This Place of Wonder

by Barbara O'Neal

Bookstores can solve any problem, at least for a little while.

Only this place of wonders could soothe me.

The longing for it burns in my chest right now. I can close my eyes and imagine it, that sharp citrus flavor pouring down my esophagus, easing every nerve in my body, head to toe. Making everything go away. Stop. Making it all stop hurting, making my thoughts stop whirling around with such urgency. I can’t believe I will never—

My sponsor’s voice nudges me. Stay where your feet are.

That’s the thing about grief. It spirals up and up and up, revisiting us again and again, reaching out with electrified tentacles to sting us when we least expect it.

I just liked hearing him go through the motions of leaving work behind and coming home to us. Whatever consumed him out there was left on the floor with his clothes, and he crawled in beside me, his big body sinking the bed.

He left behind a fragrant spell that worked its way into my body, spreading like alchemical ink through my veins, staining every molecule with desire. My mind and my body were at war.

Booze is a demanding, jealous, exhausting lover.

It feels good to be the comforter instead of the comforted, and I let her cry as long as she wants, which is a pretty long time. I wish I could feel something other than anger. I wish I could grieve like this, but there’s nothing, except a wish to help my sister feel better.

The gnawing animal in my wrist and the restlessness in my soul combine to create a symphony of distress. Like a coyote, I want to howl, howl out my fury and sense of loss and pain. I want to make noise about it.

Only people without the kind of wounds she and I carried think you need to live it all over again. Not everything can be forgiven. Not everything can be healed.

If you let people into the secrets of your life, the worst of it will always be at the forefront of their minds. I wasn’t about to let that happen to me.

A low stirring washes through me and I realize I’m reacting to the scent of him, salty and green, layered with faint perspiration in his hair or on his skin, which seeps into my pores and slams into my heightened hormones and gives me a picture of kissing him, not lightly, but with extreme and possibly sloppy attention. A lusty heat burns my cheeks.

My arms wrap around his torso, his around my shoulders and waist, and we fit like Russian dolls. His head tilts and mine tilts the other way and we dive into kissing like it will end climate change.

Lightning crackles and explodes outside the windows as two bodies give each other the meal they’ve been so starved for.

his soul-deep weariness.