The Last Sip From a Broken Glass

She sipped her coffee and I steeped my tea.  She glanced at me over the rim of her cup before looking out at the rain dulled window.  The sky was grey and a deep rumble of thunder sounded off in the east.  She always referred to rainy days as “baby-makin’ weather”. 

I sighed and stirred my tea, looking down into the swirls as if they could tell me what to do next.  In fact, I wished they could.  Across the table, she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, lightly bumping me with her foot.  She looked at me nonchalantly apologetic.  If that’s at all possible.

“What are you going to do?  I leave in three days.  I don’t want to sit here and pretend as if there is nothing going on.”

“Well you should have thought about that before you went and made all of these decisions without me”, I retorted heatedly.

She sat her coffee cup down into the same ring it had left on the Formica table.  I remembered when we bought it at a quaint little yard sale a while back.  It seemed almost an eternity ago.  She leaned back and crossed her arms authoritatively, something she always did when she sensed I was miffed.  She blinked large green eyes that stared right to the center of my soul and pursed her beautiful wide mouth.  She cleared her throat ritually and prepared to speak.  She opened her mouth… thought a second… and shut it instead, releasing a heavy sigh and ultimately leaving the table.  I continued to stir my tea, now cold.
********************************************************************

I never helped her pack her things.  I didn’t want to show in any way that I approved of what she was doing.  Which I definitely did not.  She wore a contemplative look on her face and several times I saw her looking at me as if she wanted to speak.  But each time, she changed her mind.  I realized that my lack of support must look very contradictory to the fact that I loved her.  I mean, she was my best friend.  She knew everything there was to know about me, even some stuff I haven’t found out about myself yet.  And I could honestly say she felt the same way for me.  But, if that were true, how could she be so callus and cold toward me?

“We’re different.  You wear you emotions on your sleeve- I simply handle my emotion”, she said to me once one night at a bar.  She was drunk, and so was I and I didn’t think about it much at the moment.

So maybe, inside this is killing her.  Maybe she wants me to beg her to stay.  Maybe, I should try like I always do to communicate with her.  Maybe I can change her mind.

She was sitting on the bed with one leg up, cascade of hair partially hiding her face as she read a book.  I walked to the closet and began to undress, tossing my clothes haphazardly into the hamper.  I glanced up and viewed her in the mirror.  She was biting her thumbnail, a sure sign that whatever she was reading had definitely captivated her interest.  Pulling an oversized t shirt over my head, I turned to face her.  She continued to read as if I had not even entered the room.  She gracefully turned the page in her book, making a small grunting noise- reacting to something she’d read no doubt.

“We need to talk”.
“Mmm, hmmm”, she replied not even looking up.

Now, I don’t like to give myself a lot of credit but here I am trying to engage her attention, and I am losing to her book that she’s finding so much more riveting than hearing what I have to say.

“I… said we need to talk”.  This time, I took an assertive tone to let her know I meant business.  As quickly as possible, without looking up, she replied, “I heard you the first time”.

I walked out of the room noting that now it was two days before her departure.
*******************************************************************

I awoke to someone’s mouth on me only to find that it was remnants of a dream leaving lasting effects on my body.  Yet at the moment, I could feel the caress and couldn’t tell whether I was even awake yet.  It felt like her hand…her mouth…I brushed away the tendrils of my dream and opened my eyes to look out the large bay window.  Of course, to my chagrin, I woke up alone. The sun streamed in the window, beaming in a cloudless sky.  It looked as if that rain finally moved east.  I stretched out languorously on the bed of my choice, the couch.  The cat padded lazily across the wooden floor toward me, meowing in protest for his breakfast.

The can went around the electric can opener a couple of times before I noticed that the can was open, I was so lost in thought.  The overhead creaking of the ceiling signaled that she had arisen.  If I knew her, which I did, she was groggily making her way to the bathroom to pee then brush her teeth.  Several seconds later I heard the creature of habit running the water.

I was frying bacon when she came down, no wait; I was burning the bacon when she came down.  She poured a cup of Joe and leaned against the counter facing my back.  She gave the kitchen a once over and stated, “You did a good job remodeling the kitchen”.  I did not respond or even acknowledge that I’d heard her.

The Formica table gleamed from the late night scrubbing I gave it.  I always clean when I’m stressed out.  I find it to be very therapeutic. Yet I can’t seem to wash away my feelings of worry and anxiety.  I cannot seem to wash away my doubt and despair.  She sat her cup down in the same ring it had left on the table and gazed out the window, although it didn’t seem that she was really focusing on anything.  She ate everything off her plate except the bacon.
***********************************************************************************
“Have you seen my messenger bag?” she called down from upstairs as the cat and I sat lounging, flipping through a magazine.  When I didn’t respond, I heard her coming down the stairs.  Her hair was disheveled and she had a brown smudge on her left cheek.  It took all of my restraint to keep from jumping up out of my seat to wipe it from her face.

“No, I haven’t seen it”.
“I called for you from upstairs, why didn’t you answer me?” she was irritated.  The displeased tone in her voice was a strict contrast to her medium build frame, accompanied by a face whose mouth was always grinning.  I hadn’t seen her smile in… I don’t know how long that’s been. 

“Didn’t hear you”, I mumbled more to myself than anything, continuing to leaf through my magazine.

For dinner I prepared her favorite, stir fry.  We chewed our food silently at the table and as she looked out the window, into the dusk, I looked out into the living room.  The boxes she’d packed over the coming weeks crowded the living room and foyer.  They held an ominous presence and set me at unease.  The sight of them was enough to make me cringe inside.  When she spoke my name, I was startled from my reverie. 

“What are you thinking about?” she asked invitingly.  She clasped her hands, elbows on table and leaned forward into me.  I recognized her effort to connect with me.  When she’d first made up her mind, she told me nonchalantly on our way home from the movies.  I remember being so angry at her; how could she just tell me like it was nothing and then tell me that the decision was final without even discussing it with me?  We argued more than usual after that, and I cried more than usual.  Sometimes it felt as if I was dying from sheer frustration.  Things got broken and I ended up cleaning a lot of broken glass.  I cut my foot on an exquisite green shard from a vase she’d received as a housewarming gift.  I think I had to get two stitches.

She waited for me to speak and for a moment, there were several things I wanted to say to her.  I wanted to unleash all of my frustration, anger, resentment, and hurt, all at once, right then and there.  I wanted to tell her how betrayed I felt.  How I’d tried so hard to be a good person to her, to provide her with a good home and how she meant so much to me.  How countless times, I tried to talk to her and reason with her about everything we encountered.  I wanted to tell her how from the beginning I was willing to do anything and try even more to make it work. How for weeks I was heartbroken by her decision and did not know how I would get on in the face of her departure.  How I loved her very much.

Instead I chose to say “Nothing”.

She peered at me quizzically for a second.  She then left the table with a sigh her dinner only half-eaten.
*********************************************************************

It was day before the “day” and movers had arrived at the house, taking away those ominous boxes.  When they were cleared away, I did not feel the least bit relieved as I’d hoped I would.  The house seemed incredibly empty and bereft.  Guess I just got used to the clutter.  Now that the boxes were gone, the reality that she really was leaving me behind set in.

I hadn’t even bothered to speak to her.  She went on with her arrangements and I tried to confine myself to the space of my study.  I refinished the long mahogany desk myself after I got a great deal on it at a thrift store.  I remember how lovingly she traced the outlines of the desk with her beautiful slim fingers.  “You did a beautiful job… you’re so good at making things beautiful”.  I remember my hand stroking her thick curtain of hair.  She embraced me in her arms, leaning over me, and for a moment her hair covered the both of us.  That hair.  It smelled of roses, and lilacs.  I ran my fingers through it and she grinned with that wide mouth of hers.  Her scent made me giddy and I wished that I could have stayed in that moment forever.  I wish I could turn back time, to that time, when we were both so happy with each other. 

Now most of her things were gone from the house, save a few suitcases she’d gathered together in the foyer.  There was an echo that had not existed before, the place seemed so empty.  She walked around on her cell phone checking and double checking her appointments, times, flights, services.  This needed to be turned on, this needed to be forwarded, this needed to be changed.  Would it be on when she got there?  How long would it be?  What happens if she doesn’t take it this time?  I could hear her all the way in the study.

I meandered aimlessly in the kitchen, having grown too curious to remain in my study.  She neither acknowledged nor denied my presence.  She continued to talk on the phone this time arguing cordially with someone about a cut off date.  I made a sandwich, extra ham, heavy on the mayo, one piece of lettuce.  She slammed her cell phone closed and looked at me thoughtfully.  She looked down at my sandwich which I was cutting in half. 

“Anymore where that came from?” she inquired.

“Yep.  In the fridge”, I retorted.  She stared at me momentarily then without further ado went to the fridge and began to prepare her own sandwich.  I stood there at the counter, nibbling but not really eating, watching her out of the corner of my eye.  She proceeded to fix her food, not really saying anything or looking at me.  Her cell phone rang, and she paused to answer it.  Whomever was on the other line was enjoying a side her I had not seen in weeks.  She laughed, she was coquettish, she even grinned.  I did not bother to piece together the conversation; her demeanor was enough to make me feel sick.  I threw the rest of my lunch in the trash and exited the kitchen having lost my appetite.
*****************************************************************************
The dreaded day had finally arrived and I decided to sleep most of it away if I could.  Yet my body betrayed me and around noon, I went downstairs.  She was already up and dressed, all bags packed and she was sitting at the Formica table drinking a mug of… juice.  I grabbed and orange from the fruit basket on the counter and sat across from her peeling it idly, looking out the window.  The sun was high in the sky and it was hot outside.  The flowers in the hedges were wilting, and no one was outside.  Thank God for air conditioning.

When I turned away from the window, I noticed she was looking at me.  The look on her face was odd.  It looked like loss or…regret.

She cleared her throat and looked down into her mug before saying quietly, “My cab should be here any minute now”.

She peered into me I guess to see what my reaction would be.  I knew she was peering into a face of stone.

“I wanted to wake you but”, here she paused carefully choosing her words-“it looked as if you needed your rest”.

“Wow.  If only you’d been this considerate a couple of weeks ago.”

“Come on,” she said slowly, “let’s not do that now”.

“Why, is it not a good time for you?  Is it too inconvenient for you to actually consider my feelings?”  I could feel my anger starting to rise and boil inside me like a hot kettle of water.

“I know you don’t agree with me decision”-

“You never even gave me a choice!  You didn’t even talk to me! What have I done to make you feel like you couldn’t talk to me?”

“And if I did try to talk to you?” her voice raised a little here, “what would have been different?  I didn’t think I could make you understand that I was doing this for us”-

“No, you were not doing this for us; you were doing this for yourself! You did not once think about me or how I would feel did you?”

I slumped back in my chair feeling those hot tears well up behind my eyes; she sat back, folded her arms and bit her bottom lip.  I hated her so much right now because I loved her so much all this time.

“You have to admit that we’ve grown apart”, she spread her hands on the table as if to give herself support for what she was about to say.  “Don’t pretend that we haven’t had more fights than good times.  Don’t sit there and pretend that you and I have not been trying to hold this together.  Look me in my face and tell me that you’ve been truly happy these past couple of months.”  I looked at her without speaking, feeling the first tear fall from my left eye.

“See what I mean?” she said softly, “You can’t even say that you have.”

“But I was willing to make it work. I”-

“We’ve been trying to make it work for a long time now.  It hasn’t.  This decision doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, because believe me, I love you very much.  That’s why I’m leaving”-

“You’re not just leaving”, I managed to say through sobs, “you’re abandoning me, you’re leaving me behind.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.  It will hurt for awhile, for the both of us.  But it’s the only way for the both of us to be happy.  For me to leave.  If I stay, we will be forever stuck in the place we are now.  Please believe when I tell you I had your best interest at heart, no more weak moments, no more leaving and coming back, no more calling when we’re separated because we got weak.  No more pain for the both of us.”

A horned blared outside and I knew that her taxi had arrived.  She got up from her seat, shouldering her messenger bag and taking a swig from her cup.  She placed the cup into the same ring it had left on the table.  And just like that, she was helping the driver load her suitcases and the front door closed.  That was it.

I sat in my chair for a moment paralyzed.  It was as if what I was experiencing was surreal.  That a couple of hours later, she’d be back with pizza and a new toy for the cat, telling me I shouldn’t eat the pizza because it’d give me indigestion.

But she wasn’t coming back through that door.  Ever.

I jumped up as if I was sleepwalking before and ran out the front door… the taxi long gone.  I didn’t even tell her that I loved her too.  I didn’t even get to say goodbye.  I sat on the porch in the hot sun, flies buzzing aimlessly around.  My palms were sweaty and my tears salty as they continued to flood my face.  Flood my soul.  The cat meowed incessantly at the screen door, probably wondering what the paws I was doing outside.  She always wondered why I cried so much.  As I stared off into the direction she’d left in, I realized that it was because I felt I was the only one who cared enough to cry.