i watched our friends load their penske from behind our curtains, holding henry in the crook of my arm, wanting to see this little family (mom, dad, baby girl), but as a voyeur -- too weak to walk out on the porch and confront change. i felt like crying. mourning those late afternoon phone calls, little conversations that sound like nothing but add up to everything.
how did the baby sleep? did you hear so and so is expecting? do you want me to read my recipe for lemon sour cream trifle?
before she left, our neighbor brought over the remains of her fridge in plastic grocery bags. i went through them on the kitchen table, holding the popsicles we shared on sticky summer afternoons, the bags of mixed vegetables she heated to mush for baby juju, the poppyseed dressing, catalina, thousand island, italian. i thought about putting them in my fridge, shoving these offerings next to the cilantro and the mango chutney, but i couldn't do it. every time i held up another item of hers, something caught in my throat.
in the end, i quelled the voices of my depression era ghosts, and took the bags out to their final resting place. i knew i couldn't pull open my freezer every day and face her bags of peas and chicken fingers and pretzels. i just kept the generic chocolate syrup, tucking it into a corner where i wouldn't have to look unless i wanted to. too much remembering stings.
