When I roll out of bed, from Valentina’s side of the bed, the emptiness returns. She died only four days after the hospital sent her home.
So many were sick and dying.
Does everything have to happen the way it does?
Today is Saturday. 7:30 am. Everything seems to be holding its breath, silent, still. I part the silvery bedroom curtains and find myself counting the icicles that hang like fangs from the gutters, losing track, and staring all over again several times before I quit.
As I pad to the kitchen, my soles feel every grain of sand on the floorboards carried inside by my daily walks along the streets sanded for winter weather. I rub my hands, my arms, even my face. The house feels colder than I can ever remember.
I grind some coffee beans, boil water, and peer out the kitchen window. In the backyard, the snow is still about four feet high. A single brown maple leaf tumbles past Valentina’s sculpture of a mother embracing her daughter. (Valentina lost her own mother at five.) A layering of pure white snow drapes like a shawl over their stone shoulders. Even now, I can’t help but hear Valentina chiseling the Indiana limestone and feel every strike.
Out of the corner of my eye, a yellow orb flits by. I turn. Nothing there. Suddenly, I feel a hand squeeze my forearm. I look but still see nothing. Shake my head—limestone heavy.
When I close my eyes, why do I picture her like this now? Imagine, Valentina treading through a forest fire. Her long auburn hair flaming in the wind, scattered ash and cinders snaking around her feet.
Can I trust my own mind? What is it saying to me?
Hungry for my morning coffee, I pour boiled water over the coffee grounds in the red cone filter. A golden brown steam, something like my own brown skin, swirls, and bubbles into the blue cup, these words on the side: This Calls for A Happy Dance. A gift she gave me last Christmas because I would often break into dance just to make her laugh.
With my cup on the coffee table, the aroma wafting through the air, I plop down on our old tan leather couch in the living room. How many times did we sit here, holding hands? I stare down at my bare toes, icicles. My toenails need trimming. Smiling, I think of how she once talked me into getting a pedicure with her. How relaxing the warm water felt on that subzero winter day.
I don’t know why but somehow, I swear, I feel a hand, no, her hand on my leg.
I reach for her but she’s not there.
My teeth grinding, I move to a small table with two chairs; sit in mine, not hers. Take a sip of coffee. The coffee roils down my throat. The roof of my mouth is scorched as if lit by a match.
“Alexa, play Chopin,” I say aloud like Valentina often did. While piano chords splash over my ears, I push the coffee away. What would Valentina say to me?
Be patient. Everything changes.
My fingertips tap on the coffee table to the music, and an icicle slips off the cutter in the front of the house. It shatters on the front walkway like a wine glass that slipped out of her hand at our last holiday party and broke on the floor.
All of a sudden, the odor of burning hair overwhelms me. My eyes squint. Is it just the lingering smoke from the chimney or from a neighbor’s chimney? When I look out the living room window, a man wearing a red facemask and a blue hooded parka walks against the wind, blowing snow, making his way over the slushy street. He could be me on one of my wintry walks as he disappears into the distant gray air. Then there is no one. No cars. No sound. Even Alexa has stopped. The purple hued streetlights flutter like Valentina’s dreaming eyelids.
In the front yard, the magnolia branches bob, swaying left, and right, stretching like Valentina’s arms toward me. My hands itch to feel the wooly green magnolia buds.
How do I live without her?
It was only last spring that we stood under hundreds and hundreds of pink magnolia blossoms. Their scent--a roselike punch, citrusy edge, with a musky undertone--made her eyes flutter.
When I close my eyes, Valentina steps out of the forest fire. She is standing in front of me. No flames, no smoke, no ashes, just her like she was. Her fingers dig into my shoulder, and there is nothing to do but yield to the memories, yield to the pain.
How does something come out of nothing?
