Cinder and Smoke III

I step out of the shower and start dressing under the cover of the darkness. The blinds are always shut in the bedroom; that was something she had always insisted on from the very beginning. She wrote better without the sunlight she said. “It’s too bright, Bear!” she had exclaimed, tossing her head. “All that yellow light pouring in just makes everything so goddamned Ordinary!” And of course darkness can be used to uncover as well as cover, so I didn’t complain. Now we hide in this darkness, seek shelter in the silences, leave volumes unsaid- not because there’s nothing left to say, but because we’re too afraid of what we’ll be left with if we do say them. An elephant in the room. Such a funny phrase isn’t it? But that’s what it feels like. From the moment I step inside this house, our ‘home’ there’s this tension like everything’s hanging in the balance and something needs to be done. Something needs to be said, but no one can find the courage to say it. I don’t know when it started and whether it was the drink that drove away the work or the work that pushed her over the edge. But she started to take refuge in it. It was strange and it didn’t alarm me at first, because oddly enough she had always been the one to stay away from drink, even social drinking. I’d teased her about it in the beginning, but she’d stayed firm.  The strongest drink she would consent to touch would be a cosmopolitan. She liked the tangy taste of it, she said. She didn’t drink alcohol but lemonade was an obsession with her. Lemons with mint and sparkling water, lemonade with a hint of citrus orange. Lemonade with spices. Lemon tea. She loved the tangy taste and the scent. Even the perfume she wore had a distinct lemony accent to it. “Lemonora”, I used to call her. My Leonora. Leo, Love. Love, Leo. Where did you go?

“Cinder and smoke 
Some whispers around the trees 
The juniper bends 
As if you were listening “