Free dissonance. (a Böhme novel) by Sarah Buhl

writer’s head hung low this time. Sadness radiated off their back as if this question and this painting were one of the hardest to create.
    The painting began with a kitchen table, two individuals sitting on either side, and both with their faces covered by a ski mask. The table had one solitary pie sitting in the middle of it, and both individuals held a fork as if they were having a showdown. They waited to see who would make the first move.
    Neither knew the other held a knife under the table, out of view. They waited for the other one to move. Both were reactionary, not willing to move forward, but waiting for the other to make the first move.
    This painting held all the hope and pain wrapped nicely into it, as the writer longed for something that was lost .
    What are you hiding?

4
Brecken
 
    I kept my head buried in my arm as I lay on my bed, trying to avoid the stack of mail my mom had dropped off. She had been receiving mail for me for a while now. I traveled for a time and never stayed in one place long enough to justify changing my address.
    One of the letters she had dropped off brought anxiety with it. The letter came to Adriana Donnelly—my mother’s maiden name. My mom had read the letter sent to her at my grandpa’s address and brought it right over to me.
    When my mother showed it to me she said, “You should read this Brecken. You need to understand something.”
    I put my hands up in anger, trying to block her words as if I was six years old again, not wanting to hear the truth of Santa Claus. I took the letter from her and told her to not bring it up again.
    I refused to read it. I knew the letter was from the daughter I gave up for adoption eighteen years ago. She had reached out to me now that she had turned the legal age to do so, and I wished to god I hadn’t provided my mother’s information to the adoption agency. I should have given her over and not thought of it again. But I had an ache in the pit of my stomach telling me to at least put a contact name if she ever wanted to reach someone—even if it wasn’t me. Now, I regretted doing so.
    In the hospital, I chose to not have her shown to me. I didn’t meet the family that took her and I closed my ears to hearing if she had ten fingers and toes. The labor was terrible, and from my hospital room I heard nurses speaking of it from the hallway as if I were a great experiment no one could avoid discussing.
    The pain medicine dulled the ache in my chest, but it didn't stop my wandering thoughts.
    A medical induced coma was preferable, but they frowned at my asking for one. The loss consumed me and the only thing for me to do was close my eyes and pray for sleep to meet me until it was time to go home. I wanted to escape from the noise and feelings the hospital brought. I listened to Jar of Flies blaring from my disc man at full volume on repeat. It still didn't block out every sound, and the silence between songs allowed my thoughts to drift to the baby’s cries from the other rooms.
    The hospital was at least kind enough to move me to a different floor when I asked. I couldn’t hear the persistent cries any more, and I assumed it happened before with mothers who handed their children over to strangers. The sympathetic smiles from the nurses pissed me off though.
    I went home and locked myself in my room. Neither my mother nor my brother Emmet could connect with me. I cried for days until I finally came to the decision that the crying, the tears, the darkness, the feeling sorry for myself, the sadness—it wasn't me. My father had not raised me to wallow in my mistakes. “When you do something wrong, you set your mind to making things right in the best way you can, Brecken.”
    Granted, at the time, he referred to me breaking my mother’s favorite lantern. A pregnancy with the wrong man was a far cry from that. But, I reminded myself that giving the child to a better home was the best way to make things right. I was in no place to raise a