Sometimes, the idea of her future invades my thoughts, and I am unable to banish it. The picture of it playing behind my eyelids is too beautiful, and I'm caught, holding my breath, until it dissipates before me.
Until then, I imagine her: yellow hair pulled back, silhouette outlined in moonlight,
She's always laughing. Her bare feet skim the grass laced with dew until—
There are always others in this dream (kids that smile the way she does, the hard line of someone else (I can always tell it's not me) stealing away a sliver of sky.)
I always want it to be real. For the veil over my eyes to lift and reveal this.
But it never does.
Some cruel part of me knows we wouldn't have had kids or a dog or two cats (all things I see Clair having) or the stars.
I have this image of me gazing at her face, year after year. Watching laugh-lines bloom, and wrinkles forming between her eyebrows, and her yellow hair spun to silver and her eyes glimmering with laughter as she tells me a story.
But there are no stars mirrored in her eyes. Just mine being reflected back at me.