A year and a half later

A year and a half later

Many seasons have passed since she’s noticed how nice the warm wafts of early June air feel in her lungs. She stops outside her house and breathes again, deep into her soft belly, the way she practices at the end of every session with her therapist. She puffs out the air, counting one, two, three, and then fishes for her keys.

Saturday afternoons are much like any other day of the week. She plucks the green heads off a quart of strawberries that she cuts into halves and eats for lunch, slowly, at her kitchen table. Soon she will bring a small glass of water upstairs into the room that had once been her son’s. She will cross her legs and then lower herself to the meditation cushion placed squarely in front of the window. She will stretch her back and then she will sit there in the afternoon light for the next forty-five minutes, and she will think of nothing. Not him. Not her. Not the mistakes she has made as a mother. Not the guilt she carries for the damage she has done. Not her unbearable loneliness.

No, she will not think about any of that. She has worked too hard to let it go.

I am capable of moving beyond my mistakes.

I am able to heal from the hurt and pain I have caused.

She will say these affirmations aloud and she will put her hands to her chest, and then she will flick her hands, she will release it all.

When it is time for dinner, she closes her laptop and she chops herself a salad. She allows herself to put on some music, just three songs—some of her joys are still measured. But tonight she’ll move her shoulders ever so slightly, she will tap her foot. She is trying, and trying has become easier.

After dinner, as she does every night, she turns on the light at the front of the house. She does this in case her daughter decides it is finally time to see her.

Upstairs, she hums a verse she had listened to in the kitchen. She undresses. The bath fills with hot water and the mirror steams. She is leaning over the counter, wiping the glass, wanting to examine her bare face, to pat the loose skin under her eyes, when the phone rings.

She is startled and clutches a towel to her breasts like there is an intruder in the next room. The phone glows from the end of her bed. My daughter, she thinks. It could be my daughter, and she floats in that hope for a moment.

She slides her finger on the screen and lifts it to her ear.

The woman is hysterical. The woman is desperately searching for words it seems she will never find. She walks to the other end of her bedroom and then to the corner, as though she’s looking for better reception, as though this will help the woman to speak. She hushes into the phone and as she does this, she realizes who it is she is soothing. She closes her eyes. It is Gemma.

“Blythe,” she finally whispers. “Something happened to Jet.”