Thirst for Salt

by Madelaine Lucas

It was a beautiful photograph, and I was surprised how much that hurt. The greens lush and saturated, like a country fresh with rain, color so rich I could almost taste the earth, the water in the air.

How could I not be hung up on the past, I wanted to say to my mother, when so many things I’d loved had been left behind there?

The strength it takes to bring an old house back from the brink of ruin, bringing in the light, the air. Water and seeds out for the birds. That kind of work, she said, it makes you believe that change is possible. You can see the difference you made, and all for the better too.

See, the thing is, it seems so romantic at the time—like the most romantic thing you could do—have a baby with someone. To give that to them. But once you do, it kind of eclipses everything. You think you’re ready for it, but you’re not. That kind of love? It’s terrifying.

Who is to say what love is or what it wants to be, the shape it takes, or how quickly it comes on? Love has always made a fool of time.

This place, I knew, would not remember me. Already, most traces of my presence had been swept away and scrubbed clean. But what about Jude? I wanted to stain him, like pollen. Wanted to press into his skin, Remember me here.

my mother, of something she’d once said: There is no end to grief, because there is no end to love.