Tess Kelly

Word Count 507

Sunday
It’s almost mundane. Him slicing mushrooms, weeping over diced onions, the sizzle of a cast iron pan. The pan he’ll soon pack in a box labeled COOKWARE. We’ll share this frittata, but he’s leaving.

He is leaving.

Monday
We’ve always been nice to each other, but now we’re reverential. No chore goes unappreciated, no meal unpraised. We don’t complain. It’s pointless to want change for a vanishing future.

Along with waning kisses, the habit of calling each other “hon” and “sweetheart” fades like a youthful dream. Even his given name will disappear, will morph into something female, along with the body I’d memorized like a prayer.

His pronouns are still masculine. His family’s religion has not made this easy. It’s been four years since he told me about the woman locked inside, the key to her freedom dangling from his trembling hands.

Tuesday
KMHD broadcasts Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald’s singing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” deep rasp weaving through perfect pitch. We slow dance across the kitchen’s sage-colored linoleum. My right cheek rests in the warmth of his left shoulder. His t-shirt catches my tears. My hair catches his.

Wednesday
I tuck a poem under the French press that morning, a list of ways he’s loved me. He comes home at 10, slips into the bedroom as I pull down the quilt. The bouquet he clasps marks our ninth anniversary, our last. Miniature yellow roses, purple larkspur, a spray of tiny daisies, all gathered in a Mason jar.

I don’t want to be in a relationship with a woman, even one I adore.

Thursday
The pluck of guitar, the ache of sad lyrics. The music floats toward me as I walk up the driveway, envelops me as I open the door. He sits strumming in the living room and offers his dimpled smile. A ghost smudge of mascara hides behind his glasses.

Three more days until he leaves for a cross-country bike trip and pedals into a new existence. Three days left of our lives together. Perhaps it will feel like an amputation. Of a toe? An arm?

A heart. 

Friday
We borrow a friend’s pickup and cram his things into a small storage unit, creating a 3-D puzzle of memories: Photos, mandolin, futon, nightstand. Those science textbooks he never could say goodbye to. A box of secret dresses she will one day wear in public, fear yielding to exhilaration.

Saturday
He bends over the table, fixing a rainfly in the glow of a Tiffany lamp. There’s the ripping of duct tape, the click of a zipper spinning in the dryer, the aroma of pot brownies baking in the oven. And there’s me on the green couch, not reading the book in my lap. 

My chest heaves.

He looks up, asks if I’m okay, crosses the room, and sits beside me. His hand finds mine, and I can breathe. I’m lost in the sound of his voice, in the familiar shape of him, on this last night together, in this house.

*

Tess’ work has appeared in Sweet, Ruminate, HerStry, and Cleaver, among other publications. She lives and writes in Portland, Oregon.