My hand massages my scalp, but it’s no use. The migraine is back and I can think of nothing else.
When the agony eventually subsides, a dull roar still echoing in my head, I open my eyes to look over at 312 Bristol Lane, hoping there’s still a moment to be seen.
But they are gone, presumably back into their cocoon of happiness, their home, and their love.
I rub my head once more, glancing back into my own living room. The house silently screams of coldness, of emptiness, and of something missing.
I meticulously turn my gold band as I stare at the photograph on top of the stony, dusty fireplace. Amos is asleep on the sofa. I reach out a hand gingerly, almost afraid to touch the glass, afraid if my fingers make contact with it, the fact he’s gone will be real.
Time eases the pain and shock of his death, but it doesn’t take away the burdens of loneliness and loss. It doesn’t make it easier.
For the fourth time today, I touch the chilling glass, eyeing the black and white photograph with both sadness and a smile. In the picture, we’re looking at each other, love radiating even without colour. There’s a rose bush behind us. I can still see the vibrant reds within the murky grey. One of my delicate hands shoves back the itchy veil from my ravishing curls. He’s staring at me as if he wants to devour me, and, if I remember correctly, I think he did want to, judging from the words he was whispering in my ear right after the camera flashed.
It makes me blush just thinking of it.
We were so young, so naive, so in love. I was so happy then.
Time was hard on us, as it is to so many. Still, this picture has always sat on this fireplace, a symbol of that perfect day. Each time I’ve seen it over the years, it’s been like a connection to the past. It’s a relic of the love we once had – the carefree, roses-in-the-background kind of love, where starry-eyed lovers think nothing could ever tear them apart.
‘So long ago,’ I say out loud to the picture, feeling in some ways like that moment was yesterday and in some ways like it was two hundred years ago instead of sixty-seven.
My hands shaking, I squeeze the photograph as if I can clutch on to us, on to the people in the picture. My mind wraps itself around the memories, good and bad, and my chest heaves with the realisation of all that’s happened. I’m suddenly desperate to hold on to what I see, and before I can stop myself, I’m squeezing harder and harder. I squeeze until my hand vibrates from the effort. I squeeze until I hear a punchy crack, the glass snapping right in the middle, the line weaving down my body in the photograph, marring the perfect, smiling woman.
I set the cracked memento back down, my hand finding the edge of the mantel now. I stare at my handiwork, the cracks now giving it a new feeling. I don’t know why, but it suits the picture. The imperfections make it better. My finger traces the cracked glass for a moment, and I marvel in the pattern, in the new texture, and in the picture that is still very much the same but also a little bit different.
I study the faces I know so well but that somehow seem so distant from me. The glass shifts slightly, leaving part of the picture uncovered. It will fall prey to the elements, to the air of life around it. It’s not protected anymore.
Gazing at the photo, I am bombarded with thoughts and ideas, a dull roar making me tired. I listen to the words, trying to home in on the ones to pay attention to, wondering how I got here. Wondering if I could’ve ever imagined how it would all turn out.
I couldn’t have. I would have never known how things would rotate and swirl, spinning into a cacophony of chaos as we drudged through the years. I didn’t understand it, even then, how actions have consequences. Or maybe I just didn’t want to understand it.
I certainly had experiences. Looking at the eyes of the woman in the photograph, I see what so many didn’t.
I see what he didn’t.
I see the secrets of a haunted past, of consequences not yet uncovered, of the havoc my actions would reap covered up with a charming smile.
Life flies by. That’s the cliché all old people say to the young, but it’s so damn true. One minute, you’re standing by the rose bushes on your wedding day, wondering what beautiful things life will greet you with. The next, your frail, shaking hand is touching the glass of the past, staring into eyes and skin you don’t even recognise anymore, wondering how it all came to pass.
I wipe the single tear that streams down my cheek, and I exhale.
‘I miss you,’ I say into the crisp October air, wishing like in the movies, a voice could whisper back. But it doesn’t. I’m alone, all alone, as usual. There will be no anniversary card from him today. There will be no red roses, no sweet embrace to remind me I’m not alone in this crazy world. Instead, there will be me, Amos and an endless day of nothingness, which has become our tradition.
It doesn’t do to dwell on the past. I know that. I know I have to keep going. Sighing, I lay the photo flat on the mantel, the cracked glass now face down. I tear myself away. I step on the creaking floorboard in the living room as I make my way to my only sanctuary – the rocking chair. I plunk my body down, suddenly regretting the dress slacks and blouse I put on. I don’t know what I was thinking this morning when I painstakingly got dressed. It’s Wednesday. I have nowhere to be today. It’s not grocery shopping day or doctor’s appointment day. It’s just a stay-at-home Wednesday, even if it is my wedding anniversary. I guess it just seemed respectful to put some effort in. In some crazy part of my mind, I suppose I thought maybe he could see me from wherever he is. It’s nuts, I know. But putting on those soft pink slacks and matching blouse made me feel like I was appreciating what today was. It just didn’t feel right sitting in my robe.
Nonetheless, as the pants cut into my flesh uncomfortably, I wish I’d stayed in my nightclothes. If you’re going to stay home alone, you may as well be comfortable.
That’s what conclusion I’ve come to, anyway, even though my mother liked to tell me in my youth that beauty was pain. Sometimes now I think beauty might be overrated … then again, maybe it’s just a result of my unhappiness when I see the pallid skin in the mirror, the fried, grey hair. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking that beauty no longer counts, the corpse-like figure who peers back at me far from a thing of beauty.
Out of my peripheral vision, the heavy door to my right, in the centre of the back wall, calls me. Most days, I don’t look at it, the barricade efficiently doing its job. The brass doorknob hasn’t had fingerprints on it for so long, I don’t even know if it would turn.
In some ways, I’d like to think it wouldn’t. I’d like to think it’s rusted shut, shielding me from what’s just beyond the threshold.
A tear comes to my eye as I try to ignore it, try not to look at the door that hasn’t been opened in so long, that won’t be opened.
Even without looking at it, though, I can see it as if I’m staring at it. I can feel the smooth wood, the stain on it almost tacky. I can feel the imperfections and details, their pattern memorised by my creaky old fingers, which still remember every knot, every rough spot on that door, every detail. I glance down at my fingers as they do a dance on the rocking chair, recalling the shape of the doorknob and its chilling feel on my fingertips.
I take a deep breath, the pain in my chest swelling as I try to push the thought aside.
I’ve become a master at ignoring it. I walk past that door every day. I see it every day. Yet, a piece of me doesn’t see it, doesn’t notice it. It’s been blacked out.
Why today? Why now? Why does it have to come creeping in, to make me feel even worse?
I