Chapters (26)
I continued to lean against the table, the lines resounding in my head.
Out of this universal feast of death—may it be that Love one day shall mount?
I knew these words. Perhaps they had entered me after all, as I slept. I imagined, for a moment, Kyle’s eyes arriving at those final words, like summiting a mountain, and wondered what had passed through his mind as they did. And then the lines disappeared, the book, the mountain, and I was left with only his eyes. And then those too, I put aside.
Before I make my toast, I will have a shower, I decided. And I will put my hair up in the way Paul likes, and I will get dressed in something nice. Maybe my green turtleneck. As I crossed through the living room, the morning light filled the house and, like a prism, I saw the life I had lived within its walls refracted back to me in a thousand different shades. Ashley will stay for dinner tonight. I felt it in my heart. Tonight I will eat lasagne with my family. And tomorrow, Paul will cook us waffles. We will spread the Sunday paper out over the kitchen table, the radio playing in the kitchen, Ashley on her phone, the three of us sharing space, sharing time.
I reached the staircase, put my hand on the wooden banister, and made it up to the fourth step—when I stopped.
I heard something.
Not the leaves, or the fridge, or the air conditioning, or my stomach. I held my breath and stood very still. I brought my hands slowly to my ears and covered them. I pressed my hands hard against my head, and created a seal with my sweaty palms against the sides of my face, a vacuum of silence—and then lifted them off. It was there. It was not in my head. Much fainter than before, but unmistakable. I gripped the banister. I felt as if my knees might give out. I thought I had made such progress. Maybe I had only willed myself not to hear it. Maybe it was easier to believe it was gone. What if it was there all along, below it all, and never left me? What if it never would?
I began to laugh. Or was I crying? I was overcome—but with what? Relief? Terror? How was it possible I did not know? But I did not. I did not know.
There was so much I never did know.