Tonight you write asking, “Scrabble?,” and I do not know what it is. Are you wanting to play? I hope that is what it was. I wish I had been there to say yes, please come over. Let’s sit by this fire here that I now have lit, smoke cigarettes, play that game – kiss perhaps, sleep in that room together again. Oh, how warm you always were; a siren calling me to bed before my rhythm would bring me there. It is all loneliness here on this day that began with morning storms. Apparently we didn’t perish. We are still here.
I did see you and your mother drive pst the house today. And then, I saw you drive back past. The honk of a horn. The wishing that you would stop. That I could see you. That I could see your mother. That she would give me a hug. That I could spend time with you now before you go away for a week.
I have become accustomed, once again, to seeing you regularly, and although the rules of engagement have changed now, I still will miss you. It is odd that I went so long without seeing you and learned to live in that way, but now I cannot believe that I was able to do that. I know I can do it again if I have to, but it is so much nicer that you are back in my life. You are all I ever wanted. That’s the truth.
Last night, folding clothes in that room over there, was like a dream. After you left here, I washed clothes and cried. I folded them and remembered standing by the bed with you folding, and perhaps me helping to fold the clothes. I guess I realize now that we were just playing ‘house.’ I guess that we were pretending we were married, and we never should have done that. Maybe if we hadn’t pretended to be, we could be now. Maybe we could have been happy together. I realize that this is all silly speculation, but I like to believe that it could have been.
I have written of giving up on the talismans that I surrounded myself with after we fell apart. Occasionally I still like getting parking space 291, because that was where I was parked the first time we really talked after the breakup. Occasionally I still see if the elevator comes before the ten count. Occasionally I see if my combination of word games add up to my secret 5, because that means everything will be okay – you will love me again. Most of this is just habit now. I realize the false-godness of it all.
I still have kept one talisman though. After you left, I started collecting those quarters that I showed you last night. I should not have showed you them. I convinced myself that you would come back when I had 10 of them collected, all SC quarters. You finally made me love your state.
At first the quarters came quickly, and by the time Christmas rolled around, I had 6 already and it seemed that your return was imminent. Then the collecting slowed. When Tom and I would go play pool at the Highlander, I would change a five and look at each of the quarters individually. Week after week nothing turned up.
Last week, after we had been seeing each other again – hugging, laughing, crying – kissing on the cheek after an awkward approach to the face. I think we both think of kissing for real on those approaches; it only seems natural, but also foreign now.
I don’t know what to do with the coins now, so I guess I will leave them on the dresser. I think I will leave them there for awhile. Maybe soon I will have to leave this house. If I do I will hide the coins well somewhere where they will not me found – maybe in the closet that housed the monster that could attack you as you slept had you not checked it nightly while you were here. I will give the money to the monster. I will pay it for not attacking you, or us, but instead letting our own monsters eat is up. Now that we are exorcising those monsters, maybe our hearts will heal, and find a way to bring us together again.