Raphael
THU 21/02 11.10PM
FROM: Pamela Robinson <[email protected]>
TO: Chris Woods <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Dear Chris,
Alors, Raf turned sixteen today. Can you ever forget the sight
of him new, no bigger than your fist? A machine keeping his lungs open between breaths, his own body not knowing how to breathe, believing it still lived underwater. Remember when he was released from his radiant cradle I donned a lead apron like a bulletproof vest and placed him against an X-ray machine, holding up his tiny arms, tender as the new shoots of a plant? Why was I wearing the protective vest and not him, his smudge of self, barely there? His lungs were fine and now he is sixteen years old, filling those same brave lungs with carcinogenic smoke. Did you know he smokes? I’ve forbidden it—of course—but I know he does. The first generation to grow up bombarded with anti-tobacco propaganda and he takes up smoking.
Time is a trickster—I feel at any moment I might turn around and find Raf swaddled on the couch behind me, my first baby, my terror, my love, unfingered by life. Yesterday I came across a photo of him and Claude in the garden at Deauville—before Baptiste was born—both of them small enough to squeeze into nappy buckets, smiling up at the camera. I felt as if I could walk into the frame to find everyone living in that moment, dumb to the future.
I’ve wanted to write to you many times. Most often to say that if I’d known the cost of leaving the marriage I would never have left. I am to blame for the pain the boys have endured—and if this is something you wanted to hear, then yes, I admit it.
But what I regret most is telling you I didn’t love you anymore—bad advice I heeded, and my fault for asking for advice and following it. You will always be the father of my children and I will always love you. For what it’s worth, I am very sorry for what happened to us, but sorrier for Raphael, Claude and Baptiste. We created three sons, a truth that will exist forever in time.
Love, Pamela
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