Casa

I was his everything for a year, and he was mine. ‘He’ needs no name; he never provided one, but we knew each other quite intimately. He slept by my side for months, always said hello to strangers, who then became friends, and he called them by name. I never grew jealous; he never forgot me. He never asked my name either, but called me Casa. Home.

I knew he had a family to return to and I would never be his true home, but I played the part as best I could. I kept his warm and fed and he told me stories in exchange. This may seem feeble of me, but it was worth it. They were not fantastical nor were they fantastically told; I teased him endlessly for that. I sent his false starts and stutters back at him and tried to teach him to get on with it. Perhaps that was a bit cruel, but he grew more eloquent with time.

The stories he told were of his wife and children: how they met, why they argued, what made him fall and stay in love with her. He showed me pictures of them all the while and traced his wife’s flowing black hair. He had a way with words when he could manage to get them out.

“Soft and dark as a cold midnight just before snowfall.”

Those stories were close to his heart, and I tried to bring them close to mine, if only to keep more of him when he left.

He kept a growing stack of letters in his desk drawer that were impossible to send. He would usually read them out to me, his words reverberating off my metal sides, but this one he kept to himself. I grew curious and peeked when he was urgently called away. It was addressed only to his wife, rather than his family like the others. He started by saying the year had passed slowly and she would have at least a year’s worth of reading that he hoped would captivate her. He told her he was grateful for me, but I was suffocating him. He couldn’t wait to be rid of me; he wanted to be home again, he told her his heart was empty without her. Even with me.

Heartbreak. Pain ripped through me; even as the men hurried to their battle stations amid the sounding of alarms, I knew it was heartbreak. There was no time for the men to react and no peace for myself. Ice flooded the hollow space inside me and I began to sink. I no longer wanted to be his home, his Casa; it was all a lie after all, wasn’t it? Nevermind the sailors beside him who were suffering.

Still, I had been his home. I loved him, and now he was trapped inside me. Would he resent me for this? He placed his hands on my sides, a bit of calm in the chaos, and whispered, “Gracias.”

I broke my heart open and let him go. He survived, as did the rest of the men, but I kept the letters he wrote close to me, resting on the seabed.