I come down to breakfast at 6 a.m. You stand in your blue terry cloth robe, cinched at the waist holding a cup of green tea in hands that are freckled, slender fingers around the cup. You hair falls on your shoulders, curling perfectly at the ends like those commercials for Clairol shampoo. It’s dark outside and the rain pings lightly on the skylight. I stand still watching. Your back to me, you don’t know I’m there. I’ve stood in this kitchen hundreds of times, watched you lean against the counter, marveled at your elegance, cuffs rolled up midway on your arms. Ten years have slithered by and the world feels like it’s tilting off its axis, gravity failing to hold things down.
“Good morning,” I venture. You turn around and, without smiling say “hello” as though I am the postman, a service clerk at the counter at Macys or a total stranger. I open the fridge and take out the decaf, spoon three scoops into the basket. I fill the Pyrex pitcher with water and slice a piece of Zingerman’s raisin walnut bread to put in the toaster. I turn to face you in time to glimpse the back of your bathrobe disappear.
*****
Carol Anderson’s publications include: You Can’t Buy Love Like That: Growing Up Gay in the Sixties, a memoir. “What Is it About Memoir,” in the anthology The Magic of Memoir, and “Deeper Power” in Enlightened Power: How Women are Transforming the Practice of Leadership. Other work has been published in The Huffington Post, The Advocate, Hippocampus, and Across the Margin.
