December 2024

Well.  

No lights this year. 

And they’ve taken the woodstove. Which, I know, hasn’t been lit for a long time because of the cracked chimney and all, but still. I feel a bit naked without it. Why have a chimney at all now? 

Why have any of this? 

A bed that no one sleeps in, and books that no one reads. Ornaments for the high holy days that no one unpacks. Lights that no one wraps you up in like a great glowing sweater on the winter solstice. 

It’s raining when the girl comes up from the city to raid the cupboards. She needs her paintbrushes, and her car title, and more yarn, she says. But really, she comes to hear Lucy sing. We do this every December, the two of us, dance to a song about the duty and masochism of loving each other so poorly and so much. 

We get two verses in, she’s just lit the candles, when company comes to interrupt us. There is no privacy in this grief. No quiet hallway for goodbyes. Yes, I think these are goodbyes. 

And fuck. Fuck. 

We survived. I thought that was supposed to be the hard part. 

Soon, I think, I don’t know when, but soon, she’ll come for a last time. And she’ll pack everything up. And she’ll leave. And the letters will stop. And I will be here and she will be elsewhere. Somewhere. Surviving, I hope. 

I don’t know what to say. Did you want to hear about the snow? It snowed. Do you want to know what’s next? I couldn’t say. I am blessed with not knowing. I am cursed with it too. If there is an after this time that was supposed to be forever, we will be there pulling splinters of each other from ourselves. 

If I had a choice in it, I’d keep her. 

the apple house