It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over

by Anne de Marcken

I used to imagine how it would be after you died. The way my days would go. It wasn’t bad. I would have had so much in having you and would have lost so much in losing you that I would no longer want anything. There would be more time. I pictured myself moving through the quiet house. I saw myself in the garden—my face, my back, my hands changed by not saying anything to anyone day after day. I saw the sheets I would wash and hang out to dry and fold and put away. The short showers I would take. The short hair I would have. I would put on the same clothes every morning and hang them on a hook every night. I was an old woman who looked like an old man. When I would leave the house, I would take my solitariness with me. I would roll down the grocery store aisles neither fast nor slow and put only a few items in my cart, not worrying about the cost of the cheese and sometimes buying eight of the same frozen meal. I would make no chitchat with clerks or retired neighbors. Sometimes I might accept a dinner invitation, and I would bring a gift for the host (sometimes a young couple new to the block, sometimes an old friend who had known me with you), but it would be a relief to everyone when I left without fail at exactly eight-thirty making no excuses. I realize now that when I was playing these silent movies of life after our life, you were still there. You were sitting