This Was a Home Once & Other Stories

this was a home once

Now the coffee table displays a pumpkin spice-scented candle, wax unmelted. The floor is clear. The hearth holds only your favourite plant, deep green leaves edged with ripples like the stripes on a snake. This couch is where we first talked about selling the house. This is where you told me, My home is with you, and I cried because I didn't feel the same anymore.

I adjust the candle on its copper holder. Oily perfume smears my fingertips.

The vacuum roars when I press its needy mouth to the upholstery. There's still a dent in the couch cushions where I used to sit. It's cold now. The vacuum devours the fur of cat hair, uncaring that the calico used to sit there on my legs every night, jealous of my laptop. It consumes. It leaves the world emptier.

I click the vacuum off. Silence settles.

In the bedroom that used to belong to us, I find my own ghost. You used to tease me about it, before it began to annoy you: the untidy sprawl of ill-fitting clothes I swore I would wear again but never did. I've taken half away already, but there's still a shirt with my scent next to your work clothes in the closet.

I open the box I brought and fold a few more pieces into it: a pair of jeans, a sweater. Enough for the closet to look spacious. Enough that I'll be warm until the house sells.

"Hey." You're in the doorway, small smile, one palm braced against the frame. "The realtor will be here soon. Anything you noticed still to do?"

"Nope." I smile too, wobbly. "The house looks great."

"Okay. I'll just do a quick check. I'm sure I missed something."

The calico slinks into the room as you leave. A tear falls, then another. My vision blurs. I'm crying and I can't stop.

I fold the flaps of the box closed, each one tucked under the next, then set it by the door. I smooth out the sheets on the bed that used to be ours but is now only yours.

The calico winds against my ankles. She brushes past too quickly, as she always does, barely making contact; too desperate for affection to manage it properly. Tail swishing, she comes back for a second pass. I rub away the gathered tears and stoop down to touch my knuckles under her soft chin.

In the kitchen, you're uncorking a bottle of wine. Your eyes curve up with your smile when I come in.

"I know it's a little early to celebrate, but this is a big step," you say.

The wine is Sancerre. Paris, our honeymoon. We toast. It tastes as sweet now as it did then, on a cafe patio beneath the moon, our love full bloom in sticky September heat.

We move into the sunroom and perch on the chaise. Before, we would have snuggled close. Now there's space between us. The calico hops onto the arm of the couch, then climbs onto your shoulder and kneads your sweater, rumbling like thunder.

The heavy clouds are thinning, paling the air. Mountains thrust up jagged from the horizon. Mountain view, the realtor wrote in the listing, but you have to look across rooftops and between giant spruce to see it.

We talk about the house, whether we think it will sell quickly.

You say, "I went on a date."

My throat hurts, but I smile for you. I never understood dating. I only wanted you. This would be simpler if love came as easily to me as it does to you.

I still don't remember what it means to be happy, but there are times it doesn't hurt so much. I'm starting to be able to think about the single life I never really lived, only my own dreams to keep me up at night.

The grief still swells like the tide, but it's been eight years since we met. I've learned. Sometimes the questions are complicated, but the answers are simple. That doesn't make them hurt less. I don't think I want kids anymore.

A gust of wind snatches russet leaves from the trees.

I say, "My sister says that autumn isn't an ending. It's just change. And every change comes with loss. But that doesn't mean life is over."

You smile, but there are tears in your eyes, too.

The realtor arrives flustered. The sign goes up out front, then at the corner: OPEN HOUSE. We're shooed away.

As we put our shoes on, you finally notice it.

"You're not wearing your ring."

There's half a question in it, half the old joke we used to share when one of us forgot our ring.

"Nope."

You nod, look away. You rub your thumb against the ring on the third finger of your left hand, gold catching pale grey light. You pick up the crate, calico mewling inside. I heft my box.

We leave in separate cars to separate destinations.

Behind us, the house waits patiently. Someday it will be a home again.