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You sit down and talk it through very civilly. He moves out on a Sunday evening. As he moves around the house collecting things, you sit at the kitchen table and smoke cigarettes. You bite your lower lip and worry that you might be up all night weeping over the loss of him. You’ll look puffy and tired at work in the morning. But then, you think, there’s no good night to finish with the person you’ve spent 5 years with. You could ask him to stay another night, just to stave off sleeping alone, but what’s the point really? You go to the front window to watch him pile his things into the back of his best friend’s car. The car is blue and rusted at the wheel wells. He has borrowed the car for this occasion. You wonder if he explained to his best friend why he needed it. You can never be sure with men. They keep things to themselves. He hasn’t packed well. In fact, he leaves with the same chaotic disorder that he came in with. Clothes pushed into garbage bags; books piled and carried to the trunk; cds back in the milk crates you begged him to throw away because you hate their red plastic-ness that made your living room look like a university dorm. With his guitar in his hand, he stops at the door. He looks at you standing there by the window and you wonder if you look pretty or scared or both. He says, one hand on the doorknob, “You’re sure.” You nod mutely and he turns, closes the door and walks down the path. You watch him drive away. You expect to bowled over by pain in this moment, but in fact, you’re not. You simply feel quiet. The hush of your house wraps itself around your shoulders and you’re surprised to find yourself thinking, “I’m hungry.” So you go to the kitchen and put the kettle on. You make a pot of tea, a whole pot, even though you don’t need that much and you toast some bread that you will slather peanut butter on. You settle everything on a tray and you bring it through to the living room where you put a movie on and lick the peanut butter off the toast, then off your fingers. You feed some to the cat even though he’s already too fat. When your pot of tea is finished, you’re overcome with a lead-like sleepiness so you leave the plate and cup on the coffee table and you go to the bedroom, undress and turn the light off. You sleep beautifully. In the morning, you wake up before your alarm, which you never do. You stretch your body out under the warm duvet and you think, “this is going to be okay.” You imagine that you’ll take up yoga in the mornings soon. It will become part of the new you. *** You are quite happy with the change until you begin to uncover the things that he has left behind. *** ITEM, Gray Sweatshirt: size XL, zipfront You find his gray sweatshirt on a Tuesday evening. It’s hanging on the back of your bedroom door. This is the sweatshirt you bought the time you were at Disneyland and it got cold and rainy late in the day. You were both wearing summer clothes and the rain pelted you as you ran for the closest souvenir shop. You only had money for one sweatshirt between you so you chose one with a zip up the front and you each put one arm into it. You huddled, shivering under the awning until the rain stopped. Then you went on a ride and he tried to put his hand up your shorts as the coaster trucked slowly to the top. Even though you shared it that day, when you got home, it became his sweatshirt. You can’t remember exactly the last time he wore it, but you still bury your nose in it and inhale. *** ITEM, Milk and Sugar Set: bone china, blue flower pattern You come across his grandmother’s tea set on a Saturday afternoon. You’re clearing out your kitchen cupboards, tossing the food only he liked into a box for the charitable food drive at work. Your fingertips brush against the china as you reach up on your tiptoes to feel around the back of the top shelf. When you figure out what it is, your hand pulls back sharply as though you’ve touched something hot. Then you pull the tea set down and put it on the counter. You light a cigarette off the toaster and remember the day his Grandmother died. She had brain cancer. She was diagnosed the month after you met him. When you’d been together almost a year, she died. It was really cold outside that day. It was your birthday. You stood outside the room while he and his mother and sister went in. He wanted you to come in too but his mother was crying and he thought it might make her uncomfortable. You weren’t part of the family yet. So you paced around outside in the snow feeling useless and strange. When he came out, his eyes were red and he leaned into you when you offered him a hug. He gave you the keys to the car he’d rented to get here and you drove silently home all through the night while he slept in the passenger seat. *** ITEM, Shoebox (containing guitar picks, baseball cards, scraps of paper): Brown’s, size 9. You dig this shoebox out on purpose. You are wrapped cozily on the couch one Wednesday afternoon. You have called in sick to work even though you only have the sniffles. Quite without warning, your mind flashes on the shoebox that is under your sewing machine at the back of the coat closet and you are compelled to find it, open it, run your fingers over the bits and pieces inside it. You find a poem inside it, just a little one, in his handwriting. You read the first line -- we touched down on these soft shoulders – and suddenly you are sobbing. Your eyes well up and you remember the night he sat on the edge of the bed and he sang this, put it to music. He stopped in the middle of the song, leaned over and kissed your neck. He said “I love you. I really do.” as though it’d caught him by surprise. How did you forget that until just now, you wonder. Does he remember it? Did he see that moment in his head when you told him he had to leave? When you said “We’re not in love. We never were in love. You drink too much. You don’t care how lonely that makes me,” he should have brought that up. He must have forgotten too. *** You do call him again. Just the once. Directly after finding the poem. You pick up the receiver and dial his cell number, hoping he hasn’t changed it in the 6 months he’s been gone. You’re so grateful when he picks it up you think you might swoon. There’s the clatter of bar noise in the background, a man’s laugh, a woman’s low voice, a cigarette being lit. He inhales sharply then says “Yeah?” “Hi,” you say. Unsure where to begin. Hoping he’ll give you some footing. He recognizes your voice and says “Fuck. Hi.” The poem is resting on your lap. You have your forehead cradled in your hand. You tell him you’re tired of being alone and you want him to come home. Please come. Now if he can. He is quiet for a long minute. Until you say again, please. He clears his voice and says he can’t come. He’s with some people and they’ve just ordered a round of drinks. You try another angle. You say you have some of his things, then. He would want them. They’re special things that he’s left behind. You won’t tell him what they are. He should remember.
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