wintry mix

Dear Lola:
I sat there and my hands were cold and the clam chowder wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad either, it was warm and thick and salty like it should be, and I simply wasn’t thinking much about it, just eating, but this old man in uniform said “Is it any good?” and I nodded an enthusiastic yes – at least as enthuse as I could muster, and five minutes later he walked by me, tray (with clam chowder) in hand: “I hope you weren’t lying,” he said with a smile. Godsent, I thought: salt in the wound for an unwitting liar.

Today, for the first time, he phrased his demand to me as: “I need someone who…” And I wished I could ask him: “How long has it been, my love, since a phantom, hypothetical woman slipped into the spaces where I lack?”

Word without translation: Desamor. Un-love. Not hate, not indifference, not really lack of love. Worse: the motions, the habit, the wish, only the echo of your own voice coming back when you’d hoped for an answer.

Today I got my ex’s old pots and pans in the mail (better with me than in the trash). So, if I cook in them, do I get home back? What a magical meal that would be.

Wintry mix, the weather forecast said, and truly the only thing that didn’t fall on me today was hellfire.

Maybe tomorrow.

—F