Now I lie in bed and Roger is not here and does it matter? Her
room is still just down the hall, door closed, but I hear it all the same—
the soft rustles, the low-throated murmurs. It is late. The house is dead.
But here I am, awake, and there she is, alive, and I hear it. The sheets are
cold, damp with sweat. I kick them away; I untangle myself. And I hear
it and I know that she is there, too, tangling and untangling, moving in
a rhythm I’ve lost hope for. I am alone. Roger is gone. I hear it down the
hall, not my name now but someone else’s, and I hear it and I know. I am
not stupid.
The box is in the hallway and tomorrow Lydia will slit the top
open and begin the process: pull out wadded newspapers; pop bubblewrap into uselessness; unwrap the tiny balsawood homes, the clothespin
people; spread out the fake cotton snow under the fake plastic pine tree;
arrange a village; build life. Continue as if nothing has happened. As if
our life hasn’t stopped.
The heat thrums. The radiator clanks, ticks into action and sighs
out hot breaths. I am waiting for the tick to stop and when it does, I
move. The thin satin of my nightgown clings to the skin underneath, wet
patches down the sides. I am sticky with it. The green glow of the alarm
clock shades my arms green, too, and it reminds me of the Christmas
lights outside—4 am, still on—pillowing the translucent snow with
rings of unearthly reds and blues, that goo-green: what you’d imagine
tropical fish blood to look like, the inside of an alien worm. The hedges
hide under snow blankets and these lights burn through like eyes. It’s all
wrong, that green. It’s not soft, like Christmas. It is phosphorescent, a
science experiment.
The door creaks when I open it. I slide my feet across the carpet
like I’m skiing, or skating. Roger and I went skiing once, before we
married. We went to Alpine. It was just after Christmas and the snow
piled the mountains in record feet and when we rode the lift up he held
my gloved hand in his gloved hand and squeezed tight so I’d feel it. The
height scared me, and the wind, and the shaky wire pulleys, but there
he was, puffy sleeve jacket touching mine, side by side, covered hands
grasped. We spent an hour getting ready. Roger insisted on cleaning
the lenses of our goggles with a special cloth so that “visibility would be
top-notch.” When my left binding threatened to pop off before I even
stood up, he bent over for ten minutes, fidgeting with the straps until
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