
Daniel: I'm hearing you... I'm sorry but I gotta go now - need to catch a bus - going to film today. I'll tell you about it later.
Me: great, I'd love to hear about it. And I love you too.
bye sweetheart
Daniel: I sure do love you babe

I knew I wouldn't be getting any updates about the shoot which Daniel was racing off to; that had become a pattern as well – the broken promises of inclusion. I was crushed about his theory that the strife between us lay solely on my shoulders. His fear "that it'll come out stiff" was worrisome as well. It had revealed a sobering chasm between us and our dangerously misconstrued idea of the relationship itself.

After a few days of painstaking refinement – in order to absolutely, coherently express verbatim my emotions and my facts; it's what I do – I sent Daniel a five-page retort, directly disputing every claim he’d made. I held nothing back. I had nothing to lose. I was so very tired of the uncertainties and unanswered questions. I welcomed a resolution, an end to the continuous waves of hopeful exasperation.

As much as I loved my man, as much as I admired his talents and his good looks, no matter the depth of involuntary shivers at the memories of his touch, or the amazing array of ways that life had made our relationship possible in the first place, I believed in what I felt was the best part of the relationship: my freedom to be myself and say exactly what I thought, without fear that Daniel would leave me. But that was the thing I feared the most: that my response would be [the kiss] of death.

I closed my [astonishingly emasculating email] with these words:

Subject: I love the hell outta you

...but perhaps that is the fundamental issue. Are we in a partnership or are we just dating? I really need to know the answer to that. There is a difference, and I suspect I am in a partnership with you, and you are dating me. Please tell me the truth.

I’m in love with you baby, and that’s a rare gift. Don’t be a jerk and screw this up by thinking I’m tying you up by pressuring you. If you’re not telling me (nicely) that you can’t be there for me at the moment then I’m not the one tying you up, you’re doing that all by yourself. I am willing to work with you, learn from you, give you what you need to be happy – and you need to do the same. I want to walk beside you, as your proud woman. Please let me.

Love to you,

Shell

I sent my letter off and hoped for the best. What else could I do?

According to my calendar from that time – also preserved with our digital missives – I sent off, the very next day, a batch of Christmas presents for Daniel, his kids, and his parents. I’d waited until the last possible moment to ship them so that they’d arrive just before Christmas Eve. In a big box I’d packed [See's candies], [Made in Oregon] magnets, [Mad Libs] for Daniel to use in class and with his kids, Ana's fart book, Clive's hoodie, and a bag of [Ladybug Cafe] mocha coffee beans. For Daniel I sent a [novelty welcome mat] and season one of [Deadwood] in [PAL format]. On an impulse, I also sent back Daniel's copy of [State of Fear] and his stow-away Hugo Boss underwear, now clean and with the hole in the seam left un-mended. I sent it all away to see what would come back to me.

Days followed in relative silence. Our attempts to designate times for fooling around – writing erotica for each other – were systematically thwarted by one excuse or another. Sick children. Unread emails. Being too tired. Not responding to emails. I was masturbating several times a day at that point, to release tension. But orgasms only acted as temporary reprieves from the wound-up feeling of a life twisting out of control. No sooner would the pulsating in my sex subside before my heartbeat would begin to rapidly increase again. To make matters worse, Daniel and I still had great moments of heartbreaking tenderness. He was trying to be a man who kept his promises. Such moments remind me now of the times in Ruthie’s life when it seemed as though she had a genuine handle on love and life; time had shown the joy in such bittersweet moments couldn’t last.

Daniel: hi babe
or morning
Me: Hi sweetie
Daniel: smooch
Me: xoxoxo
Daniel: what are you doing
Me: just made plans to drink margaritas and paint pottery (wtf??) friday night
and go to the nudie bar saturday night with my girls
Daniel: you're stripping this time
Me: actually
tis a MALE nudie show this time
Daniel: nah
Me: yeps
Daniel: nah
Me: ohhhhh yeahhhhh
Daniel: .............nah..........
Me: I can't go?
Daniel: YES
Me: you are well, lover?
Daniel: I'm soooo tired - haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately
Me: yeah, I know. my poor Viking
go take a shower to wake up?
Daniel: but I keep on going
yeah I better
Me: go on then honey, I'm here
Daniel: later, then
for now shower
---- 27 minutes ----
Daniel: I miss you
Me: Oh damn I miss you too
Daniel: better go now babe
Me: sure, but first honey its been a long time since I told you
lemme say real quick
Daniel: yea
Me: you're amazing
I'm so lucky to have you
and I love you very much darling
Daniel: I love you too, thank you
bye babe
Me: now go kick some ass
Daniel: YES

To this day my senses recall the intimate details of that night at [The Viewpoint], like an instrument holds that last note longer than the ear can hear it. But how I got to the strip club is innocent enough, for Portland anyway.

For quite a while several of my girlfriends and I sustained an organized effort to experience the culture of all things Portland, Oregon. Together we sampled a variety of [Stumptown] experiences. We had a fake wedding at [Voodoo Doughnuts], we walked the [Shanghai Tunnels], and we drank wine while experimenting with static electricity at [OMSI After Dark]. We went on wine tours, attended almost every ethnic festival in the metro area, and bonded over [Storm Large] and her empowering, thought-provoking question: What the fuck is [ladylike]?

Not only is Portland known for its prolific number of local microbreweries and outstanding [food carts], Portland is also known for its high strip club per capita ratio. Portland loves strippers, and my girlfriends and I had made the rounds to several already: [Mary's Club], the oldest strip club in town; a florescent dive bar called the [Magic Gardens], the club preferred by visiting, legendary metal bands; the red-washed [Devil's Point] where I once watch an amazing fire dance with matches; and the Hell-themed strip club offering vegan fare called [Casa Diablo]. We were now trying The Viewpoint, and for the first time, a male review show.

First was the "lady strippers" part of the evening. We sat in the club's low lounge-style swivel chairs at several small tables crowded between the two or three mirrored catwalks where naked girls hoisted themselves around dancing poles. More chairs were huddled around the platforms for for the close-up show.

Being a woman patron at a strip club allows a wonderful advantage. For a couple of dollars and a demure smile, beautiful girls will spread their legs and finger themselves for you. The men in the club like to watch this, and tipped accordingly. I have sat at the base of the catwalk and had a dancer bring her glistening, swollen vulva within inches of my face – wrap her legs around my neck and pull my slightly-parted lips so close that I could smell her sex and touch her with my tongue. After flirting with me for a while she'd then drift to the men sitting within view to collect copious amounts of money for her efforts. A win-win-win situation.

But that night I was in a sexually and emotionally uncomfortable state, so I stayed at the little tables. I was already optimally aroused by the stress and unrequited lust for Daniel. I ordered food – medium-rare steak, I believe – and tried to catch my friends’ attention in snippets of dialog between music beats, only to lose their eyes frequently to the folds of femininity on the mirrored platforms.

Then it was time to go upstairs for the [The American Male] review – a show which I expected to be more cheesy and funny than hot. The setting was quite different here. The room was fairly large, with the performance and audience areas taking up only half the space. Folding chairs, two rows deep, flanked three sides of a small stage just a couple of inches off the ground. The fourth side was a wall. After a long wait, my friends and I – there were less of us then; our lesbian friends had understandably begged off – dance music filled the air and five very attractive, well-kept men were introduced for our viewing pleasure.

All the flavors of American male stereotypes were represented: the jock, the soul brother, the rapper, the cowboy, the sportsman. All of the men were beautiful in own characteristic way, flawless professional persuaders. While they didn't go completely nude, their stolen touches, clinging thongs, and delicious smells made up for that. One by one, only a deep exhale away from us, the men danced sensually to an enthusiastic crowd.

One dancer in particular liked his odds with me the best.

At first the blond-haired, blue-eyed man came out to dance as the jock. He wore baseball attire, but by the time he had made it into the audience, during his second song, he was caressing and teasing the ladies in a red thong and baseball cap. I watched the jock dance his way to where I sat. The closer he got the more restless and roused I grew, almost to an unbearable expectation of pleasure. I was alarmed at the effect he had on me, and remember scolding myself then. This guy isn't even my type! I was unsure if I should continue to stay there anymore, or how much more I could take.

The song ended suddenly, the crowd cheered wildly, and the jock left the area to make room for the Latino motorcycle cop. I breathed a sigh of relief, and then I laughed at myself. My eyes were brilliant and searching, my lips moist. I felt inexplicably unburdened. I decided to stay for another couple of dances.

Before I knew it, the jock returned to the stage, this time as a cowboy. He danced to a western song, which one I can't recall, but it was lively ditty and provided many opportunities for him to flex and bend and move in provocative ways for mutual admiration. He took off his clothes in clever ways during the first song, smiling and clearly enjoying his presentation to the hungry, hooting women. This time he stripped down to boots, a straw farm hat, and a tiny white thong that gave his tanned skin a creamy sheen. In the dark his blue eyes shone. He was the consummate all-American man, and nothing like my very tall, pale and dark-haired Viking lover Daniel. Perhaps that is why this dancer, on this night, had my undivided attention.

When the second song began for the cowboy's set he headed straight for me. Moving to the beat, the cowboy put his hand on my shoulder and as he leaned his mouth down to my ear his hand trailed down my arm to where my hand lay in my lap. The trail of touch left me tingling. In my ear, clear as glass, the cowboy said "You're stunning. Let me dance for you."

He pulled back from my ear and brushed his smooth cheek on mine, his lips a mere nod away from my lips, and lingered there for an extended, mesmerizing beat. The cowboy straddled me then, and put my hand on his chest, so I could touch his soft, golden skin while he pulsated and gleamed in my lap. Through my thin shirt I felt his erection pressing against me to the beat of the music.

The sexual tension inside me threatened to manifest the kind of uncontrollable emotions that would lead me to believe at that moment, honestly and completely, that [dying is fine] as long as it feels good. I tried to resist squeezing and relaxing my sex and my inner thighs to coax a climax. I clawed for clear-headedness, and reminded myself of the silliness the situation, of losing control just because I was in extremely close proximity of a gyrating, aroused man.

The cowboy raised himself, slowly sliding the smooth skin on his chest against my trembling lips as he extended his long, chiseled legs. Standing tall, moving in a sensual rhythm and still straddling me, the cowboy again paused for second – for another intoxicating beat – so that I could enjoy the sight of his slightly thrusting pelvis. His white thong, now damp from perspiration and obvious excitement, left no doubt about it: He was ready to party.

Suddenly the music died and the applause became alive again. The cowboy had spent the entire song gyrating against me.

"I'd love to spend more time with you." He was again bent over me, whispering in my ear. The cowboy hustler's hardness hung between us.

"I have a boyfriend," I blurted out. What else was I going to say? The cowboy smelled wonderful. I smelled him on my face.

"This is all perfectly innocent, Ma'am," he said with an exaggerated drawl.

"I'm sorry..." I shrugged. I was very, very sorry.

The cowboy removed his hat, bowed, and kissed me on the hand. I raced to my car without saying goodbye to my friends.

On the way home from The Viewpoint I cried with acute frustration and helplessness. I was bloated from the constant anxiety of arousal which burdened my pulse, but it was the sexual defeat which brought on a whole new low of dark, carnal misery. Daniel and I hadn't had been intimate together since my return from Denmark. When we did manage to connect online, we no longer used the web cam, because looking at each other was too painful. Inside I was vibrating with unhappiness for every second that my cutting retort to Daniel's email continued to go unanswered.

Once I got home, I retreated to the strategy of embedding hidden messages of my true state into my correspondences to Daniel.

Subject: Goodies 4 U

Lover,

Life is hard for me right now, but I'm staying tough. We'll talk when you can, I look forward to it.

For now, here is music and words I know you'll love:

• [Reset ] by MuteMath (soothing ambient instrumental)
• [Memory] by Steven King (the short story his next novel Duma Key is based on)

Keep me close to your heart,

Your Girl

The days went on, and my lover and I continued to struggle. My rebutal went unanswered. Some days were made both more terrible and more exquisite by a random text from Daniel. They were either heartbreaking ("I had to stop carrying your [rock] because I handled it so much it turned black") or erotic ("I watched your video again. It has a whole new meaning now that I know what you taste like").

On some days I would get rational and think I don't regret the things I said – they are the truth. If Daniel can't deal with it then I'll continue without him. I'll follow my bliss alone. Despite everything, I still believed in bliss that had brought us together in the first place. But the bliss had been cut off and I needed to find it again. If not with Daniel, then by myself. For myself. But every day that passed without answers to my questions felt like another day’s worth of having my resolve shat upon by the deteriorating toxins of a million starlings. Each day I fell apart a little more.

I had to do something to save myself.

Me: Talk to me?
Daniel: At work late and have an extremely busy day, have to see 2 friends, my sister, and help my son with an assignment. Prepare for tomorrow and entertainment for a party on Thursday. Are you ok?
Me: We are not okay. Please stop pretending things haven’t changed.
Daniel: Yes we need to talk things are… difficult. My bad I’m sure.
Me: What does "my bad I’m sure" mean? Difficult means the separation right?

There was no response for 20 or so minutes. I grew tired of waiting.

Me: It's 2am. I’m going to bed. But if I’m important, if you and I matter, don't leave this unresolved for long. Hope you kick today's ass as I know you can. Smooch.

The next morning, after another sleepless night, I found the [brutally honest email from Daniel ] that I feared the most waiting for me. It was December 19th, Pops birthday.

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.

[Memories In A Life] by [Water & Bodies]

Since the time I last saw her, bloated and icteric and slumped in the passenger seat of an ancient Astro van, Ruthie's name and presence had become synonymous with the taste of dread. From the moment when her lashing husband steered the van – which sagged with the weight of our dead father's motorcycle, Ruthie's belongings and my unrealized regret – around the corner, out of my seething sight, I became impervious to any further involvement in schemes to help or hurt her into submission. By that time, any option seemed like a futile crusade. It was a guaranteed heartbreak. Years of being Ruthie's big sister had taught me that.

I never told Daniel anything about my sister, not even her name. My Danish lover only knew of her existence, and that I had cut ties. I never spoke to him of having witnessed, up-close and personal, the indiscriminate catastrophes that personal demons can leave in their wake. Daniel didn't know about my refusal to participate in Ruthie's suffering; only by turning my back on her dying and on her deceptions could I shore up the strength needed to love him – in spite of his demons and the distance between us – believing in his future goodness. Years of loving Ruthie had taught me that, too.

Ruthie consumed life in excess. She was forever seeking more. She was deceptively competitive, with a [hopeless case] of wanderlust. Continually morphing, Ruthie's shadowed personality was so transparent and complex that any expression of genuine self-awareness from her could never be trusted. It was a tragedy that these heartbreaking moments of fleeting-accountability had to exist at all – these moments when her bright eyes like mine, eyes that could [move you] to tears, pooled with a deep understanding of the situation at hand. But soon she was back to the abuse, at her own hand or at the hands of others, back to the sensual seductions and hard trickery.

In our youth, Pops had custody of both me and Ruthie, but it wasn't often that she lived in our house. Ruthie spent her childhood days predominantly on the streets of downtown Portland, trading sex for food, shelter and hard drugs – or in delinquent prison and group homes buried deep in the woods.

When Ruthie was a young girl she would run away, often. Her last full year in public school was the

Like so many [Portland street kids], she spent her days squatting on the brick sections between the columns on the Yamhill Street side of [Pioneer Square], smoking cigarettes and hustling. Her homeless friends were tough and violent, and she kept the fact that she had a home a secret from them. She would sleep in doorways, in hotel rooms, at the end of dank hallways in sleazy apartment buildings, in the basement of someone's house – wherever she slept, it was never truly safe. Perhaps that was part of the attraction to her, the challenge of finding safety where there was none.

A regular place for her was a concrete room accessible via the parking garage under a hotel across the street from [Waterfront Park]. The space was a large rectangle, perhaps 250 square feet total, full of large rolls of damp, molding carpet and retired lobby furniture. The light was minimal, casting a strange, brown haze that did nothing to disguise the coils of human shit in one corner of the room. Ruthie had a small area in the back where she’d stash her things and sleep when she couldn't find someone to take her in for the night.

"I keep a toothbrush here, see?"

It was wrapped in a plastic bag, with toothpaste, a couple of short plastic straws, some tampons, and a small bottle of imitation [Elizabeth Taylor's Passion]. I saw crossword puzzle books and a ballpoint pen. I noticed that she had begun to tattoo a spiderweb on the skin between the thumb and index finger of her left hand with a needle and ink from the pen.

I also had a plastic bag. Inside my bag were royal blue sweatpants with the word "GENERALS" in white letters down the leg. I had just bought them at the [Grant High School] student store before meeting Ruthie downtown to wander the streets with her. I wanted to spend all my money beforehand, so I could be truthful when she inevitably asked if I had any to give.

"Do you want these, Ruthie? To keep you warm at night? You can hide them here."

I looked around the room for a place to stash the bag. The smell and claustrophobia was beginning to overwhelm me.

Ruthie laughed at me.

"Why the fuck would I want to wear those ugly things?" Ruthie shook her head. "No thanks. I'm doing fine on my own. You should worry about those zits of yours."

My mistake was being too obvious in my attempt to help her. It suggested that I might be better than her, when in Ruthie's mind her dismal existence was a better deal than living at home with me and Pops. On the street she could be deviant, be the lustful narcissist of her dreams. She preferred the underbelly of existence and ridiculed my silly high school experience.

But when Ruthie was caught dealing meth, the setting for our conversations changed. They became awkward chats with a forcibly sober Ruthie in a noisy common room with walls adorned with mantras and reminders. My weekends and some of my weeknights were suddenly filled up with resentment as I sat through hour after hour of family therapy. I was required to commit to my part in bringing Ruthie, rehabilitated and fragile, back into my home.

As was true when she lived on the street, Ruthie’s life in juvenile detention was very different from mine. I went to public school and worried about being too tall, having problematic skin, and not having a boyfriend. Ruthie's days were made up of GED classes and frequent 12-step meetings – along with hours of free time for reading true life crime novels and making new friends. She flaunted her enormous breasts, her curves, and her pretty, freckled face. Even though shelter and food were not an issue in lock-up, Ruthie was screwing plenty. Boys and girls. She liked to fuck.

After a three-year stretch full of commutes to [Hillcrest] for uneasy visits and painful family meetings, Ruthie was released, and she moved in with Pops and me. She was 18, with hair a natural dark chocolate again – not coal black, lice-infested, and ratted out, but shiny, curly and shoulder-length. Despite her hard lifestyle, Ruthie's adolescent skin had always been flawless; when she re-entered society as an adult her face was plump and dewy and translucent, thanks to our mother's Dutch skin and her months of detox. She looked like a brand new Ruthie, a smart, beautiful girl with everything she needed to make a life for herself. It went downhill from there.

Having Ruthie in the house, full-time, was difficult from the start. She found a job and a boyfriend almost immediately. She got a car and car insurance. Then came the rum and cokes, the weed, and the cocaine. We began to battle with words and premeditated violations of personal space. We criticized each other mercilessly. It was during this time that I met my son's father, and Ruthie had plenty to say about my audacity to caution her about life when I clearly was in my own abusive relationship. Pops stayed out of the tussle between his girls as much as possible. I stubbornly resisted Ruthie's attempts to manipulate me for reasons that were sometimes beyond my comprehension; perhaps her only reason was to exercise her lure and agility of control.

Our arguments became a pathetic routine. It was always me complaining about Ruthie's manipulations and pranks and her non-existent self-control, and Ruthie bemoaning my interference in her life and my refusal to accept her demons. Also, I was a prude and stuck-up and my life was boring.

"It's not just your life!" I'd hiss. "What you do affects me...and Pops. And mom! We're a family. Don't pull your shit and act like we're over-reacting when some asshole punches you in the face to get out of paying for his blow job."

Ruthie had gotten restless and started inviting strange men at bars to join her in the back seat of her dark brown Buick Skylark, and more than once she had ended up in the emergency room at the end of the trick. It was impossible to hide her swollen eyes and the butterfly bandage on her split lip from her long-time, good-for-her boyfriend, and so he left her. She began dating her Johns, promising them she'd stop having sex for money. But she didn't stop, and there was often violence when they found out.

"I can't change who I am, Shell. I'm doing the best I can."

Ruthie's "best" wasn't good enough. Her efforts, to me, seemed more like folly, like smoke and mirrors, like a con. Who in their right mind would want to return to a life in which a bacterial jungle of carpet and chairs under a waterfront hotel would be an alternative to coming home and sleeping in your own bed behind a locked door? But, once her juvenile delinquent status was revoked, she felt no obligation to stay away from the destruction she craved, the darkness that filled her up. She felt no obligation to sustain the plump-faced, dewy-skinned, healthy girl she’d become for only a brief moment in time. Instead, Ruthie became a barely-functioning drunk, and her life became a series of completely disastrous couplings and bridges spectacularly torched, full of dangerous enthusiasm for pleasure and hard jail time, utter helplessness and sucker-punched cruelty.

During the weeks following my first fateful trip to Denmark, I knew what kind of shape Ruthie was in. She was staying with my mother, where she [lay down] her infected body with its junkie’s disease – having been abandoned, once again, by the most recent of her brutalizing men, her husband Mark. I had also abandoned her, because I could no longer endure her cyclical descents into ruin, smeared with false moments of real hope. Instead I chose to embrace the demons of my lover, offering my experience of specialized empathy to someone else’s darkness.

But that also wasn’t an easy thing to do.

Daniel and I were beginning to argue a lot about communication, about being connected, and about space. I wanted emails; they were leisurely for me. I could write one over the course of several days, and they didn't require an immediate response. Sprinkle them with a text or two and I was sure to be happy. Daniel preferred the full technology experience: video, voice, file sharing. But he never had time for that. He was too busy teaching his students, taking care of his kids, and building the international film career that would someday make it possible for us to be together again.

At work I had stopped telling Lily anything related to Daniel – or to myself. I stopped going over to her house. Lily took my silence in stride, knowing my trust in her had been toppled and that I was enveloped in a slow-boiling panic about Daniel. Everyone who knew me could sense the shift in my attitude since my return. I had slowly become a shaking, starving shell of my former self, far thinner than I had ever been before. Lily watched me from arms-length. She wisely accepted my avoidance and took a light-hearted approach, expressing her concern by sending both me and Daniel a song via email:

Subject line: Dance you two!

[I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.mp3]

I developed a system of silent support, letting Daniel take the lead in our communications. He wasn't logging into the instant messenger in the mornings anymore, and he hadn't yet responded to the intense emails which I’d sent (and quickly regretted having sent). When he did check in with me, from the set, from the bus, from bed before falling asleep, I replied in my most supportive, loving voice. Funnily, in a conscientious effort to give Daniel all the space he wanted, I tended to reply with less words than him, as if to say "What you give me is more than enough."

But everything I did seemed to be a misstep. Before going to Denmark, I’d had all the confidence in the world. I believed that my lover's unconditional affection would be more than enough to squelch any nagging problems that stood in the way of our bliss. I could be myself with Daniel. I could let my insecurities seep into him, without fear of him leaving me. But now that was all I could think about. I could feel it happening, feel his tiredness at being pulled in so many directions at once, feel his struggling to accommodate my wish for him to digitally re-create our real-life closeness. I was hard-pressed to believe that Daniel still found me as irresistible as he had in the beginning of our [love long distance] – now that the insurmountable weight of our geographical albatross had been crushing us both for weeks.

To complicate matters, an old character had suddenly reappeared: an obsessive girl from Daniel's past, who I called “Monkey Sex”, had started communicating with Daniel again. He was worried about her, saying that she’d been acting erratically, and she wouldn't fully confide in him about what was going on. We argued via text messages about her manipulations. I wholeheartedly believed that I knew a thing or two about girls like her. My sister was an extreme variation of such a girl.

But in the same way that he’d ignored my earlier concerns about Lily’s precarious situation, Daniel now dismissed my warnings about Monkey's motivations. He even went on to chastise me for needing constant reassurance of his love. I retorted that keeping in touch was critical for our relationship. If we had been together in the same room during that particular argument, I imagine that I'd have thrown things at Daniel's head, or beaten his chest with my fists in frustration.

After a few hours, I calmed down and caught him online.

Me: listen, something you said this morning is not sitting right with me
Daniel: what
Me: is there a connection between monkey's messages to you and you saying I need reassurance?
Daniel: short answer - no
Me: did I do something you suspect set her off?
Daniel: of course not - she's just weird and I thought I'd just share with you.
Me: okay, and I digress...
I need ATTENTION
not reassurance
Daniel: are you ok?
Me: tired with a smathering of coffee jitters
and freshly cut bangs
yes, and relieved to have the movie research done
it was depressing
Daniel: yeah I know - I appreciate it
Me: hell, wasnt saying that to complain
I love picking thru data
about Monkey
Daniel: what about her
Me: about any girl
you can talk to me you know
boys...well, they have a lot to learn about girls like that, all girls really

Here, I took a chance, a [leap of faith]. I was well aware of Daniel's past, and his temptations. If our relationship was expected to survive, I needed to know the truth about his sexual frustrations. We had not had sex since I returned, and my asking for time for this brought more fighting. I missed him, and the smell of him in my skin was turning to an unfamiliar musk that I disliked. And I knew Daniel was playing the “lover” role in at least one of his current acting projects. With scores of women wanting to have him, especially now that his new movie role was thrusting him back into memories of that old life of his, of womanizing, Daniel was struggling. I knew it, because he was my love. And I knew he had some sort of hold over this girl – had charmed, and continued to charm, many girls.

Daniel: like that?
Me: "weird" ones
my point?
Daniel: gimme
Me: I know more than you think I do about the things you don't say
about the way you don't behave anymore.
And the kind of relationship we're having is the kind where I can hear about that stuff,
when you're ready. Just like I have stuff to tell you someday
knowing you won't hit the hills when I tell ya.
Understand?
Daniel: what is it you think you know?
or I don't know you know
Me: Oh jesus
I can read between the lines
Case in point, that text you got on the boat
from your ex-girlfriend's sister
Daniel: yes
Me: I knew, just from the way you were acting
that it was from a girl in your past
and it freaked you out
Daniel: cause she's a bitch and I'll have nothing to do with her - sent me back to unpleasantries and I didn't like that.
About Monkey
Me: yesssssssssssssssssss darling?
Daniel: She's just a kid and I'm worried about her - she turned to me for guidance and comfort, and now perhaps she's moving on - I don't agree that this is just another scheme.
She's not a psychopath and wouldn't do anything to hurt me.
Me: she wants to be your girlfriend doesn't she?
Daniel: she'd hurt herself tho - yes she does and I told her no.
and she respects that
Me: I never thot she'd hurt you
I do think she'd hurt herself to get your attention
Daniel: manipulate me then
she's like that - very abrupt. She also does things she's not thot through
she started counceling on my telling her. She's made progress and then now suddenly there's a backlash.
Listen I'm just ... you know, wondering what all that was about - I'm sure I'll hear from her again - she's driven by impulses. I care about her a lot and have done good for her - even though she likes to see us together at some point - which I have no interest in.
Me: I know you're worried babe
shes just trying to protect her heart by making some space
a good, clear-headed thing to do when faced with unrequieted love
Daniel: I'm sure you partly right, but other things have happened too.
Baby, the kids and I have a x-mas market to go to now.
Me: and I'm off to bed
Daniel: thank you for being mine
Me: I'm yours for as long as you'll have me darling, have merry fun
Daniel: and thanks for the awesome movie research
sleep tight baby
Me: i will, goodnight
Daniel: night

It was another conversation that left me trembling and emancipated at the end. A couple of days later [Daniel responded to my regrettable email with a clandestine warning].

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.

[Bleeding Hearts] by [Soft Reeds]

In Portland, life stirs ferociously lush in the Spring. Vibrant textures and colors erupt and retract in violent, unstable bursts of natural variables. The weather changes constantly. The climate can go from humidly sunny to perpendicular rainstorms to impaling hail storms to slicing, tree-toppling winds – all in the space of a day (or less).

And there is rain, so much rain, but it works as a necessary trigger for the spectacular metamorphosis of Spring in [Portland]. Those of us who claim to be "natives" have learned to detect the subtle nuances in the infinite variations of rainfall here in the Pacific Northwest. There are rain showers illuminated by brilliant sunbeams; raindrops fat, loud and sparse; a bright mist, almost glowing, clinging to hair, evergreen trees, and moods; and stinging peltings. If you [can't stand the rain] you will not like Portland in springtime.

And that's too bad, because a glorious Spring sun can also play in the sky. Today, for instance. It's nearly 75 degrees. I've flung open the French doors to my home's sunshiny patio and made excellent use of the cushiony outdoor furniture for the first time this year, enjoying a few pages and a nap in the shade. The fragrance from my beds of Lily of the Valley fills the blue, cloudless sky – and my senses. But I know this is springtime in Portland. A storm-bearing darkness is just as likely, at any second, as this summertime weather in the Spring.

I know terrible rains roll in quickly and silently, and I'm prepared to dash for safety. But right now I am enjoying the gift of an unlikely sunshiny day.

Me: Sorry, I'm not done with research. I will prbly have it done tonight. =)

I had begun in earnest to assemble the research and contacts necessary to satisfy the requirements of the organization that would fund the production of the movie Daniel and Søren were writing with the hope of [filming in Oregon].

Daniel: no worries, prb don't have time to delve into it before later this week
Me: oh good
Daniel: how are you darling
Me: tired but pretty. you?
Daniel: pretty but tired
Me: lol
Thanks for talking to Lily
Daniel: I'm extremely hung up
I feel like work is all I ever have time for - I'm behind on almost everything
Me: Won't be like that forever. You feel overwhelmed?
I want to say thank you for staring at Lily.
Thats *my* forte, feeling overwhelmed.
Daniel: staring at Lily
yes some say it's staring
you know its not
but I'm glad I got through to her
Me: I know
But he's gone, Rod is gone.
Last night he was escorted to the [greyhound bus depot]
Daniel: really? tell me all about it
Me: dude, youre terribly busy arent you?
Daniel: yes but this is important - love is involved - tell me please sweetness
I'll send you my new favorite Radiohead song
Me: I got a text from her last night
"ready to buy that ticket"
and she and a friend named marcus came over
to discuss the plan
Daniel sends [Radiohead - Nude].MP3
Me: she was flirty and had been drinking for a while, liquid courage I guess. I went over the facts of bus travel
and we caravaned back to her place. At the last minute Ryan decided to go, for
the theraputic benefit of it I suspect.
Daniel: yes I'd say
Me: Ryan and I went over to Lily's place. Rod opened the back door
we all filed into the kitchen
then Lily said "no other way to say this but we're sending you back to colorado tonight"
Daniel: jesus
Me: Rod nodded and immediatly started getting his shit together. we knew he'd have more than the allowed baggage
but I decided I wasn't going to pay the extra money to ship it all with him at once.
You have successfully received C:\My Received Files\Radiohead - Nude.MP3 from Daniel
so after he'd gotten everything together marcus explained he could only take 2 bags
and we'd ship the rest once he got back and emailed an address.
Rod tried to go talk to Lily's oldest before we left
which so enraged Lily I thought her eyeballs would pop out.
Rod didnt look at me or Ryan except for in confusion when we first came in the back door
Ryan enjoyed staring at him the whole time.
We left Lily at home with her kids (it's almost 10pm by then) and we caravan over to the bus station.
Daniel sends [Radiohead - All I Need].MP3
Me: on the way to the bus Rod stopped being so quiet and demanded (from marcus, who was driving and following me and ryan in my car)
what I had said to Lily and what Lily and what we had all discussed.
marcus said "I dont know buddy".
Daniel: ha
asshole
Me: marcus was very calm and cool and kept calling rod "buddy" and "pal" in such a way that it was hard to tell how condescending it really was.
I mean, Who calls a 30 year old "pal" and isn't trying to make a damned point?
Daniel: 'I just know you're getting on that bus'
'buddy'
fantastic
I'm so happy
Me: Yeah? it gets better
Daniel: really?
tell me
Me: we get to the station and rod clams up again.
I go up to the counter and buy him a ticket. was so easy, no one
gave a shit that rod was obviously nervous about it, pacing and eyes darting,
and here I was very friendly and paying for his one-way ticket.
the place stunk like piss.
Daniel: hahahaha
Me: There was trouble with one of his bags, it didnt close all the way
so we made him tape everything down and I
handed him his ticket.
Daniel: this is a fucked up story
jesus
getting transported like that by people who don't want you
harsh and right in your face
FUCK OFF - you're not wanted
only in America
Me: he went into the area that outgoing travelors sit, at the far end,
and marcus and ryan and I stayed outside the
glass wall but inside the building.
for the next hour rod walked in and out of the building, opening and closing the automatic doors,
and every single time marcus walked out casually behind him.
we were afraid he'd take off.
You have successfully received C:\My Received Files\Radiohead - All I Need.MP3 from Daniel.
Daniel: LOL
Me: security noticed this and raised an eyebrow at marcus
who quietly explained the reason we were there
and that rod absolutely needed to get on the bus when it came
Daniel: I'm laughing my ass off here
Me: they winked and promised that would happen
Daniel: hehe
Me: so about 10 minutes later there's an intercom message
from security
Daniel: yes?
Daniel is inviting you to start viewing webcam. Do you want to Accept (Alt+C) or Decline (Alt+D) the invitation?
You have accepted the invitation to start viewing webcam.
Me: "all unaccompanied bags are subject to search. all passengers must stay with their bags at all time"
so no more in and out of the building for rod, who wanted to avoid a bag search
hi handsome
I've missed that gorgeous face of yours something terrible
Daniel: serves him right
asshole motherfucking dipshit
hi baby
Me: about 20 minutes before the bus left ryan and I went home.
i was very tired and marcus was very capable
Daniel: great
Me: you're so nice to look at
Daniel: thanks
BABY
Me: lover
Daniel: just me
wanna see some pictures from the set?
Me: YES

Several photos from the farmhouse in Billund where Daniel had spent the weekend began to arrive – photos of Daniel with three female cast members sitting on the grayed sun-stripped porch, all of them bundled up in winter coats, huddled together under warm sleeping bags. There were photos from a Saturday night of dancing and drinking, where the cast "went to the only place in Billund you can go to at night to have a good time." Daniel is wearing the green and white sweater which I first saw him in as he waited for me under the skylight in the Copenhagen airport – a brooding Eros.

Me: good lord you're handsome
Daniel: flattery
Me: truth
what's that you're drinking? on the table?
Daniel: here's one of the other actresses and me
I'm having beer
nah, it's a Remy Martin
Me: I love seeing this!
took out the earrings, I see
Daniel: yes
still haven't put them back in
here are all the girls
Me: so it looks very cold
Daniel: it was freezing - but no-one got sick.
Here's Pernille - who I know and got into the movie
Me: good boy
Daniel: I'm never sick
Me: riiigggghhhht
And those three days in a row you didn't fuck me
had nothing to do with the raging sinus headache
from too much smoking
Daniel: hahaha
Me: I'm still mad about that
missed chances to make sweet love to you
but these photos almost make it up to me! they're great!
thanks so much for sharing them with me, honey
Daniel: sure
I need you to see them
see what I'm doing

An idea nestled into the fertile ground of my imagination. I heard a click as my mind connected this statement of Daniel's – that he needed me to see the photos – with the message he'd recently sent to me the moment he was back in texting range after his shoot. There was a sense of him needing to do the right thing. He was struggling.

Me: I needed to see them, as well
to feel close to you
Daniel: def
Me: my little story was good, hm?
Daniel: YES
BRILLIANT
ME LOVES U
Me: awwwww
I love youuuuuuuuu
Daniel: I KNOOOOW
Me: yeah??
lemme tell you again
Daniel: sure
please
gimme
Me: I love Daniel - an incredible lover, writer, and actor - the man who loves me like I've always wanted
to be loved
Daniel: THAT'S ME
cute girl you are
my girl...
Me: did you sleep well last night?
Daniel: like a babe
Me: without ME???
Daniel: sure, when I'm beat I sleep like a dead man
Me: I'll allow it
I guess
Daniel: thanx
appreciate it
Me: I'm a giver
when Im not being a taker
Daniel: me too - coincidence
Me: don't think so...
Daniel: me either
Me: but what is it if not a coincidence?
answer that smart boy!
LOL
Daniel: I guess we'll have to date
Me: nah, lets just fuck
Daniel: sure
I'll fuck you
Me: oh good. lets get it onnnnn
Daniel: problem
Me: oh?
Daniel: 5000 miles
Me: FUCK
I have to go to a meeting now
Daniel: sure I'll just work again
Me: keep me close, love you sweetheart
Daniel: you're here
Me: thanks again for the photos and tunes. I love it
when you share your life with me. Please talk to me again soon.
Daniel: night babe

My Viking lover was again my [Internet Warrior]. Online he could give and receive love freely, accept my passionate, consuming love unconditionally, just as he had when I first fell in love with him. "I show my love by listening to my loved ones," he'd said to me once, "really paying attention to their needs and wants, and being there for them. No matter what."

At this point I had been home (after my first trip to Denmark) for just a couple of weeks, enduring days of an ominous, presaging heartache. Daniel had been offline for part of the time, drastically reducing our channels of communication when the amputation between us still felt fresh and the wound still warm. And when we did "talk," we'd fought – again – about Lily. An argument where I practically begged Daniel to understand how I could dare be angry with her.

I had sent an Epic Email to Daniel at the end of my trip – a 979 word Manifesto of Love and Devotion to the Future with Daniel – which had gone unanswered. And a week later, in the midst of the anniversary of Pops' death, I'd sent Daniel a regrettably pissy email, followed by another regretful email (an attempt at damage control) – both of which were still unacknowledged by Daniel. All this yearning, all the jumbled transmissions from one separated lover to another, all those words with multiple meanings and hidden messages, hung darkly over us like the threat of a fast-moving, devastating storm.

I found myself losing weight again, lost in lethargy, and critically sleep-deprived. A rise in the chemicals that produce panic pooled in my belly and made eating unsavory. I was getting most of my nutrition from glasses of lemon and gin, drinking every night – a big change in my lifestyle which had begun in Denmark with [akvavit] and schnapps and beer for lunch and Jack Daniel's on the rocks for dessert. The buzz from intoxicants somehow made leaving Daniel behind and made returning the role of mother and sole breadwinner palatable.

The inheritance death-money which had mysteriously come at just the right time to get me to Denmark had been spent. Many bills had been paid off, and I'd replaced my elderly milk-chocolate-brown free-to-me couch with a stylish black leather couch from Ikea. I'd also managed to send Ryan to some classes (on programming and creating art for online games) to help him with the career he was pursuing. But now I found myself struggling once again to live off of the wages from my low-level video production job at a law firm and $53 a week of child support. I was sputtering again, and secretly beginning to ridicule my grand plan to pin the hopes of our love's endurance on professional success. How could I, an unknown writer and single mother from Portland, Oregon – with no literary connections – fulfill my part of the plan?

One Friday morning before work, after another tremulous, twisted night's sleep, I found Daniel online and waiting for me.

Me: Hi honey
Daniel: hey babe - and goodmorning - just came home from getting the kids
wanna see them?
turn on your webcam
Me: Yes!

An icy surge of adrenaline-like nuerochemicals jolted through me. The children, Clive and Ana, suddenly filled the video box on my screen. There, waving at me, was small and emotional Ana with her almost-white hair, the girl who'd let me hold her hand on our way to a picnic lunch at [www.vilhelmsborg.dk]. And there was Clive, trying desperately to control the open-mouthed grin exploding on his face, his freckled nose in a crinkle. He was wearing the [Pendleton] cap which I'd given to him. My eyes filled with tears, my heart with longing.

I pulled Ryan, who was getting ready for school, into the web-camera's view, so he could say hello to the kids and answer Daniel's questions. "Are you turning in your homework?" "Staying out of trouble?" "Playing any new games?" Ryan wiggled away and finished getting ready. Clive and Ana also drifted away to watch television in the background behind Daniel, there in his apartment – our apartment – where strands of my hair lay, ground into the rug, and where my smell still lingered in the nightie which I'd left behind.

My face was wet with tears. I knew the webcam couldn't show them, so I ignored the drops as they fell onto my laptop's keyboard. Daniel lit a stick of the incense which I'd brought him, [Nag Champa].

"This reminds me of you," he said. "Of you being here. I need to find a place to buy it locally. I'm almost out."

Daniel's speakers were on, and his kids could hear everything. The conversation was benign, domestic. I wanted vows of adoration and eternal fidelity. I wanted to hear Daniel's sounds in my ear, hear the breaths between sentences, hear his faintly English accent, hear the inhale of cigarette smoke into lungs. I wanted my man to profess that his love for me protected him from temptation, that the strength and endurance of his love could withstand our arduous journey towards bliss.

"Can you put on your headphones," I said, "and kill the speakers?"

I watched Daniel suck in his sloping lower lip, and I was instantly reminded of the first time I'd seen him do it -- breathing in his lip and hesitating, wavering against my request. That had been just 30 minutes after our first kiss under the Copenhagen airport skylight, as we headed by train for our hotel. Daniel was sitting across from me, and I'd asked him to sit by my side. And he paused, with a little grimace, drawing his lip into his mouth, before consenting.

A screaming shattered the shocked silence inside my head. What does it mean when you do that? I'm losing you...yes, I am. [I can see it in your face].

My face, like digital glass, betrayed my hurt and confusion on Daniel's computer screen. Daniel put on his headphones and turned off his computer's speakers.

"You are more beautiful now than I have ever seen you," he said.

I threw my head back and laughed, spontaneously, incredulously.

"I'm not just saying that, Shelley. You're so beautiful...you're glowing." Daniel looked ruined with sadness and pain, as if loving me hurt him.

I looked at my face in my own video screen. The yellow morning sunlight had flooded the living room where I was sitting on the couch, my laptop on the coffee table with the webcam tripod behind it. The illumination outlined my dark hair with a soft glow and contoured my prominent cheekbones. My eyes had turned light with diamond-kissed irises. Tragedy became me.

"It's because I love you so much, honey."

Daniel bristled and looked like he might suddenly flee, or cry. Instead he crumbled into submission to the words forming between his lips.

"I love you," he shouted.

Ana turned, startled. She looked at her father sitting at his desk, and then at the video on the computer screen. Looking into the webcam she smiled broadly. She understood these English words perfectly.

This moment marked the first – and last – time that Daniel said the words, actually spoke the words, before I did. In Denmark, once, he had said it in the dark bedroom, but only in response to an "I love you" from me as he crawled over me to his side of the bed. Every other time our love had been expressed via technology, perhaps both of us too shy to say it in person. With the lights on, so to speak. Yes, saying it face-to-face had always been a challenge, for both of us, but the reasons was not due to a lack of love. Perhaps, in fact, there was too much of it.

Daniel shouting those words like he did, when he did, was a [heartstopper]. It was as if he'd been forced to admit, finally accept, that he was in a relationship with a girl who lived 5,000 miles and nine hours removed from him. We both sat there a few moments, surely both of us wet-faced at that point, still pretending that our relationship and our promise of a shared bliss wasn't the single most difficult, most impossible feat in the world.

That night, after a day of distracting, unfulfilled work which failed to damper the fumes of looming [trouble], an email arrived from my mother to further darken my spirits – an update on my dying sister, Ruthie. I had to force myself to read it. I had to make myself accept the residual guilt and sadness that would be left on my hands, like Lady Macbeth's damned spots. Over time I had allowed myself to believe in a sick duality which condemned Ruthie for her character flaws, for her continuing to love those who abused her, while insisting that my own missteps in love and life – and the missteps of my Danish lover – were caused by circumstances beyond our control.

Mom was short and sweet about it.

Subject line: Ruthie

Beloved Eldest,

Mark brought Ruthie up from Vegas and left her here, in my care. She's been in the hospital for a month. She was drunk and yellow when she arrived, and now is pink-ish again! She comes home tonight.

I love you fiercely,

Mom

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.

[When I'm Small] by [Phantogram]

The evidence suggests that it was the week immediately following my return to Portland, after my two monumental weeks with Daniel in Denmark, when [the end] of our love affair began. The distance between us was now, more than ever, a catastrophic burden for our partnership. Yes, we had already begun to plot out ways to reunite – the next time in Portland – with the eager belief that love conquers all; but such hypothetical scenarios couldn't overcome the visceral suffering separation would inflict on me when I returned home.

I could still smell Daniel in my skin for days after my return; shower steam could not lift his scent from the places inside me that he had touched. Simply allowing myself to think about being with him physically would trigger ripples of goosebumps on the places where he'd brushed his fingers and his lips. I was very much enchanted and in love with the Danish man.

In my dreams each night, a vivid, private show of sensual memory-recall would bring back the taste of his tongue and the softness of his stolen, ghostly touches. These dreams were not pleasurable; they only aroused the sense of my painful state. Sometimes, between our dreamed kisses, Daniel would suddenly leave me with a cold word or gesture. In the morning I would wake up faithless and empty – and with substantial messes in the "real world" needing to be faced.

Like the large, charred spot – about 3 feet in diameter – in my backyard beside the porch, where Rod (who was supposedly "looking after" my son and my house in my absence) had used lighter fluid to set a fire. Ryan's sweater now had a burn-hole in the sleeve from a wayward ember. There were several soot smudges on the ceiling in the living room, and a tall wooden chest of drawers which had belonged to my father now had a charcoal top corner. And Rod had left his mark in other ways too. Every lavender towel I owned was bleach-splattered. All the surfaces in my kitchen were coated in a film of stir-fry smoke. The motherboard in my dead father's computer fried when Rod  installed incompatible memory. The edge of my new stove was chipped.

Rod had also kept Ryan's cell phone with him most of the time, using it to call people in Colorado. But what disturbed me most was the money that he stole. He took my son's two-dollar-bill collection, totaling twelve dollars. One of the bills had been inscribed with a "Happy Birthday" note from Ryan's grandmother – his father's mother. When I learned of this I confronted Lily immediately.

"Now I know why Rod asked me to loan him some two-dollar-bills today," she said. "I'm so sorry!"

"Seriously!" I said, "What kind of person steals money from a child? A freeloading asshole, that's who. How about someone who steals from a child, and then doesn't even try to hide it?"

"I'm trying to get him to use this time for rehab and reintegration into the working class, not a freeloading opportunity."

"He's a psychopath," I said, "and you're putting your home, your life, and your children's lives in jeopardy." I pulled no punches. I was afraid.

Further intensifying the ache during that first week home, Daniel's Internet connection was down. "I must have forgotten a payment," he said. The Internet connection wouldn't be restored for another week. This left texting as our sole means of communication, forcing us to cloak our sorrow in double entendre messages of 160 characters or less. Worse still, by the week's end Daniel would be completely off the grid on a farm outside [Billund], shooting the first scenes of his new film debut as leading man. It would be a long weekend, with no texting and no email for three full days. His Internet connection would be restored by the time he returned.

I was also torn up about Lily. We had been having ridiculous arguments about Rod since my return. He was now living with her and her three kids, two of whom depended on state medical coverage for crucial medications – coverage eligibility which Rod's presence in the household could jeopardize. Lily would yell, cajole, and finger-wag, but her mothering, trusting nature wouldn't let her officially kicking Rod out of the house straightaway. I saw a disastrous, nuclear shit-storm on the horizon, with Rod at its center. Lily held out hope for some kind of reconditioning.

All of these disastrous problems worked their way into my mind, churning up new questions, doubts, and anxieties. Why had I left Ryan unprotected with Rod, relying solely on Lily's recommendation, in order to spend two blissful weeks away with another man who Lily had enthusiastically introduced me to? Now that I had actually traveled the distance between my lover and my bed, what was the true cost of the promises we'd made? And to make matters worse, Daniel began to throw himself more and more into his preparations for his impending film-shoot, returning my texts only after increasingly long delays. Not wanting to intrude, I kept my own messages as short, sweet, and infrequent as possible. But it wasn't easy. I felt fissures forming.

And that's when I received an email from my grandmother inviting me to join her for Thanksgiving dinner. I felt my heart splinter. Thanksgiving. When it rains it pours.

My father had stopped breathing in his sleep on a Thanksgiving morning three years earlier. And with each Thanksgiving that followed, my memories of the time leading up to his death would inevitably come flooding back. He'd had severe [sleep apnea], and I knew his life was threatened by it, but he couldn't afford the expensive medical apparatus which would keep his windpipe open while he slept. And no private or government insurance program would offer him the financial assistance he needed.

I could see the toll which his disrupted sleep took on him – how irritable, groggy, and forgetful he was becoming, making more and more careless mistakes at his job, He fell asleep behind the wheel more than once. And I remember begging him to borrow money from his mother – a former real estate agent and restaurant owner who now owned and lived in a lucrative four-story stone house in the [Lloyd District]. His response was exasperating.

"I've already asked her. She 'doesn't have the funds'..."

We both knew it wasn't true. My grandmother could afford to help.

But she didn't, and now the Thanksgiving holiday has become a grim anniversary, bringing with it, year after year, the unbearable image of my Pops gasping for his last breaths. And as the week following my return from Denmark worked its way towards another Thanksgiving, thoughts about my father and my grandmother mingled with my anxieties over Rod and Daniel in my dreams. My nights were brutal, my emotional state crumbling.

On the night before Thanksgiving, I dreamed surreal dreams in which I sat across from my grandmother at her kitchen table, plates of food and incrimination steaming between us. I wanted to confront her with my father's death, forcing her to admit that she'd denied him the means to stay alive. I would do it maliciously – brutal enough to strip her bare of excuses, covering her with a [bruise] the shape of redemption. I wanted to deprive her of the same breaths she'd deprived her son of. And when I woke up that Thanksgiving morning – on the third anniversary of my Pops' death – I was so exhausted and shaken that my body refused to sit up, sloshing the adrenaline-laced acids which boiled inside my gut.

I was desperate to reach out to the one person who I knew could understand my sadness, wanting so badly to hear the rumble of my partner's voice telling me that everything would be fine. Just hearing the breath from my lover's mouth would make all the difference! But Daniel's Internet was still down, and he was leaving for his shoot the following day. Still lying prone and queasy, I grabbed my cell phone from the small table beside my bed and sent a text Daniel: "I'm sad."

I spent the next few hours morphing between an inconsolable mess in my room and an apron-wearing mother cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. Mine was Scandinavian-influenced meal, with crispy spiral-cut ham and caramelized small white potatoes. I was also making a from-scratch pumpkin pie. But I fooled no one. Ryan caught on immediately, avoiding me and my misery until the food was ready, then eating quickly in thick silence. I couldn't take bites of food small enough without  gagging.

Everything hurt – my mind, body, and spirit. I could not escape the darkness of my mood; it seeped into everything. I sent Daniel another text, about six hours after the first one. "It's the anniversary of my father's death. I'm so sad." I began to hate, in earnest, the [system] of communications our relationship had to rely on. Email, text messaging, postal mail, the web cam – all of it was a dismal failure now that I'd experienced the real thing. In my bottomless grief I lost all sense of allegiance to technology, to the intricate nature of love, to the belief that Daniel could be true to his promise to do whatever it took to bring us together again.

At about midnight, Danish time, I sent an email to Daniel, knowing that I was sending it, for now, into a void – Daniel wouldn't be able to read the message until he'd returned from his shoot in a few days. If the curt subject line of "You are not too busy" wasn't bitchy enough, the message's body made me all out cunty: "Didn't we already fucking go over this?"

Like an ironic, formula plot twist in a TV show, a text from Daniel appeared within minutes. "Sorry I've been away. I'm super busy, but I'm here now, baby. Talk to me"

Just seeing these words set loose a watershed of sobs. My fatalistic heart could see no end to the waves of challenges to overcome. "I'm so sad! I miss my dad, I miss you, I miss DK. I miss us together."

And then I followed that message with another one, in rapid succession.

"Maybe we can't sustain this medium. It's so hard to be separated." I was [clutching at straws], hoping to solicit kindness and understanding from my very busy, very Viking boyfriend.

"We can endure. I have faith. We have a plan," Daniel texted back. It was exactly what I needed to hear. How did he always know?

We exchanged several messages for a long time. I confessed my struggles with piercing sadness, and my worries about Lily. Daniel comforted me, just as hoped he would, assuring me of his love in long narratives which came through in chunks of 3 or 4 messages.

When he finally retired for the night I began to labor on another email, subject line: "You're a wise mo' fo'". This email was an obvious, desperate attempt to recant the pissed-off subject-heading I'd emailed Daniel earlier. It's an uncomfortable narrative of [excuses]. In it blame my emotional sensitivities, my menstrual period, and the stress of my life. I do not mention my grandmother – Daniel never heard of the reasons behind my refusal to see or talk to her anymore. The ass-kissing email embarrasses me when I read it today, but at the time I had to write it. I ended it with:

"...Of course, this whole email is for me, not you; you don't need to hear any of this because you love me no matter what. But you understand why I had to write it. I love you, honey.

Your Number One Fan,
<3 Shell"

Three days later a 6:30am text message from Daniel woke me up. "Filming is done. I'm on the bus, already half-way home. I miss you so much!" I had never received a text from Daniel so early in the morning. I stayed under the covers for another hour, then propped myself up against my pillows, sipping water as I waited for my laptop to boot up. I loaded the instant message application. And Daniel was already there, connected, waiting for me.

Me: Hello my lover
Daniel: hey babe
hey lovely
hi beautiful
Me: =) betcha have a bunch of email and stuff to sort thru right now, hm?
Daniel: yes tell me about it
damn
and heavy eyes are pondering closure
Me: well I'm just working on the laptop. ah. so no chatting today?
Daniel: have a bunch to do - prepare for tomorrow and write emails - just got a tip about a commercial for a real estate agence running for 2 years - 100.000 kr
but we can chat for a while
love
though I'm in a weird mood
Me: sounds like youre really busy
Daniel: nah
priorities straight
you first
sweetheart
Me: tell me about your mood?
Daniel: weird mood, worked a whole weekend as another person, hard to. and now I'm just beat and tired and shit, cause resurfacing is hard.
Me: Damn you know I understand that disoriented feeling
Sending belly rubs...
Daniel: thank you babe
got me smokes and a glass of red - chillin
before WORK
BOB SAGET!!
Me: being an actor isn't easy, if you're a good one who's sincere in doing his best (YOU). I hope your insides become your own again very soon. You feel good about your work, you deserve to take it easy before you move on to that other 'work' you have to do to pay the pills.
and by take it easy I of course mean wine, cigs and your loving Shell
Daniel: of course, you already know the way I work, and becoming another is difficult, but with this character I've many things in common
or at least had many things in common - not very nice things
hard to get rid of again
Me: revisiting that 'dark place' is a theme I know well.
*holding your hand*
David: yeah, need to get my act together - heehee. How're things over there?
Me: Very good, the same, very different!
Hahaha
Had brunch with Becca and hubbie on Saturday
Saw my filmmaker friend who confirmed he'd be honored to work with you
Daniel: really?
Me: Oh hells yeah!
He and I go waaaaaay back and is a brilliant storyteller. Its a done deal.
Daniel: Søren insists on seeing some of his work...
Me: Sure, what does he want to see?
David: just some clips I think, what's he done, you know
Me: Okay
I'll make it happen
Daniel: great - you're MY girl
you make things happen
I love that
Me: Certainly helpful to have a girl like me in your life, only when I'm not a big ol' pile of steaming emotional dog poo.
That's when I can't make things happen and need your support.
And poof there it is.
Daniel: I'm here for you
You are loved darling
Me: =)
I'll be sending you my story research tonight prbly
Daniel: fantastic - looking forward to it babe. I'm done with the synopsis. Now I need to review it and maybe put in some ekstra thrills
Me: some heart-thumping moments!
later today is lunch and a museum and more pie baking
I've made a pumpkin pie from scratch, and by that I mean I baked a pumpkin and made the crust and everything
Daniel: what of Ryan's grades?

I remember happiness spread throughout me when Daniel asked about Ryan's grades. The question spotlighted our partnership, our closeness, our intimate familiarity. Ryan and Daniel were friends, and free to communicate on their own. Letting a relationship exist between them was proof of my trust in my own relationship with Daniel.

Me: ah the grades...
firstly this is an alternative school he's attending and there arent grades, just below expectations, meets expectations, exceeds expectations
Daniel: ok
Me: but if he did he'd be getting Fs and Ds across the board.
what burns me the most is that often he does the work and the doesnt turn it in! WTF?
And again he said he'd try
So its been really difficult to be nice to him sometimes
Daniel: some people just aren't made for schoolwork - they become carpenters, masons or whatever - manual work you know - but this sounds like he's just being a lazy fuck (pardon me, no insult intended) and he needs to know - really NEEDS to know what'll become of him if he doesn't get it together. He can't spend his life in front of the pc and just expect things to come to him.
Do you want me to talk to him or something? Think he'll respect me less afterwards? I realise this isn't up to me, but if there's anything I can do...you know
Me: He IS a lazy fuck. Of course you may talk to him, my goodness yes. Respect you less? Can't be less than he respects me or himself. You are very sweet to offer, I appreciate it.
Daniel: sure
I will
when I get a chance
Me: of course....speaking of children....I got the most perfect book (in English) for your baby girl
for christmas
called [Walter the Farting Dog]
Daniel: awwww
great - you really shouldn't have
Me: wtf?
Daniel: haha
Me: you will need to make all the right fart noises when you read it to her
Daniel: hahahahaaaa
love it already
Me: does Clive wear hoodies?
Daniel: YES
he looooooves hoodies
that and hats - are his fav things
Me: perfect! I'm getting him an [Enjoy St. Johns] one
You know, from my neighborhood St. Johns
Daniel: he'll love it
Me: I'm getting you....NOT TELLING
Daniel: pretty please
Me: hells no
Daniel: fuk
Me: didja think I would sucka?
Daniel: nah
I have a couple of idea for yours
Me: which I demand you tell me about
right NOW
Daniel: whaddya think - nr. 1 or 2
Me: numbers 1 AND 2
Daniel: hehhe
right
Me: I deserve it alllllll
Daniel: you do toooo
Me: How do you look today? What are you wearing?
Daniel: jeans, white shirt and Armani sweater
Me: which sweater is that?
Daniel: moved down my beard
green one
Me: ah, how does one move his beard??
Daniel: mowed
sorry
my bad
Me: yer nekkid again?
Daniel: nope
stubbles
Me: so manly you are. i was thinking your beard would make my face red but it was so lovely to touch
Daniel: not very soft I think
coarse
Me: nah, suprisingly not for my sensitive skin. I love touching your face, looking at it is wonderful too. But what's inside you is the most beautiful part of all.
Daniel: thank you sweetpea - likewise
Me: kisses baby
Daniel: thats what matters
Me: bonus that you make me very wet
Daniel: ha
yes I do
And you stay wet
Me: that's new I think for me
helpful in accommodating your large cock
and tight to keep you inside
Daniel: right you are
sweetr
Me: snookums
Daniel: Oh my God I'm reading the new Michael Crichton - fucking awesome Shell
NEXT
you remind me of a man
Me: er, thats KINDA close to the man-on-man action I dream about...
Daniel: you're supposed to say what man
you remind me of a man
Me: what motherfucking man?
Daniel: the man of power
Me: what motherfucking man of power?
Daniel: no - what power
the man of power
Me: what motherfucking power?
Daniel: the power of hoodoo
Me: what motherfucking hoodoo (I'm gonna regret this I know it)
Daniel: just hoodoo
the power of hoodoo
Me: what hoodoo????
Daniel: just hoodoo
the power of hoodoo
Me: hoodoo?
Daniel: you do
Me: ha
Daniel: (do What)
Me: do what?
Daniel: remind me of a man
(what man)
the man of power
(what power)
the power of hoodoo
Me: hoodoo?
Daniel: you do
Me: do what?
Daniel: remind me of a man
Me: what man?
Daniel: hahahahaaaa
the man of power
hehehe
Me: what power?
Daniel: and so forth
Me: and so on
Daniel: point is - this is an african grey parrot genemodified that can talk - and talks and talks
the book is brilliant darling - have you red more of State of Fear?
Me: yep, almost half way
Daniel: great - and?

What I really thought: "I find Michael Crichton's [State of Fear] to be a formulated doomsday drama with a confusing muddle of typical characters, none of which I cared about, who interacted with each other in various, exotic, well-described locales – including Århus, of all places. I'd rather read the existentialists O'Connor, Kundera, or [Auster]. And Anaïs. Always Anaïs Nin, who's lyrical understanding of the feminine need to love completely in the moment." But instead, to placate my man, I said:

Me: I greatly respect those who can write stories this complex and still keep engagement
Daniel: YES
Me: makes my promise to you daunting
Daniel: hehehe
what?
Me: to write my story in a years time
it's part of our master plan, remember?
Daniel: oh, yes
please do
it's exciting isn't it?
Me: it is. and brutal too, death sells doesnt it?
Daniel: definitely
and intrigue
and mystery
and eroticism
Me: well I know I can write eroticism, not sure about intrigue and mystery.
Daniel: sure you can baby
Me: my life story is full of things like what it feels like to eat things you grow yourself
or live through horrible heartaches.
You know, life.
Daniel: yeah
Me: Lily just called, she's coming by to get the rest of Rod's shit
Daniel: what's the story baby glory
Me: I forget what ive told you already
Daniel: nothing really.
Me: yes im sure I did
Where I am now with her is complete irritation with her complaining about the crap he's done to her since living in her house.
She tells me about their fights and how he talks shit about me, and her defending remarks...and I'm finding out more details of what he did while living here. Makes me angry with her for knowing about some of it and not telling me. Yes, I'm in Denmark with you, but at least she could have confided in Becca. He set a fire in my yard!
Daniel: I'm sure Lily wouldn't do this on purpose
Me: do what on purpose? she trusts too much
I dont trust her judgment in people
she thinks this guy can be 'rehabilitated'

Five minutes passed as Daniel typed – and retyped – a reply. The blood cursing through me turned ice and increased mass and flow. I craved alcohol to brace myself. Was he checking his email? Would he bring it up? Or, were we about to argue about Lily...again?

Daniel: she's a good person Shell, and she means no harm. Her judgment of people can hardly make you angry with her. this Rod character is far out, and she knows it - it's out of a good heart she wants to help him - whether or not she will succeed is besides the point. Rod is an asshole, but I think all people can be helped in some way or another. Let your anger blaze against him for the things he's done. she can't be held responsible for the things he's done.
Be mad at her for not telling you about the things he's done yes, but if you think about it - she's invited him there to get another life in good faith.
Her judgment of people is off yes - or at least her judgment of him
Me: It's that my opinion of her judgment, trusting in it, is fractured.
Who she says is a good person isn't a gold seal of approval anymore.
I know people can change. I have changed, you have changed. People change, yes!
But this is different.
Daniel: 'Who she says is a good person isn't a gold seal of approval anymore' - from one incident or have there been others?
Me: What I'm saying is that I gave you access to me based on her approval rating. I would never have been so open with a total stranger if she hadn't.
I've been blindly assuming her opinions are stellar because I love her so much, but now I see that we are very different in who we give access to.
Daniel: she was wrong about him
nobody could have predicted he'd be so irresponsible
or a thief
and a liar
people like that have a name - psychopaths
and they never show before you see them
Me: Okay, but there HAVE been other incidences
she did the same thing with Jess

When the man Lily had loved and followed to Portland from Texas by way of Corvallis, Oregon, left her it shocked everyone but me. I had warned Lily. This woman who Jess left her for worked in the same office as we did. I had watched this woman lure men from the comforts of home, consume them, and then toss them back into the reality of their situation. The strength of the man's character was irrelevant. But Lily took my caution as hyperbole, believing instead that even whores deserved her friendship and understanding.

Eventually the workplace "friend" set her sights on Jess, the father figure to Lily's children, and soon the new couple moved far away, taking with them half of Lily's household income and leaving hearts and a family in ruins.

Daniel: course she did
and regretted it
look at it from her perspective - she'll learn from this
I WAS LIKE JESS
dammit
Me: Honey, I know
Daniel: so
cut her some slack
Me: What I'm trying to say is that she and I have different systems of how much we get to know someone, and what qualifies as "knowing someone." She's much more trusting than I, and I need to remember to take her approval and trust of someone with a grain of salt in the future.
Daniel: sure
I feel really sorry for Lily baby, that's the truth. I feel you're right about your allegations (or whatever) and support you of course.
L's been through a lot and having a storm inside you can really compromise your judgment. She's made a bad choice and she has to deal with it. I agree.
But still I really feel that she's the one being screwed here again.
You're the medium through which she's being screwed. Know what I mean?
You were being used for personal benefits - and that's bad enough in itself - and you have the right to be steaming about that.
but please, don't let it out on L
sorry to be so defensive about her
you know I love you
and agree with you
I'm behind you
I got your 6
Me: My 6 what?
Daniel: jetfighter language
your back
I got you covered sweetness
Me: lol
Listen baby
Daniel: yes
I'm all ears
Me: I love her deeply, but I'm afraid.
she has decided to keep this person in her life and decline my offer to ship him back to Colorado...more than once. I have cried at her, begging her to get rid of him because I am afraid of what he is capable of, and in the meantime he's still watching her kids.
he's resenting it a lot.
She doesn't get my freak out, and for that I am angry with her judgment about him and her complaining about the things he does in her house when I've offered to solve the problem is frustrating!
She describes these screaming matches they have, the things he says. This guy can't even maintain eye contact while he's telling her that I'm a liar, that Lily's not what she claimed to be, that he has rights (??)
and he wants to know what she's doing when she goes out.
Daniel: God
Me: Rod has crawled into bed with her at night, ignored her when told to get off her laptop, has rearranged her stuff...etc. I really am scared for her.
I've said this before, and you've poo-pooed it. No one is taking me seriously.
He offered her prescription drug-medicated daughter over the counter drugs for fuck's sake! He's squandering food, leaving messes, and interfering with her personal life.
But these angry fights I'm having to listen to, to be supportive and loving friend that I continue to be, are making me frustrated and pissed.
Daniel: Jesus!
Me: It's like she can't recognize what a dangerous person he is because she's too busy being supportive of his "new chance at life"
Fuck
Daniel: I have to talk to her
Me: You should
Please!
I don't know what else to say
Daniel: think she'll listen to me?
Me: I hope so.
do you understand why I am so angry now?
Daniel: yes babe
she's scared
Me: yes, but wont admit it
Daniel: course not
Me: I just realized something
In the last week I've used you for a sadness punching bag, you've agreed to talk to my kid, and try your luck getting Lily to see what's really happening...
Daniel: yes?
Me: Isnt there something I can help you with? Do you wanna talk about something thats bothering you? Can I please make your life a bit easier?
Maybe I should just let you go so you can get to work?
Daniel: I'd rather do this than work - you know how it is baby. You're doing plenty - I've learned over the years that I'm an accommodating guy. Usually I think my own problems are too trivial to mention, and I build them up inside and ignore them until I have the energy to deal with them - unlike you. I'm alright at the moment - just need to focus on getting back to the new Daniel.
Me: do you find that these problems you're not dealing with get unnecessarily huge in the meantime?
Daniel: nah
really they're jokes
selfinflicted jokes
Me: you and I are so different and so similar.
makes for an interesting life ahead of us, hm?
Daniel: yes - I like to think so
Me: I can get bored, but I don't think that's possible with you =)
Daniel: Are you calling me not boring?
Me: thats right, I am infinitely interested in who you are, and who I am in love with you. Just watching what I do and feel is entertaining of sorts
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
youre just gonna have to take my kisses and hugs
Daniel: just got me a cheese and chicken sandwich - and a lot of hugs and kisses
Me: eggselent!
hey, you missing a pair of undies?
black hugo boss?
Daniel: hehehe
you have them?
Me: yep, sorry. were in the bag of dirty clothes I brought home. shall I send them back with the xmas gifts next month?
Daniel: sure, that'd be fine - thief
Me: purely accidental I SWEAR =)
Hey! I'm almost outta remoulade
Daniel: jesus that's not good - and the boy want's more [chokolate wafers]
Me: howd you know that? yes he does. I knew he'd love em
did he IM you?
Daniel: yes and wrote me a message on [deviantArt]
Me: oh GOOD LORD
Daniel: sounds delicious
do you want more remoulade?
Me: YES!!
thank you
Daniel: sure babe
now I think work is in order
Me: okay dokay
was nice to chat with you again, babe. I missed you tons!
Daniel: yes - always makes the day
Me: would like to hear your voice and see your face.
can we do that really soon?
Daniel: yes definitely
lets schedule soon, huh?
Me: yes, dont be an IM stranger lover!
Ease into the comfort of familiarity, snuggle with my nightie.
Give me kisses, please...
Daniel: SMOOOCH
kiss kiss kiss
Me: Youre a GREAT bf, have a fine, peaceful night.
And leave your demons in the past where they belong.
SMOOCH
Daniel: can't promise that babe - I need them to remind me

Never miss a segment by subscribing to this story by [web feed] or [email]. If you enjoy The Miracle in July, please consider making a [donation] to help the author follow her bliss.

The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.

Oh these three months
I've been inside the house
My pacing has worn
All of the carpet out

[November Was White, December Was Gray] by [Say Hi]

I had only meant to temporarily abandon the excavation of my digital love story. I had every intention of returning to Denmark – and to the shoebox hidden in the upstairs closet of my rented fortress there, shaded by twin trees stained with the shit of starlings – but instead I came home to Portland and slept for three months.

I had made what was supposed to be a brief trip home in good faith. I wanted to celebrate Christmas with my loved ones, to see my friend Jake marry his true love, and to make some needed appearances at the office. Laughing visitors loved to frequent the walk up the wide, concrete steps of my Old PDX-style home under the bridge to get their taste of my homemade scones served with fancy tea. I had been gone for months. I was missed. And I had work to do.

I took the echoing stairs up to my downtown office and embraced my work. I piled into a van with my staff to scout locations or attend off-site meetings for the movie The Miracle in July. Every day was [a good day]. But at every available moment I would find my head on my pillow and sleep in my bed with curtains drawn tight. I slept as though I were shaking an illness that had settled into my bones and which only rest could cure. And before long, one full month had gone by.

Film production began in earnest, and it ate up more hours. Birthday parties were planned for the future, and then suddenly it was time to unfurl the paper garland. Two months passed. Pay periods came and went, the cherry blossom and allergy season began, and now somehow month three has come and gone.

It was a recent a Sunday night, and I’m in the main hallway of the [Powell's Books] Blue Room. That’s where I happen upon a friend of mine, a Danish novelist who has at least one of his own published books on a shelf on one of the mammoth rows of this huge bookstore. I haven’t seen him for a long time, and he looks remarkably unchanged. He is wearing a long black wool coat, an orange sweater, and one of those white-fringed neck-scarves worn by many of the European-influenced. His blond hair could use a trim.

"Tell me how your career is," he says. I am reminded again how different his English accent differs from what I've heard from other Danes. It has a Portuguese tinge. He almost sounds Italian.

"Also, how are you?" he laughs, throwing his head back and arching his back to let his diaphragm expel a hearty "HA-HA!".

We chat superficially amongst the rows of books for a few minutes, then find ourselves at home at a small table in the bookstore’s coffee shop. I feel a compulsion to confess what I've been up to for the past few months, since my return from Copenhagen, and I tell him why I went there in the first place.

“I realized that this intensely emotional affair was becoming diluted under my own hand as I whored out dramatized versions of it over the years in different highly-fictionalized forms. So I decided to go to Copenhagen with a shoebox full of tangible artifacts from the relationship (hard naked truths which I hadn’t let myself look at for years), and even though Denmark was frigid, I called it my home. I submerged myself in my past so that I could see the past as it really was – for the first and last time.”

My writer friend considers this for a moment, then asks: “And have you finished it?”

I wince at his question. The truth is I still feel emotionally and spiritually exhausted by my recent trip to Denmark. Examining the digital and physical minutia in my old shoebox, the skin and dust of love's corpse, has left me with no interest in pulling the heavy ropes for my story’s final [curtain call]. I'd been through it once before, and was dreading the inevitable mourning that would come at the conclusion of a relationship which has been so central to my life.

When I tell my friend this, he responds with a thoughtful smile. "Do you remember the first time I critiqued your work?"

I do. I was already a couple of years into what was becoming a lucrative professional writing career, and I had just begun my first novel – the earliest highly-fictionalized version of The Miracle in July. I had emailed the first few chapters to this prolific Danish author, who was living and teaching in Portland, and after a week he emailed me back to arrange an in-person discussion. We met at a [sidewalk cafe] table on Belmont Street on a melting hot day.

"First of all," he started, "the writing is very, very good. But I am surprised. I thought it would be funny! You are so funny, but the story is so...heartbreaking."

I sat stoically across from the novelist, carefully avoiding any skin contact with the heated metal table and chair.

"And something’s missing,” he said, “As if you’re circling around some kind of raw truth, or decorating its surface from too safe a distance.”

“The next chapter is more intense. It’s erotic.” For some reason I felt the need to explain this upfront.

“Hm…” he said, thinking to himself as I gazed hotly from behind dark sunglasses. I was beginning to cry, but I didn’t change my blank expression. I imagined my tears instantly evaporating in the heat.

"You have an unresolved relationship, yes?" he asked.

"Well," I quipped with a smile, "I'd say it's pretty well resolved, in that it's over."

"Many people have these kinds of relationships. I have had one as well. We authors often write about them. Sometimes great things come out of such writing – publishing success, even fame. But if you want any kind of substantial personal resolution, you have to really dig for it. For the rawest most naked truths.”

Now, years later, my Danish friend again sits across from me at a cafe table, and again I find myself considering what it is I need to do. But I realize that I don’t have to be in Denmark to do it. My work is here in Portland, along with the people I love.

I look steadily across the table at the novelist. “Yes. I’ll have the shoebox shipped back here from Denmark. It’s time to finish what I started.”

It was Lily, kids in tow, who picked me up from [SEATAC] after my first fateful trip to Denmark. The flight from Denmark had been agonizing – I could feel every microscopic tear in the space which was increasing between myself and Daniel.

"I saw Daniel last night...on the web cam. He was drunk," she said. "I've never seen him so sad."

I commandeered the steering wheel, and as I raced us all south from Seattle to Portland I couldn’t wait to get home, where I could finally log into the instant messenger, talk to Daniel, and quiet the fear and confusion which had surged up during our final moments together.

How similar this seemed to my trip to Hug Point with Becca only a few weeks earlier. That had been the first temporary severing of digital communication between myself and Daniel – lasting for three days – right after Daniel had first said, “I’m in love with you.” But that had been early, seemingly very early, in our relationship, and either of us could have taken advantage of the space and begged off altogether, to be [free] from the hurt of being apart.

But this time the separation felt different. I was unsettled by Daniel's good bye, the fact that he’d chosen to wait until I was alone on a charter bus bound for the Billund airport before saying those three words – not with tender lips brushing my ear – but via text message. And I had realized by now that our grandiose lover's language and our unconditional promises on-line had fueled unfettered assumptions that had ultimately crashed and burned once I’d taken my place, in person, in Daniel’s Danish life.

How different people could be offline versus online! And though I’d wholeheartedly fallen in love with the man online, it wasn’t until I’d held Daniel in my arms – felt his sleeping breaths against my breast and his beard tickling my inner thighs – that my love for him became a far more saturating, precarious, and unbearably bittersweet love.

A rude shift of reality reared into these thoughts as Lily, in the passenger seat beside me, began to confess to me that Rod, the man who'd been living in my spare bedroom (in return for cleaning, cooking, and keeping an eye on Ryan) had been running the household into the ground in my absence. Lily described the bonfire which Rod had recently built in my backyard – under a large [Box Elder maple tree] very close to my wooden deck – in order to entertain four children under the age of 13 who were in his care, one of whom was my son. He had burned not only paper, magazines, and the dog’s flammable chew toys, but also the edge of Ryan’s sweater, and Lily’s son’s lower lip.

"I didn't want to worry you! I had everything under control," Lily said, "up until the end."

I was mad, but I tried to understand Lily's position. Still, I had to insist that she find someplace else for the nomadic Rod, starting that night. I gave her no choice in the matter beyond how she would go about asking him to leave.

We reached my house just before 9pm. I checked in with Ryan, who seemed displeased in general and pissed off at Rod in particular. I told him, quietly, that Rod was leaving the house tonight. Then I returned to the living room, where Lily was explaining to Rod that she needed him to baby-sit her kids that night at her place, and that he should bring whatever he needed for a couple of days. Rod looked bewildered, but he started to gather up some of his things.

I turned on my laptop and logged into the instant messenger. And there was Daniel, logging on at exactly the same moment in Denmark. It was 6am there, still dark, and he was getting ready to catch the hour-long bus ride to the school where he taught.

Daniel: I miss you, honey.
So much. I have your rock in my pocket but it's not the same.
Me: Oh, sweetheart.
I miss you too!
Daniel: My flat is empty without you.
Thank you for the nightie you left behind for me.
I noticed it as soon as I got home from meeting with Søren.
Me: You should try it on. I bet you'd look lovely!
Daniel: It smells like you.
And I want it to stay that way!
I got your epic email. Beautiful words, baby. I'll return the favor soon.

I had started writing the “epic email” well before leaving Daniel’s flat in Århus, but by the time I sent it (from the Copenhagen airport, while waiting for my home-bound plane to arrive), many of its tones and colors had changed. When I read it now, I’m almost asphyxiated by the flowery nomenclature so typical of our love letters. But this slice of communication reveals things I had forgotten about my trip to Denmark – like the way Daniel shivered the first time we made love – and I’m still surprised by my bold choice of words.

SUBJECT: Epic Email

My darling,

Can I just state the obvious first and get it over with? Now that I've held you, touched you, tasted you, felt your breath on my skin, enjoyed your climax inside me, I am even more sure that you are the love of my life. Being with you these two short weeks has been one of the best things I've ever experienced. All of it was just as it should have been, even things that might have derailed a couple not as secure in love as we are – how I got upset at dinner, the text message that made you so angry, the many times I boinked you on the head with the [umbrella] and stepped on your pretty Italian shoes, or when I got moody or you got blunt...it was all just as I wanted it. I wouldn't change a thing. It's not that I learned more about you (although I did), but I am so pleased by the ease of just being us, together, and how well that translated from us, apart.

I have so many memories of the trip, and here are some favorites: meeting your cherubs and your parents, how handsome you are – and how unaffected you seem by it, our picnic and walk on the trails, your strength holding me as we walked the cobblestone roads in the rain in Copenhagen, the way you shivered after we first made love, how nice it was to be in the same room with you while doing our own thing, you quietly challenging my beliefs about unluckiness (how I have wanted a partner to encourage me to see things differently and then allow me the chance to work things out on my own), snuggling on the sofa watching movies and eating junk, and of course the incredible connection we have during sex. How beautiful you make me feel as I’m giving myself to you.  [Read the rest of the email...]

On the morning after my first full day back in Portland, I awoke around 11am and found Daniel logged into the chat messenger, waiting for me to log on as well. He wanted to use the web cam. I was sleep-tousled but desperate to see him animated in the little chat video window. When I saw him I cried a little. He was drinking Jack on the rocks. It was nighttime in Denmark, and the hygge glow filled the living room – without me. Behind Daniel's head I could see the couch where we last made love. I knew Daniel couldn't see the tears brought on by [the sight of love] and I didn't call attention to them by wiping them away.

"[Godmorgen]. You look beautiful, Shelley," he said. His eyes were dark as he traced the shape of my face in the video window.

"Good morning to you! Shall I take off my tank top?" I asked coyly, letting my long dark hair fall over one eye.

Daniel smiled broadly, a sunshine face, but the smile vanished with the sound of his cell phone ringing. It was Søren, Daniel's filmmaking partner.

"....hold on, Shelley – will tell you all about it – have to hear this."

Daniel, expressionless, rocked in his chair – the chair where he’d held me for one last time before my departure – as he listened to Søren's voice.

"I hear a lot of 'uh-huh'," I said. "And now 'yeah yeah, yeah'."

Daniel pressed his long index finger against his lips. I stared at his mouth, wanting to be his finger.

Finally Daniel put down his cell phone.

"After we parted at the bus I had to meet with Søren. I complained about you leaving and he suggested we come up with an idea to secure funding to shoot a film in Oregon. We'd take advantage of the scenery and the filmmaking bonuses your state offers." I had pitched Oregon as a good place to film while having drinks with Søren and Daniel at [The Hollywood Cafe] in Århus, where I had spent most of my two weeks. Oregon has the a lush woods, hot desert, ocean coastline, and volcanic mountains – as well as a generous tax incentive.

Søren had called Daniel with an idea on how to make that happen. He'd dreamt up a horror story involving the mysterious deaths of elderly people at a convalescent facility located deep in the green, dark Pacific Northwest forest. He described the facility – it was eerily similar to the facility in the dream I had had while still living with Daniel. It was, as he described it to me that day, exactly like the place in the dream in which a laughing, tap-dancing Daniel gets himself carried off by the police.

Daniel asked me if I would help them with the project by doing research for the script and finding local filmmaking talent. There were other things required on the [Danish Arts Agency] application, things that I could help with. Things that only I could help with.

"I've gotta go," Daniel said. "I'm shooting a scene in a student film and then I'm off to my parents for dinner."

I smiled stupidly, brilliantly.

Daniel's dark eyes emitted a flash of light. "Goodnight," he said, and severed the connection.

When will it go
the raging silence
I hang on
I'll find my way
I'll be gone

A dense, early morning harbor fog the color of chimney smoke consumed [Copenhagen] and prevented me from taking last looks at my favorite places on my way out of the city. Visibility is poor, with only a few feet in any direction discernible, so I used the glowing street signs, the sounds of the sea, and the city's excellent transportation system to guided me to the airport. I arrived way too early but no worse for the wear. My little house is locked tight – with the shoe box of clues to the rise and fall of epic love hidden away on a closet shelf – and the starlings outside are already gone for the winter, taking their opinions about my scientific research into the ultimate human experience away with them.

On the train to the airport, I dreamed of impressing the house guests that would soon be arriving at my [Portland] home, and their expression upon seeing the [ris á l'amande] that I would have chilling in my fridge, its dark cherry topping warming on the stove – once I've made it back to Portland.  Until I'm back in my home with my view of a foggy [St. Johns bridge], until I've shook my umbrella in the lobby of my downtown office and had my "Welcome Back" shot of gin with the staff, until I have again put my arms around those who love me, I will not be able to sleep.

I've checked in at the Copenhagen airport with hardly any baggage and extra time to imagine all the possible ways I could spend my hours in Portland. Instead I sit here, my mind back on Daniel. And at the moment, he feels closer to me than he's been in years.

There is a large movie poster in the waiting area, on the wall directly in front of me, over chairs bolted to the floor. It is a poster in Danish featuring a devilishly handsome man, bearded and dressed in black. He's pointing a gun at the sky with an expression of a man gone very bad. A blond woman clutches at him, her face terrified. It's Daniel's new movie, out on Christmas Day.

I am at a loss for words. I am transfixed and confused by the poster's presence. He looks wonderful, still, after all this time. Again I am reminded that life is a one-shot deal, a series of events with each moment absolutely unique. There is no such thing as coincidence. And now I sit here, already planning to use my time waiting to board my plane for home to write down my final hours in Denmark with Daniel. How appropriate – or is it disconcerting? I am floundering for the right words! – that he should join me while I try to remember the [last words] we whispered to each other in the dark.

Our post-lovemaking nap on the our last full day together had eaten up the daylight. Daniel called our nap "a grandpa" – which produced a giggle from me, making his mouth curve up slightly at the edges. We were still on the couch when we woke up – still unbuttoned, still wrapped in an embrace – and we had just enough time to make our pasta dinner and watch a movie with our fancy beer before it was time for a pre-arranged digital chat with my girls in Portland. The idea for this chat had been Daniel's.

On this final night, I made my promise to Daniel to write my life story. I filled the small kitchen with my babbled plans for us while I cut the vegetables and Daniel worked the noodles and stirred the sauce. When I returned to Portland, I said, our relationship would exist in incomplete dimensions again. But if we each continued to work on fulfilling our individual dreams, we could have it all, and we could have it together. I would take on authorship, and revel in writing scandalous things that people liked to read. Daniel would become a sought-after multi-talented actor. Success in our careers meant lifestyles which allowed for frequent traveling. We would be lonely for months, yes; missing the touches, smells, tastes we now enjoyed would be unbearable. But love isn't rational, and the love which had blossomed between two lovers existing 9,000 spatial miles apart was made for extraordinary circumstances.

"We can make our physical time together longer, even permanent," I said. "We can do anything we set our minds to, Daniel."

"I know, baby," Daniel said quietly.

We ate our delicious dinner and drank our fizzing beer as we watched a gorgeous blond on television using acrobatics and round-house kicks to save her people. Then it was 11pm Danish time (8am Portland) – time for the international digital party to begin. For the first few minutes we jostled over some inevitable camera difficulties (Lily) and some inexperienced group-chat awkwardness (Becca). We couldn't see Becca, whose computer didn't have a web-camera, but she could see and hear us. She was ecstatic to see the lovers on her screen, talking to her from Denmark with candles flickering in the background. She filled her instant message responses to us with exclamation points and animated emoticons.

"I've decided to stay here," I joked with a glance to Daniel, hoping for a smile. None came, so I stole a kiss on his furred cheek.

Becca typed: "For a moment there I believed you. I had a dream where you decided to stay in Denmark. I woke up so sad!!!"

She followed this instant message with a series of animations to convey her displeasure: a wailing baby, a fog horn, a booing crowd.

It was Lily who concerned me. When our chat began the first thing I noticed was her ghostly face. Her eyes were half-closed from tiredness. It was Saturday morning in Portland, and there Lily was already gulping red wine from a glass goblet dangling between her feminine fingers. Her long red hair was coiled at the base of her neck, pierced into place by a yellow #2 pencil. We could see her but her microphone didn't work, so she had to type her responses back to us. She looked tiny and frail in the little video square on the computer screen, but also like anyone who said as much would be eviscerated with a cutting stare.

I knew that Lily – a part-time college student, and full-time employee and single mother – had probably already spent a few hours that morning studying for a test. This would be after having spent a few hours crying, and maybe a few hours before that tied up in [kinbaku ropes]. Lily was having a very hard time with the recent betrayal of her partner, a man who she'd followed across America to start a family with, and who'd abandoned her for a woman who'd called herself a friend. Now she had a new friend, one who specialized in Japanese bondage, to help her cope.

When she went out to play, her friend Rod would watch her kids. Rod was Lily's friend, a vagabond from Colorado, whom she had invited to Oregon for a chance to start over on the condition that he stay in my spare bedroom. He was in charge of my house and the supervision of my teenage son Ryan while I was away. Rod's laziness and sloppiness continued to vex Lily. Clues to this effect had slipped through the messages sent to me from both Lily and Ryan. Rod had began to complain about fulfilling his obligations to babysit and clean house in return for a free place to stay. And Ryan had not made things any easier – he was still making Lily late for work every morning by not being ready for school when she arrive to take him there.

When Becca signed off to go to work, the conversation turned to Lily's latest distraction. Daniel frowned when she held the red ropes up for us to see. This new activity of hers was a big change from the smoking at night and drinking in the morning, the vices which had immediately followed her heartbreak. Lily quipped that she was trying new things to get through her days, playing with pleasure to relieve the pressure of her life. Her lips and teeth were stained red with wine; she looked tragically beautiful. I began to feel grouchy.

The lateness of the night had settled into my broken finger. I wanted to take a shower and then fall into bed and make love, hold, kiss, and whisper sweet nothings to my Danish lover one last time. But Daniel wanted to keep talking to Lily. I see now that he wanted to keep our schedule full, right up until the last moment – it was his attempt to avoid tearful acknowledgment of my impending departure. It was a smart plan to sink into his stoicism and fill our dance-card up until the very end. But even if I had recognized what he was doing, I still would have growled about it; because of this strong-handed need of his to control the temperature dial between us.

Finally, after a few minutes of talk between Daniel and Lily (during which I sat there silently fuming), I excused myself and got into the shower. I cried as soon as the water began to flow, stood there drowning in tears and wondering what I'd been thinking when I'd made the decision to come to Denmark for this man. None of this is real, I thought. He's forcing intimacy because he can't bring himself to say he doesn't really want this – he doesn't want me.

My blood boiled in emotions. My mind churned over every possible fact and entertained any ridiculous hypotheses. And, always the martyr, I could not forgive myself for failing to either validate or erase my fears. All I had to do was simply ask my lover: [Who am I?] Are we a real family, or is this a fantasy which ends when I fly away from this island, from the Kingdom of Denmark, from you? If I asked him, his transparency would tell me everything. But I was afraid of the answer. I was a coward. I had only the questions to ask and not enough strength to endure the answers.

But questions I demanded of myself I could mull and chew on for hour after torturous hour. What made me feel a kinship with him? Daniel's badness: did I love him in spite of it, or because of it? Had I not fallen in love with Jake because he'd been too good for me? With words, with images and sounds, how had this man, how had Daniel conquered my discriminating heart?

My own evilness Daniel knew almost none of. He had made confessions about his own, and I'd learned more during my stay with him. But he hadn't learned of mine; he only knew that I had not been good in my past, because I said I had been. I said I had been bad, and that my badness made us alike. I gave Daniel no specifics, only assured him that I, too, had demons to endure.

I never told him that I understood his brush with the law as a youngster because I had been caught shoplifting at the [downtown Nordstroms ] after having gotten away with it hundreds of times before. I never confessed that I'd once been someone's mistress for a spell, or that once I had made a good friend end a relationship for me – on Valentine's Day – because I couldn't bear the thought of seeing the boy's heart break. I never admitted to Daniel that once, when I was very young and senseless, I pretended to be pregnant for a few weeks to punish a man (who I'd already grown tired of) for having left me. And Daniel certainly had no clue that as I was here in Denmark frolicking away with him in this [playground ] of his, on the other side of the world my sister Ruthie was inching through her days, infected and enslaved by her own bad habits. He didn't know that Ruthie was sick, or that I had refused to talk to her, had refused to watch her die.

In the tiny bathroom filled with steam I stood cold and shivering under the hot water in the curtain-less shower. Daniel had no shower curtain! My ire peaked again, but then laughter bubbled out instead, muffled by the falling water. For days – since learning that Daniel had not been completely honest about the end of his relationship with his previous girlfriend – I had been using Daniel's towel as my bathroom rug. After my showers I'd mop up the mess (which not having a shower curtain certainly makes) with his towel. More than once I stomped on it in a childish tantrum, and while hopping I relished the immaturity of my actions. By that final evening Daniel's towel smelled terrible.

I hung onto the shower-head and tried to calm down. You're doing this NOW? I chided myself. It's your last night with Daniel and you're pouting like an insecure child! Grow up!

I put on my little pink nightgown – the one I'd worn on my first night in [Århus]. On the morning after that first night, I'd stumbled into the main room to find Daniel checking his email and sipping his coffee, and he turned to look at my mussed hair and sleepy face with a smile, a real smile, for me. And I'd fallen into his arms so he could brush me with his kisses. But now, on my last night with Daniel, I was crawling wet-haired into a frigid bed, alone, too tired to sleep, still poisoned by anger.

Within minutes Daniel joined me in the bedroom. He climbed into bed – a bed which would soon no longer be mine – and he lay under the down comforter naked, on his side, facing away from me. He was waiting for my breasts to touch his back and my arms to hold him. I remained on my back, not touching him. I turned my head to stare at the softness of his black hair, the eclipsed shadow of his lean arm, the freckles scattered across his shoulders.

I tried not to move while I soaked in the smell of his flesh and the glow of his skin in the moonlight. Any movement from muscle or breath was counter-productive to my wish to deny him any evidence of my laying there next to him. I wished to conjure the premature experience of not having me there to comfort him at night. How different our last day together had begun compared to where it laid now, as Daniel continued to hold back his affection for me on our last night. His list of infractions against me was long, both real and imaginary. But I couldn't withstand touching him, not in our final hours. I had to touch him. I pulled him to me, roughly, and he melted against me as if he'd needed the feel of my beating heart in order to dream. I tried to sleep as well, but couldn't for more than a few minutes at a time. And my sleeplessness transmitted itself to Daniel.

"What's wrong?" he whispered.

I'm leaving in the morning! My lover behaves as if my love hurts him! I'm a coward!

"Nothing," I said. "Nothing is wrong. My back hurts." I pulled away and faced away from Daniel on my side.

Daniel crudely rubbed my back with thudding fingers for a few seconds. He was not good at it. Then he plunged his hands under and around my body, scratching my skin with his watch and the snaps on his leather cuff as he pulled me to him.

"Ow!" I whimpered.

"Did I hurt you?

"Your jewelry. You scratched me."

"Do you want me to take them off?" Daniel asked.

Take off your jewelry?! No! I want you to say you love me...and that you don't want me to leave you.

"Just hold me, baby."

We fell asleep for a few more minutes, but before long one of us was moving the blankets or uttering a sleepless sigh, waking the other up, followed by more wakeful sleeping, tossing and turning. This continued until the room began to lighten, darkening my anxiety. Nerves that had been idling high revved for release. I moved close to my lover's side and reached for his penis.

He was soft in my cool hand. I stroked the smooth skin of his cock, like a muscular snake with new skin. Daniel's snake shivered and flexed. My legs spread themselves wide, so I could pet myself as I pet him.

While I masturbated he grew hard in my hand, but soon he was soft again. I felt rejected, and began to use both hands on myself instead, turning my head away from him to hide the tears falling. I hoped he would pretend to be asleep to hide his non-arousal, but suddenly Daniel's fingers were pumping inside me and my nipple was between his teeth. I was utterly miserable, too miserable to orgasm, so I vocalized my usual moans to mask my failure. Daniel's hands and mouth fell away.

We slept for a few more minutes, and then the bed vibrated. Daniel's cell phone alarm chimed to announce that our time left together was less than two hours. I had to catch the bus to the airport.

What do I remember about that morning? I woke up with hair fluffy and curly. My lack of sleep and my secret crying had made my eyes unmistakeably puffy. I remember Daniel checking the bus schedule online, and I remember us sitting in his office chair, me sitting on his lap, together once more for a dangerously long time. Then I was taking one last look around the apartment as Daniel made two PB&J sandwiches for me, wrapping them in foil for my trip. I remember how I almost forgot to take the Christmas card which Ana had made for me, and I remembered that when I found it how Daniel's mother had presented it to me proudly, and passed along Ana's message with the card: "Tell Shelley I will miss her when she leaves."

I remember taking the bone and amber-colored stone from Daniel's bedroom and putting it in his hand, asking him to put it in his pocket. I gave him back his key. We hugged a lot. In the apartment, at the bus stop, on the bus. Touching, little kisses, kindness, all serenaded by a raging, deafening silence.

"I was afraid we'd be late," he said as we rode the city bus to the charter that would take me to the airport. "The bus is running late, which is why we caught it. I didn't want to say anything until we were safely on our way."

I said nothing, just squeezed his hand. By then I could say nothing without breaking down.

"Of course we could still miss the bus to the [Billund Airport]," he joked. Did he want me to?

I concentrated on the possibility that I'd miss the bus to the airport to keep my mind off the tears that had already started flowing. The tears embarrassed me. I was not strong, and I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to be [a world apart] again. If he had turned to me right then, like he had twice before, and looked at me with eyes the color of heavy significance to say "Please don't leave me here..." – I would have stayed a few more days. I would have figured out how to make that happen. But he didn't ask me again, and my ride to the airport was waiting for me.

The morning sky was gray and unfriendly as we rushed to the rumbling bus, already full of people and ready to take me to the small plane which would fly me to Copenhagen, to a bigger plane, which would carry me home. Take me from one home to another home.

On the sidewalk we faced each other one last time. The bus full of Danes watched us, waiting for me to board so that they could catch their flights. Daniel's hands cradled my face and his lips touched mine in soft successions. I kept my eyes open. I looked up at my man between kisses, at the prize that fate had brought me. I saw dark sadness in his eyes when he pulled away from me.

"Lily made me promise I wouldn't say 'Good-bye'," Daniel said. "Instead I'm to say 'See you later'. But I don't know how we'll see each other again –"

I cut him off.

"It's our last moment together, and you're telling me you don't know if we'll meet again? Meeting here, now, was impossible. But it happened. We have plans, we have love, and we have fate."

"It will be hard, Shelley."

"It's always been hard, Daniel. But we know, because I am standing here right now, that nothing's impossible."

I collapsed inside his coat to be held, to have my hair brushed with Daniel's whiskers once more, and then I tore away and boarded the cavernous charter bus. Through the huge windshield I could see Daniel standing there, just where I'd left him. He was enveloped in a dazed, stunned sorrow, his eyes fixed to a spot on the road. He'd worn all black that day, and from the darkness where I sat on the bus I could see his heart breaking. I could see the storm beneath his cool, pale skin, and how his clenched fists had punched into his coat pockets. My chest wrenched horribly when I saw his pain – a hurt so acute that I could not bear to look at him for more than a few seconds. I closed my eyes until the bus began to pull away from the curb, and then my eyes flew open. I looked frantically out the big window, looked again at where my lover had stood in agony. But Daniel had vanished.

On the bus I worked very hard to gain some sort of composure. I failed miserably, but eventually my whimpering ceased and the tears stopped flowing. Then I was simply numb. I tried to sleep, but that was unfruitful. I looked at my cell phone; it had only been thirty minutes. Thirty nearly unendurable minutes. Panic welled up then, but I squashed it down with deep breaths and sheer will. I ate my sandwiches very slowly, savoring each bite, enjoying the thick, soft white bread and perfect ratio of peanut butter and strawberry jam. I spent time smoothing out the creases in the tin foil and then folding the sheets into small, shiny squares.

I waited as long as I could – about another fifteen minutes – before sending Daniel the first text message since our parting:

"Happy Anniversary, sweetheart"

Daniel and I had been together for five months as of that day. My world had changed completely in approximately 150 days.

Within seconds my cell phone beeped a reply from my Viking lover:

"I love you"

Even today, even at this moment, I reverberate from that deeply bittersweet moment. Often in my work, it is this scene – the part of the story where the lovers separate with their futures uncertain – that I take care to summon the most visceral descriptions. In this moment there is dire suffering, a raw emptiness, and a helplessness; all of these emotions must be conveyed when I describe this scene to fully appreciate the sensation of leaving your true love's side, indefinitely, when so many things were left unsaid.

Once upon a time, in the Copenhagen Airport two weeks previously, I found my lover standing in light leaking through cracks in the sky. Inside the illumination the handsome [Mr. Blue] claimed to love me like no other man could ever love me, yet doled out his Midas touches and genuine smiles begrudgingly. His affection for me swung like a pendulum, from consuming worship to a frosty arms-length. More than once I saw my glass lover bathe in my laughing eyes, struggling not to react to my contagious joy, only to later be caught stroking the paleness under my chin with an expression of wonder and sadness. It was this very man, who'd laid beside me fourteen consecutive nights, who'd finally had the chance to say and do all the things he'd promised to say and do, this man I loved more that any other, who could not bring himself to be the first to say I love you. Not even against my lips.

I've spent years pursuing that one moment – the moment I found myself heading home from Denmark transformed, lost in romanticism and grandiose promises, crying fresh tears over Daniel's "I love you" text message. If only I could have known during that moment what the near future would bring.

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.

[Sea Birds] by [Burning Hearts]

For the last handful of my final hours in Denmark I have drifted like sea vapor into the rooms, dragging with me a wistful mood and a suitcase. I'm looking for things I might want to take back with me for my short trip home to Portland, for Christmas. In my large, wheeled suitcase I've packed gifts and some underwear. On the kitchen table my office bag and my laptop wait. Everything else I'll ever need is already in Portland.

The shoe box, containing the [true stories] of disintegrated love, will stay behind. This decision to separate myself from the artifacts has left me curiously sad. I'm attached to the materials within the box, to their facts and messages. I put too much into them, surely, but leaving the box behind feels like a discomforting leap of faith.

I have been in my American fortress in the Kingdom of Denmark for weeks, and my excavation still isn't complete. No one is more surprised by that fact than me. I am conflicted about leaving without finishing, but Jake is getting married on Christmas day; I can't miss that miracle. And Ryan has already been in the house for a week, home for a spell from school in Germany, bringing life back into the spaces with his heart and body heat. I expected to come home and find he'd already started building his usual post-shower pile of black socks – all singles – behind the bathroom door.

In 24 hours I'll be there, with him, in my Old Portland-style home under the [St. Johns Bridge], in the kitchen remodeled to make baking a joy. I'll have my loved ones come and sit in the warmth with me, talk to me while I roll out dough for pies and melt chocolate for truffles. And later, when my home is quiet, I'll lay on the couch in front of the fire or wander the dark glossy hardwood floors and peek into every nook, reacquainting myself with "real life."

Like my first return from Denmark, I will come home transformed. And once more I take a final, lingering look around my lodgings for things to take back home with me to Portland. I am only momentarily switching [houses], but there is a familiar sadness to it that moves my feet aimlessly into these rooms of no interest. With the wandering comes scenes flashing of the last time I left Denmark, back when I was still Daniel's girl.

We had easily slipped into domesticity in our two weeks, and had found a groove for our temperaments to slow-dance to. I was comfortable in his apartment, and with Daniel. I loved to see my things mingling with his. The [Eric Kraft] book I had sent him sat on his coffee table. The bone-colored [stone] with amber-stained fissures from [Hug Point] beach that Daniel had kept in his pocket until we were finally together now lay on his bedroom desk. Smoke from the incense which I'd brought from home filled the fibers of the rugs, and strands of my black hair were left in his bedding and between his couch cushions. A large plastic bag from the discount store [Tiger] sat on the floor next to the cracked leather chair. In it were the [nisse] elves and that [small bear] wearing a sweater I've kept in the shoe box, a notepad and pen set for Becca, and a beautiful cherry blossom dish. On the alcove above our bed I had put the tea light candle holder I bought for Daniel – a simple Scandinavian design of four round depressions in a chrome rectangle.

On our last Saturday morning together, Daniel and I went to the strøget in Århus and had brunch at a cafe. We sat in a warm and wonderful glass-enclosed outside seating area in a flood of natural light. I remember sitting there close to Daniel; demanding a kiss and getting one; sipping cappuccinos with pretentiously lifted little fingers; I ordered our meal in Danish when Daniel challenged me to, successfully arranging for two large plates of food for us. Warmth and love, a restrained laugh. We talked about the movie Daniel would begin shooting the following weekend – a big break for him. But the movie would call for a kiss between Daniel and another woman.

"How do you feel about that, Shelley? My kissing other women?" Daniel asked. He'd asked me this before, in one way or another. These questions were really inquiries into how I felt about his [embers] of infatuations, the little crushes which he tended to have on people, places and things.

"Silly boyfriend," I said, "I know you'll always come back to me."

"And my loving Lily doesn't bother you? It's a love for her art, of course. It's not romantic. But it is love," he said. He leaned into me. The churning overcast sky filtered through the glass roof and turned his skin into cream and his eyes a light gray.

"Silly boyfriend," I said, "our love is erotic and eternal. [I believe in love]."

Our time together was dwindling, and the unbearable moment when we had to say goodbye drew closer. In our last days, our last hours, we held the subject at bay. Instead we kept each other wretchedly alive with a calmness that neither of us felt.

After our brunch Daniel commandeered my hand and escorted me around the Århus city center one last time. We went to the nautical shop to buy Ryan a [dannebrog] for his collection. Ryan – himself a world-traveler – collects flags and currency. I had planned to hand over whatever krone I ended up with once home, but was still searching for a flag that wasn't a merely a polyester version of the prominent red and white cross. At the nautical shop I found Ryan a sturdy, medium-sized flag, one designed to withstand a slicing sea-wind.

The shop was around the corner from the Italian restaurant where I had insisted on knowing how I could be sure my order of wild boar was an actual wild boar. Across the street from the restaurant, Daniel pointed out an apartment complex above a sex club; he said he might move into one of the apartments if he couldn't find anything better when his current lease expired in just a few weeks. The things I would be leaving in his current apartment, which I now thought of as our apartment, would shortly wind up in a strange place. I remember realizing then that some of my black strands would be left behind.

As we wandered from shop to shop half-heartedly, not caring what was for sale, I stole long drinks of Daniel's features. I tried to memorize the choreography of his confident swagger, and observe his lips and eyes for every sign of enjoyment in the repartee between us. Daniel was subdued, forcibly nonchalant, and trying too hard. He filled his escort role with gusto, and I smiled each time he grabbed my hand to gallop down another street, hoof down yet another road lined with slate-colored cobblestones, trying to cram whatever I wanted to do into the day.

We bought groceries for our last candlelit dinner, and decided that spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread would be a wonderful compliment to the bottle of [Gulden Draak Ale] Daniel had already purchased – a triple brown beer with a caramel taste and served in tulip glasses. On the way to the checkout counter, Daniel stopped me. His hand was wrapped around an item on the top shelf of a rolling wire basket. He'd spied some small glass jars of peanut butter – a rare treat in Denmark. Stacked beside the peanut butter were jars of strawberry jam.

"Let me make you breakfast," Daniel said. "For your trip to the airport."

The next morning I was boarding the 8am bus for the nearly two hour trip to the [Billund airport].

"It's not necessary," I said. "You don't have to go through the trouble for a couple of sandwiches."

Every weekday morning in Portland I made a PB&J sandwich for myself and Ryan. I considered it the perfect breakfast food – I still do. I had mentioned this to Daniel months ago, in fact back when we were not yet in love. He had remembered that small detail from what felt like centuries past. I was instantly intoxicated by the sweetness of the gesture. He looked into me, the jar still in his hand, imploring me to say yes. My nipples hardened under my heavy powder-blue jacket. Somehow he noticed this; his eyes dropped to my buried breasts. How did he always know?

We bought our groceries, including the jam and peanut butter, and raced home to our apartment three blocks downhill. The soft kisses that began outside the door to the apartment became urgent in the few steps to the main room – a room so full of light that our bodies were enveloped in brightness. Kisses turned white.

"Do you want to make love now, or later?" Daniel said in kisses. I couldn't have both? He pinched my ass for an answer. I unbuckled his pants and bit the freckle on his sloping lower lip in response.

Daniel sunk into the couch, and I kissed him gently on the lips before enjoying my last moments exploring every detail of his cock. It would be the last time for a long time. Who knew when I'd fellate my Danish lover again? I took my time in the brightness – a heavenly light – licking and suckling as if Daniel wasn't even there. It was just me and a delicious treat that I wanted to savor as long as possible.

When he'd had enough, when the skin of his phallus was swollen from the wetness of my mouth and stretched thin from engorgement, Daniel raised me from my knees and out of my spell. He massaged my breasts and kissed my moistened lips. I moaned and raked my fingers through the thick, tangled hair below his navel, above his cock. It was an invitation to take me.

I was suddenly on my knees again, breathless, excited, and bent over the edge of the couch. The waist of my jeans were pulled down and Daniel was behind me, taking me with clutching hands on my hips and him cock inside me. I was ready to be made love to, always ready to be possessed by him. I arched my back to raise myself higher for him and was rewarded with several pleasing slaps to my right ass cheek.

And then, for short, wonderful moments Daniel stopped moving inside me, to experience my body's solo in our song, my sliding, encircling communication of feverish desire. I began to wish, more than ever, that the hands of time would slow down their progression between the hours.

Gently I was laid on the rough gray upholstery of the couch. Daniel was between my thighs, hungry for honey, his face pinking in the purity of white. He was still wearing his white shirt, his faded jeans and his blue suede shoes, but his arousal could not be contained by his clothes. Daniel stroked himself as his long fingers and tongue memorized the shape and taste of my slit. I could not help but  surrender to the endorphins before long, needing to embrace a long series of pleasure waves, needing to ride the white carpet of light in the room and inside me.

Daniel looked down at me with [soft eyes] as I mewed and shimmered with pleasure under his hand. My climax squeezed the fingers he still had inside me. His tender eyes traveled around my glowing skin, from where my jeans and panties lay bunched at my feet, to where sweetness flows, to where my belly shakes from fast heartbeats, to where my shirt had escaped over my bra. My eyes, drunk from orgasm and the bright daylight, could see Daniel marvel that my body had turned to sparkles under his magic hand.

Daniel pulled his shirt up over his nipples, like my shirt was, and laid on top of me, touching his dry, cool skin to my damp, hot skin. He took me again, now solemnly, looking at me in the whiteness. We made love now with eyes locked and wide open, not wanting to miss a detail, trying to say things with pleasure that we could not say with words. I looked into the space between us, between where our bodies joined and retreated, again and again.

"It's beautiful," I said.

"Yes, so beautiful."

Daniel's body shook as his white, warm sperm poured inside me. He collapsed against me, his arms pulling me into an embrace, his lips kissing the sweat from my face. "So beautiful," he whispered.

We straightened our clothes slowly – with effort – and then intertwined on the couch, sleeping away our last afternoon together in Denmark.

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.

[Your Indifference] by [We & Lisa]

On the streets everyone is hustling with excitement under their usual coolness. The shops are bursting with holiday cheer and national pride. Behind the glass of the city homes little Danish flags, the [Dannebrog], are strung in the Christmas trees as garlands and traditional little oranges lay along the window ledges. Falling flakes succumb to gravity and snowdrifts blanket every surface of the city of Copenhagen with an unbelievable tranquil. The imperfections of real life are coated with enchantment and purity – a poetic analogy of [self delusion] from pretending a muddied, frozen underbelly won't remain after the holiday season is over.

Despite my best efforts to complete this love story postmortem before Christmas time, I now know I won't. The work flow from home has increased and the time available for contentious remembering is minuscule. But vignettes of memories still come to me throughout the day, as I go about my business crunching snow with my feet and bicycle tires to make the meetings and interviews Sylvia has arranged for me. There is talk of re-issuing a collection of some of the early stories which I wrote in the first months after Daniel and I parted – back when the pain of his absence as my writing Muse still seeped into the pages. I've been editing [one story] in particular that nails my confusion about the signs of romantic love. Reading them again triggers more memories of things I'd forgotten.

It is lovely to visit new places in Copenhagen. A Danish publicist, a bookseller, a casting agent, an actor, all wanting to meet in the [Meatpacking District]. Twice I've been invited to an amazing art house/restaurant/bar called [Karriere]. This reclaimed area of the city, owned by the Municipality of Copenhagen, is where the paper-pushers in the slaughterhouse business still shuffle alongside hipster bars, exclusive contemporary galleries, and visions of a culture/design/gastronomy Mecca. It reminds me of [The Pearl] in my hometown.

The District has three main areas: Brown Meat, Grey Meat, and the White [Meat District], which is where the Karriere is, with its weirdly limited hours and a bar counter that slowly moves from side to side. The bar reminds me of the tables that gently spin or rise and fall in Portland's [Rimsky-Korsakoffee House]. My meetings go well, follow-up plans are made, and after my appointments I steal away next door and visited the contemporary [VI Gallery], which is right next door to the Karriere.

But inside Tivoli, on the train, within White Meat City or the shops on the strøget – throughout my travels in the city for business and pleasure – I continue to be flooded with little snippets of my time spent with Daniel. And now that the holiday season is here, I can't help but compare what I see with home. Portland, sweet Portland.

While waiting for one of my appointments in the White Meat City earlier today, I began to remember the time when I met Søren, Daniel's filmmaking partner, at the pub [Hollywood] in Århus. Daniel and I arrived first and waited for Søren upstairs. We sat next to a smoking area, an elegant box with a tall table and a powerful ventilation system. Daniel stood inside it, drinking a beer, having a cigarette next to a photo of Marilyn Monroe. He posed for a photo, an exaggerated dapper gent, leaning against the gorgeous dark wood of the smoking box. I laughed riotously.

Soft-spoken, shy Søren – shorter, darker, and heavier than Daniel and I – joined us upstairs. The men drank beers and I had gin and lemons to calm my nerves from meeting yet another person important to Daniel. It is here that I had my first gin and lemon, which was delicious the way it was served to us that night – with Bombay Sapphire – but much better served with hometown [Aviation Gin] while sitting on a stool in my neighborhood pub [Leisure].

Søren had heard about me from the very beginning of our love affair, and had even taken a photo for me of Daniel, who was clean-shaven at the time for his role as a WWII Nazi. It was nighttime, just before the two of them headed out to the club [Train], and Daniel had been wearing black leather pants. Both Søren and I made fun of him and those black leather pants. I so wanted Søren to like me, and I instantly liked him.

The three of us sat in the pub of warm wood and red walls and discussed the movie business, Daniel and Søren's projects, Søren's new contract to direct a film. I invited them to come to Portland, to make films there. I promised to have Daniel send him links to the [Office of Film and Television], which lists incentives for shooting movies in Oregon. The topic of Daniel's latest acting gig was brought up; he had the lead in a movie which was due to start shooting the weekend after I left Denmark. I was [homeward bound] in less than three days. The climate of the conversation cooled with that fact; the night ended soon after.

We walked to the corner of the street, where we would separate. "Well," said Søren, "you're certainly tall enough for Daniel." We all chuckled, but it wasn't exactly a seal of approval. Søren smiled at me, earnestly, and in a heavily accented English, said "goodbye." He left us then, with handshakes and cordial noises.

It was very late as my Danish lover and I cut through the chill in silence to the bus stop. The downtown sidewalks around the shelters were crowded with youngsters, many drinking openly. They seemed not to notice the freezing air – or that they were ill-dressed for it – and milled around on the sidewalk [making gestures] of maturity, animating their cold-mottled hands and wrinkling their reddened noses at life.

We had a long wait ahead of us, and Daniel suggested we take a taxi. But I wanted to stay here, in the cold.

"Let me into your coat," I said. "We'll stay warm. No need for that expense."

My gloved hands raised the collar of Daniel's coat and he wrapped me inside of the heavy black wool and pressed me to his chest. I put my hands over his ears, to warm them, and he jerked back and shook my hands away. I  remembered, then, the time just after I had arrived in Århus – even before the kids came to stay with us – when I had climbed into Daniel's lap on the couch to face him. I wanted to cup his large ears, studded, prominent and delicious, with my hands. I had wanted to do that since the first time I saw his photo months ago, to hold them, and so I tried. But he had pulled away from me, saying "Don't do that."

I didn't push it then. But now, with the Nordic air freezing the sense from the teens standing with us at the bus stop, now that I'd finally met Daniel's partner Søren and I didn't feel I had managed to be charming enough, now that Daniel was still pulling away from me, I pushed it.

I steadily braced against Daniel's expression, which was full of irritation about the idea of me cupping his exposed ears with my hands. It made me want to touch him where he didn't want to be touched.

"Do you want to stay warm, or not?" I said in a cloud of low breath.

Daniel searched my face carefully, still holding me away from him, and then conceded. He let me hold him as I wanted to. I snugged into his coat, buried my face into his neck, and again held his ears in my hands. But my feelings had been hurt. They'd been trampled and I was still mad, about a lot of things, so I let one hand slip a few inches to expose him a little bit to the cold.

While we stood there in the bus shelter, holding each other among a throng of moody, drinking teenagers, I thought about Søren's lukewarm reception. I thought about all the lukewarm, guarded conversations I'd had with Daniel's friends and family. I thought about the recent visit to our apartment from Daniel's gaming friend, who extended an invitation to jump in the ocean with him in January and the opportunity to illustrate a role-playing card game. This young man, who brought beers and an infectious laugh, said "You're a lot more fun than the last girl Daniel  introduced me to. I like you a lot better." I registered this, the scope of possible meanings reverberating loudly. I thanked him, instead, for realizing my awesomeness. We all laughed.

As my body molded into shape of my lover's and grew warm inside his coat, I recalled two different times since arriving when Daniel had suddenly blurted his desire for me to stay in Denmark. Both times it was daylight, both times it was in the main room of our apartment. Each time it broke a cozy silence – we were reading or looking out the window at the starlings flying over the rooftops – when Daniel whisper to me "Don't go. Please stay." The first time he said it I got angry. "Don't say that! How unfair of you to say that!" I yelled. I had Ryan to go home to; of course I had to go home. His brutally spontaneous admission rocked me; I, too, had just been wishing I could stay longer, stay indefinitely. The second time Daniel asked me to stay, I said nothing at all. I only let the tears fall and looked into his dark eyes as they turned black.

My mind then wandered to a time just a couple of days before. We were coming home from a shopping trip loaded with groceries and walking at Daniel's fast pace when he suddenly slowed at the approaching figures ahead of us. He shifted his bags to one arm and wrapped his free arm around me tightly. It was his upstairs neighbor, a man whose name escapes me, with someone I didn't recognize. The neighbor was a very good friend whose photos I had seen before, with a tall, stocky build and blond hair hanging in his eyes. This man had helped Daniel secure the apartment, and had recommended him for the teaching job. They worked there together, now.

With Daniel's friend was a dark-haired man with a thin figure and perpetual smile. We all stopped to talk on the sidewalk, a group of four, and Daniel held me even closer to his side. The neighbor stood next to me, but never looked at me. He spoke only to Daniel and his dark-haired walking companion, in Danish. The dark-haired man, on the other hand, pointedly looked at me the whole time we congregated – he couldn't take his eyes of me – and looked like he was bursting with a secret. I smiled back at him once, uncomfortably, and then avoided his eyes altogether until we were off again.

As we climbed the stairs with our sacks of food I tried to break the odd tension by telling Daniel what I'd been up to while he was at work: figuring out how to get back to Denmark. I could get a student VISA, I said. I could make films in Oregon and partner with film companies in Denmark. I could find a job that allowed me to live part-time in Scandinavia.

"Why bother looking that stuff up? It won't work," Daniel's voice barked hoarsely. I stopped and put my hand on his arm, stopping him. A melancholic sigh, [wet and rusting], shuddered through Daniel's body. I pretended to be unaffected by this, but my ire boiled at Daniel's hot desire and cold pessimism. He acted as though finally being together, and the heaviness of our imminent separation, wasn't hard for me as well.

That night I had a vivid, physically exhausting dream. When I woke up, Daniel was awake beside me, searching my expression with his pale face and dark eyes. I told him about my dream, but only while hiding my face in his neck; I didn't want to give in to an urge to stop and calculate things – or change the direction of my narrative – if I saw Daniel's stone face morph into something new as I whispered my dream to him.

"We are together in America, in Oregon. Somewhere. We're in a school or administrative building of some sort. There are very high glass walls, blinding sunlight, and walls and floors of smooth, slick, dark rock. Maybe the building was set into the side of a mountain? It was a cavernous battle of light and black.

"We are there for some official purpose, heading to the lower level. I lead the way, holding your hand, looking back at you. We approach the stairway, which leads to the offices we've been trying to reach, and I see that they are actually part-steps/part-slide, and silver-gray, like polished [hematite].

"We tried to go down the winding and slickly textured stairs together. We got about half-way, struggled hard to make progress, and then gave up, thinking we could find another way down to the next floor. An elevator, perhaps.

"Suddenly we're in the expansive main entry area again. It turns out that the space we're in – we're there for immigration reasons, I'm sure of it – is almost entirely built into a monumental hematite mountain. There are many floors carved into the rock with white walls and dark wood railings on the balconies. The space is protected from the elements, from the evergreen forest and earth smells, by a thick wall of glass that stretches up into the sun. Between where we stand and the outside is a security check-point.

"I turn to you, Daniel, and you suddenly start doing a jig. Like the jig you did for me on the corner when we came home that one night. Funny, limbs flailing, adorable. But in my dream it was not adorable because the police came up to us and asked you to empty your pockets. Instead of complying, you dance again, a [kick-ball-change] step. You're now wearing a fedora, which you've incorporated into your routine.

"The police have drawn their weapons, and ordered you to stand down, to drop your hat and put your hands on your head. You ignore their warnings and my screams. I'm trying to tell you that the States take security very seriously, that my country is not like Denmark, full of law-abiding citizens with free bicycles and babies in carriages left alone outside shop doors.

"You finally notice I'm upset and stop dancing, you've stopped to listen to my fears, but just then you are tackled from the side and wrestled to the ground. You don't resist as you are carted off. Your lower lip is bleeding and curled in a half-smile. It's an evil grin.

"I look around. The building is now deserted. I'm alone, and don't know how to get home. Then I woke up, to find you looking at me."

Daniel said nothing.

"What do you think it means?" I asked.

"It means I'm a terrible dancer," he said, kissing my head, then bounding naked out of the warm bed into the frigid morning air. I caught a streak of his lean, thin body, my eyes drawn to where his bobbing cock joined to his pelvis like a [geoduck] to its shell. I wanted him to come back to bed, I wanted to roll around the sheets and kiss and cuddle, but Daniel was already in the kitchen making coffee, asking what I wanted to do that day.

It was my last full day in Århus with my Danish love, and I would not waste precious hours demanding balm for my fears. It was too late for that.

Never miss a segment by subscribing to this story by [web feed] or [email]. If you enjoy The Miracle in July, please consider making a [donation] to help the author follow her bliss.

The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.