Rootless

by Krystle Zara Appiah

but to Efe the memory feels like someone else’s entirely. Like it couldn’t possibly have been her.

Efe feels the disparity most acutely, like an anchor pulling her below the waterline.

wonders how long he’d been staring at part of a whole, seeing only what he’d wanted to see.

She wonders who her daughter is without her.

“I can love her and still want something more for my life. Love and regret aren’t mutually exclusive.

“Don’t you ever feel like we’re making this so much harder than it should be? We could just be happy but we’re ruining it.

You were so consumed with your idea of me that you couldn’t see what it was doing to me.”

“People—even the ones who love you—can be a weight around your neck. You just have to choose which weights you want to carry. And I’m strong. This. This I can live with.”

“I wonder why we do that,” she says. “Do what?” “Measure a woman’s strength by the amount she is able to endure?”

But raw and bleeding things are still alive.

To Sam, the sky seems lower than it usually is, and for a second he wonders if it’s always been like that and he’s simply spent his whole life not noticing.

Some days he feels hollowed out, or the pain fresh and cutting deep as it did when they first lost Efe. Doubts reign. He worries he can’t get through the next hour. But the time passes anyway. The days keep coming. They build themselves into weeks and months almost without him noticing. Six months gone. Their lives splintered into before and after.

Such a great description of grief.