Joanna, 2012

          When you fell asleep forever, the world kept moving on. The doctors had no idea what to do — it wasn’t like a coma, or anything, you were there one day and then you weren’t — so all I had left was to take you home and water our marigolds. Sometimes the dogs circled the bed, in ringlets and futile halos, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them you were still in there. In mercy, I let them believe you were dead. 

          Thus came the age of the long, white winter. Realistically I knew December was only as harsh as I made it out to be, but somehow the whole world started sinking and mutilating. I swear time came to a stalemate whenever I’d smell the ghost of you in the hallway, slow and smooth like a sick joke. My problem was that all I could think about was you: the auburn blush of warmth on snowy days. 

          It was rough living. It was the worst season of my life. There were our shoes by the entrance, there were those wool sweaters I couldn’t stand to wear. There was your worn, illegibly annotated copy of Anna Karenina, the unfinished peach jam in the fridge. The blue, terrible nights that I had to suffer through alone, where I woke up afraid and teary-eyed and all the Christmas lights looked like harbinger stars. You weren’t by my side anymore, so I could only go back to bed when I thought about the easy days. 

          It was hard to grieve an alive person, but I managed, anyway. When spring came, your bedside sprouted a miniature Renaissance garden, so fresh it was still blooming. I left the window open sometimes so the ladybugs would flutter delicately in and grace your dusty pillow. Once, a Monarch slept on the tip of your nose, beautifully still for two hours straight. I took a picture so I could put it in my wallet. 

          The dogs never stopped curling into you when I was out — they would leave their hair, shed, browned, all across your sheets and shirt. I stopped getting angry with them and resigned to the busywork of cleaning, because the sun had started rising early and slipping promiscuously through the blinds, and each newborn second was another proof of existence. How porcelain you looked, then, how gorgeously doomed: I thought that if there was anything I would ever believe in again, it would be the memory of you.