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Isabel had never known loneliness like that, one that arrived without the promise of leaving.
She belonged to the house in the sense that she had nothing else, no other life than the house, but the house, by itself, did not belong to her.
What was the worth of happiness that left behind a crater thrice the size of its impact.
How quickly did the belly of despair turn itself over into hope, the give of the skin of overripe fruit.
She had held a pear in her hand and she had eaten it skin and all. She had eaten the stem and she had eaten its seeds and she had eaten its core, and the hunger still sat in her like an open maw. She thought: I can hold you and find that I still miss your body. She thought: I can listen to you speak and still miss the sound of your voice.
“No,” Isabel said. Eva had stopped weeping. She let Isabel bear her full weight, on her knees on the hard floor. Isabel told her: “There isn’t a version of me that could’ve looked away from you.”
One foot out, she paused. Turned. Said, “You were never supposed to have it.” She said, “It was never yours.”
The memories were heavy, empty things low in her gut and only angered her: that her own doorway could be taken away from her, that a childhood and a youth and a life lived through that doorway could disappear in favor of a single person.
She wanted to be reminded, she wanted to be angry again, she wanted to let her heart do anything other than devour itself, shrink and shrink and shrink.
I’ve never met a woman so tall and she’s not even that tall at all.
Isabel tested one with her foot and found it solid, and then stood on it in wonder: a miracle, she thought, to stand so solidly on what could also engulf you.
The lettering above the windows looked frightening: she did not know what it meant, what it said. It could mean anything. She could not read it and it could mean anything.
She gave Eva the wine and found that her heart had not grown any lighter over the months, had not grown any lighter at the sight of Eva. She loved her. She might always.
She knew Eva was there, knew she had approached. She would never not know. She would never leave a room again and not leave half of her behind.
