pictures of women from long ago, their hair in Gibson girl upsweeps, a variety of funky kitchen cannisters. John used to ask, early in our marriage, what I was going to do with all the random things I bought. But after he heard “I don’t know, I just like them” so many times, he stopped asking.
I looked up at the sky, gaudy with stars in a way I hadn’t seen for a long time. It looked fake, like a backdrop for a stage play created by exuberant elementary-school students who might still believe stars were small, five-pointed objects that glittered in your hand, that you could take home and keep in a shoe box under your bed. In the first weeks after John’s death, I felt closer to him whenever I looked at the sky. Now I felt no ethereal connection; rather, I felt my aloneness. I pulled the quilt closer around me, breathed in deeply. I could smell dampness in the air. Mid-November was still early for snow, but that morning I’d stood out in the backyard before the movers arrived and watched a few flakes swirl around as though scouting out the territory, then melt on the blackening stalks in the garden.
Delores had finally given me pictures of the garden in bloom. Come spring and summer, my senses would be pleasantly assaulted by roses and lilies and lilacs, by foxglove and peonies, by delphinium and phlox and zinnias and dahlias, and, best of all, by hydrangea in the glowing blue color I loved best. I envisioned a white pitcher in the center of my kitchen table, full of a bountiful mix. It made for a bittersweet rush of pleasure—John would have loved such a garden. He was often the one who would gather bouquets of wildflowers when we took walks through the countryside.
That afternoon, while the movers carried in box after box, chatting in Spanish and laughing at things I couldn’t understand, I’d abandoned trying to keep up with them and instead went outside. The trees lining the block were mostly skeletal now, but there were still a few leaves in glorious reds and yellows lying on the lawn and sidewalk. I picked a few of the brighter ones and lined them up on my kitchen windowsill. I knew that the next day they would be dried out and curled at the edges, but I couldn’t let them just lie there, they were too beautiful. It was a tradition for me to do this; from the time I was a little girl, I had decorated kitchen windowsills with gifts of the season. John joined in this tradition. He used to carve fearsome little faces in the miniature pumpkins every Halloween, for example, and we would light them with votive candles. In December we had branches of holly berries and mistletoe; in spring, forsythia in small, colored bottles; and in summer we would line up the three sand dollars John and I had found on our second date when we walked along the ocean holding hands, both of us taut with the knowledge that we had found The One—though neither of us admitted that until much later. It was the same beach where I scattered his ashes. It is good we don’t know our own futures.
A small gust of wind rushed up under the blanket, and I shivered; but I wasn’t quite ready to go back inside. I looked around at the houses up and down the block. A few porch lights were on, but otherwise it was all dark. I supposed people went to bed early here. I used to like doing that myself, though I was long out of the habit. The last few months of John’s life, we’d both slept in fits and starts.
I rested my chin on my knees, huddled in closer to myself. I wished, suddenly, that I smoked—never mind the danger, what
wasn’t
dangerous, anymore? I wished I could take in a long drag and then watch the exhalation dissipate into nothingness. I believed there must be a comfort in it.
In the late sixties, the three women I lived with when I was in college—those ones who’d been my last close friends—had all smoked. Almost every night, we sat in the kitchen and talked until very late, and the air would be thick and colored blue, the
I looked up at the sky, gaudy with stars in a way I hadn’t seen for a long time. It looked fake, like a backdrop for a stage play created by exuberant elementary-school students who might still believe stars were small, five-pointed objects that glittered in your hand, that you could take home and keep in a shoe box under your bed. In the first weeks after John’s death, I felt closer to him whenever I looked at the sky. Now I felt no ethereal connection; rather, I felt my aloneness. I pulled the quilt closer around me, breathed in deeply. I could smell dampness in the air. Mid-November was still early for snow, but that morning I’d stood out in the backyard before the movers arrived and watched a few flakes swirl around as though scouting out the territory, then melt on the blackening stalks in the garden.
Delores had finally given me pictures of the garden in bloom. Come spring and summer, my senses would be pleasantly assaulted by roses and lilies and lilacs, by foxglove and peonies, by delphinium and phlox and zinnias and dahlias, and, best of all, by hydrangea in the glowing blue color I loved best. I envisioned a white pitcher in the center of my kitchen table, full of a bountiful mix. It made for a bittersweet rush of pleasure—John would have loved such a garden. He was often the one who would gather bouquets of wildflowers when we took walks through the countryside.
That afternoon, while the movers carried in box after box, chatting in Spanish and laughing at things I couldn’t understand, I’d abandoned trying to keep up with them and instead went outside. The trees lining the block were mostly skeletal now, but there were still a few leaves in glorious reds and yellows lying on the lawn and sidewalk. I picked a few of the brighter ones and lined them up on my kitchen windowsill. I knew that the next day they would be dried out and curled at the edges, but I couldn’t let them just lie there, they were too beautiful. It was a tradition for me to do this; from the time I was a little girl, I had decorated kitchen windowsills with gifts of the season. John joined in this tradition. He used to carve fearsome little faces in the miniature pumpkins every Halloween, for example, and we would light them with votive candles. In December we had branches of holly berries and mistletoe; in spring, forsythia in small, colored bottles; and in summer we would line up the three sand dollars John and I had found on our second date when we walked along the ocean holding hands, both of us taut with the knowledge that we had found The One—though neither of us admitted that until much later. It was the same beach where I scattered his ashes. It is good we don’t know our own futures.
A small gust of wind rushed up under the blanket, and I shivered; but I wasn’t quite ready to go back inside. I looked around at the houses up and down the block. A few porch lights were on, but otherwise it was all dark. I supposed people went to bed early here. I used to like doing that myself, though I was long out of the habit. The last few months of John’s life, we’d both slept in fits and starts.
I rested my chin on my knees, huddled in closer to myself. I wished, suddenly, that I smoked—never mind the danger, what
wasn’t
dangerous, anymore? I wished I could take in a long drag and then watch the exhalation dissipate into nothingness. I believed there must be a comfort in it.
In the late sixties, the three women I lived with when I was in college—those ones who’d been my last close friends—had all smoked. Almost every night, we sat in the kitchen and talked until very late, and the air would be thick and colored blue, the
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