Groceries
It was the cold that drove his hands into his pockets, where his fingers brushed against paper. Soft between index and thumb, a remnant from the previous winter when the jacket had last been pulled from its hook. He pulled it out, crumpled and shapeless, from his pocket and unraveled it carefully, fingers stiff with cold.
He stopped on the sidewalk. People broke around him like a river against a stone, passing by on either side. A dog barked. A woman yelled next to him in Italian. Sirens blared. He heard none of it.
He knew that the handwriting was hers. He could have discovered this note in years, in decades, in centuries, and he would still recognize those uneven pen-stokes. His heart crawled into his throat, its beat like high heels on pavement. Months, it’d been months, since he’d seen that scrawl, felt her hand in his, her lips against his, heard that laugh that was more gasp than sound.
He knew he should not read this, not read it in the street, not read it all. Crumple it, crumple the paper, drop it and walk away. His arms would not obey. Some rivers cannot be dammed, some pasts cannot be levied. Here, a note, a letter, that spoke through time, an echo in a hallway that had long emptied.
He blinked, looked down. A grocery list.
Eggs
Her lips on mine as we climb the steps up to her apartment. Her hands on my collar, ironed and pressed for the night. Fingers working at the buttons of my shirt. Key misses lock. Once, twice. We laugh. Door opens, and we fall on one another.
In the morning, we wake up with our noses touching. She is smiling, I am smiling. Breakfast, toast and eggs. Scrambled, she hates a runny yoke. Mixture poured onto melted butter in a hot pan. It sizzles, it pops. She kisses me against the fridge, grin pressed to grin. Eggs burn, breakfast forgotten.
Milk
Every week she buys a new carton, old one pushed, forgotten, to the back of her fridge, Chinese takeout and yogurts walling them in. Pushing those aside, she’d discover them weeks later, and call me to come over. She wouldn’t touch them, those old milk cartons. Terrified of rot, of mold, couldn’t stand anything that was past its expiration. Please, she’d say over the phone, please come over. Please can you do it? And I would. I’d pour out the milk, often clotted and chunky, while she sat in the other room and whistled loudly, hands over her ears to block out the splashes. My hero, she’d breathe into my ear when the deed was done. My absolute hero.
Grapes
Eaten in bed, passed from fingers to mouths between laughs, between kisses, between sunsets and sunrises.
Coffee
Can I pour you one? She stands over me, French press in hand. Her hair is loose, a ring on every finger. The smell of coffee overpowers the small kitchen. I’m sitting at her table, its misaligned legs tilting the surface like a ship at sea with every shift of the leg or shake of the foot. In the center, a vase sits stuffed with stems, once flowers, dry petals heaped at the base. I didn’t buy them for her. My stomach clenches at the thought of who did. I feel bad about how we left things, her text had read. Come over? Please, I feel awful. And I came, I always came. I had been desperate, then angry. Like a ball of yarn, the anger unraveled, reached its end. And that’s where she found me. Sure, I’ll take a cup.
Flour
Put your hand into this. She is wrist deep in flour, pulling up handfuls and letting it sift back through her fingers into the bag. That’s really unhygienic, you know. Can you measure out two cups for me? But she’s laughing at me, digging her hand through the bag again. I turn back around to the dough I’m kneading and feel a soft thump against the nape of my neck. Run my fingers through my hair, they come back white. I turn around, she throws another handful. It explodes against my chest, white spooling out in little, curling clouds. Uh oh, she’s laughing, hands reaching for the bag again. I catch one of her wrists. You’re the worst, you know. I press the caught wrist to my lips. She runs her fingers through my hair, they come back white.
Chocolate
Between sunsets and sunrises, between kisses, passed from fingers to mouths between laughs, eaten in bed.
Wine
Her lips are stained with it. I just—she pauses and walks up the steps to her apartment. My heart beats with her high heels on the pavement. She turns around. I just—I don’t think I love you anymore.
It was a Wednesday and she had drunk too much at dinner, said hardly anything during the meal, laughed too loudly at the waiter’s jokes.
I don’t love you anymore. I don’t know why. I’m sorry. Or maybe I shouldn’t be, it’s not really my fault I don’t love you, is it? Should I be sorry for this?
Big-eyed, she looks at me. I say nothing, can say nothing. She blinks as if she pushed aside the old Chinese takeout and yogurts and discovered the buried decay. Terrified of rot, of mold, she never could stand anything past its expiration.
I can’t do this anymore.
She crosses her ankles, uncrosses them. Turns a ring one way, then the other. She is drunk but her words are not. I knew them before she spoke them, knew them in the way she tensed under my touch. Knew them in the way she now cooked with me, ingredients thrown silently into the pan. Knew those words from the empty shelves of her fridge. Cleaned them myself, didn’t want to bother you. Knew them from how she had taken to sleeping, hands curled under her pillow so I could not intertwine our fingers in the night.
I think you should go.
Almonds
She is eating them in the museum. From statue to statue, I watch her peer left, right, before reaching into her purse to withdraw a single nut. Then slowly, oh so slowly, she moves her hand over her face as if to scratch her nose, and places the almond in her mouth. I cannot look away from her, this woman and her almonds. Loose hair, a ring on every finger. In the next gallery, I approach her.
You know, you can’t eat those in here.
She jumps. I apologize. I’m kidding, I don’t work here, I won’t tell. She looks me up and down. She smiles, laughs. I introduce myself. Wordlessly, she reaches into her purse and holds out an almond to me.
Want one?
I take it, and together we eat in silence at the feet of crumbled statuary.
He crumpled the paper and held on to it tightly as the past barreled through him. He hadn’t seen her since that cup of coffee last spring. I don’t love you anymore. Ceramic rim pressed to lips, tongue scalded. I’m so sorry, I really am. Mug cooled, coffee forgotten. What else do you want me to say?
Deep breath in, deep breath out. He pulled his fist to his chest, his fingers itching to unravel the grocery list once more. Eggs, Milk, Grapes, Coffee, Flour, Chocolate, Wine, Almonds. The months had plodded on from that last cup of coffee, and he stared after them in a daze. With those months came the knowledge that there was nothing left for him with her, the milk long soured, the wine long poured, her long gone. He could not raise her from this list, nor could he place himself back to when she wrote the list and stuck it in the jacket pocket. Despite this, he knew he could not bring himself to toss out this list, not yet. His heart descended back into his chest and beat now with soft, resigned thuds. He slid his fist back into his pocket, opened his palm and surrendered the list back into the pocket from which it came. Exhumed, then returned to tomb. Inhale, then exhale. He lurched forward into the stream of people and the past and, like kicked up silt, began to settle once more back into his riverbed of thought