What is it? She holds her cheek to the side of my cheek in a way I remember doing but that hasn’t happened for a long time. I can see September in her, in the shape of her nose and mouth, in the way, even, that she blinks. I do not know how to tell her everything that I need to say. I do not know where the beginning is. It is buried back at that tennis court, in the debris from the collapsed shed, in the ambulance with the discarded syringes and stained sheets. I do not know how to tell her that I have been living with the ghost of September strung around my neck. She’s dead, I say.
