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Though she died a few years ago, the wound is still fresh. In happy moments he forgets, but then the happiness serves as a reminder, and he seems to hunt for why he has to be unhappy. His grief is like a severed limb – invisible, phantom thing of pain – there but not there, and, somehow, always with him.
Sometimes he is happy to remember her – a smile at the scent of her favorite rose, a laugh at a salty memory, a spunky phrase she once uttered – and then he is lost again.
He finds solace in baking her old recipes. A calm settles around him in the kitchen. Bending over a simmering sauce of tomatoes and fresh basil, or rolling out the dough for an apple pie, he is best when he is busy. He thinks she is with him then, or maybe that he is cooking for her again, like he used to do.
He sleeps late when the pain and the night inspire to keep him up. Waking, alone, he plods to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. The scene outside the window changes with the seasons – the light slowly shifting, shadows lengthening or shortening, but it’s difficult to detect day to day. Only the occasional burst of a storm or the gray water vapor of a January thaw make any discernible difference. He draws the shades and looks out the window. The world is quiet from inside.
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