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Decca had left everything untouched.
Decca wasn’t messy. The bed in the guest room had hospital corners. The bathroom grout was stark white, despite its age. The clothes in her bedroom closet hung straight, with every hanger spaced apart evenly.
I closed my eyes to block out the evidence of her pain, her loss, her grief. This was what was left behind after Granny’s death had left her alone.
Granny’s presence hung over this space like a shroud.
My heart broke for my wife as a greater realization crashed over me.
Iwas supposed to be her family now. That was what I’d promised by marrying her two days ago. I’d already failed her. My own insecurities, my prison of guilt, had only served to reaffirm that all her family left her.
Oh, Decca. My sweet girl. What have I done?
The acid from my coffee seemed to eat into my stomach lining. The black liquid bubbled up in my throat, threatening to spew out on the hardwood floors.
I was a fucking asshole. A selfish, dickless asshole. She’d been selfless enough to entwine her life with mine and I’d been too afraid... of what?
I blew out a long breath.Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a selfish asshole prick motherfucking bastard.
No. No. Iwouldn’tbe that. I would not leave her. Not in letter or spirit. No matter what, I’d find a way to show her I wasn’t that bad man anymore. We’d find a way into and through thismarriage,and I wouldn’t let her regret it.
Gus, nearing Litha
Five days. She’d beengone five days. For a flooded cemetery on the banks of the Mississippi River.
I didn’t know what to do with myself without her. It had been over a year since we’d gone this long without communicating.
I’d started cleaning up everywhere I could. Even the garden. Not too much, because I didn’t know which plant was a weed and what was some kind of witchy herb Decca wanted to keep, but the hostile note in the mailbox from an unfriendly neighbor threatened me into action.
I’d taken Dad to two appointments. One for bloodwork, and another for the oncologist to tell us the bloodwork wasn’t flooding her with optimism. Defeatist words were bandied about. I caught phrases I couldn’t bring myself to believe, liketime to start making decisions, andend-of-life plan.
Dad had listened with his usual reserve. The grace of a funeral director. He’d smiled and nodded politely, as if he wasn’t the patient under discussion. As if his family weren’t the ones in the crux of this battle.
I stayed over at my parents’ house two of the nights she was gone. I told myself it was because I wanted to spend as much time with Dad before his cancer made him... well, not him anymore, but really it was because I didn’t know what to else to do. I’d cleaned, organized, prayed, typed up notes for potential sermons.
I’d spent my days wondering when she’d be done with her case. Finding funny videos I wanted to send her when she ended this communication freeze. Buying her favorite cheeses from the market in Franklin.
The nights were unbearable.
My life was in limbo. My ordination was imminent, but until then, I was still a layperson. I volunteered at the church, taught Greek school, baked prosforo, chanted during the liturgies and vigils, but I was supposed to be spending this time in prayer and preparation. And I was, but there were only so many hours I could spend in prayer and reading religious texts without feeling the need to get my body moving. It was the calm before the storm, but I could only take so much calm. And so much being in this house without Decca.
It wasn’t until her car turned into the gravel drive that I realized exactly how much I’d missed her bright, full-teeth smiles, her smelly tea blends, and catching swaths of black fabric out of the corner of my eye as she floated around our little house. The place was filled with her energy, but I missed the corporeal her.
I stopped pulling up a chunk of crabgrass (definitely a weed) from my crouched position behind some anise hyssop (definitely a witchy herb) and watched her car crawl to a stop. She looked nervous, drained. But happy. I wanted to wrap her in my arms.
She spotted me immediately. “Gus! Oh my… I can’t believe you did all this work.”
I stood, grinning like a jack-o’-lantern while she slung her bag over her shoulder, stepping gingerly across the flagstones in her nice, heeled boots. I’d never seen her in her work attire. Narrow, black skirt that hit the tops of her ankle boots, black belted jacket with lots of pockets, black hat. Topped with an old, brown, rugged leather bag that looked like it could have belonged to a great-great-grandfather.
Everything I wanted to tell her washed away after seeing her. The impact of her arrival home after being in the field for five days.
“How did you know what to keep?” She plunked down her bag in the disturbed soil where I’d just been removing clumps of grass and other things I was mostly sure were weeds. Okay, I hoped were weeds.
She still hadn’t moved to hug me, kiss me. I hadn’t either, even though her presence was a balm on my heart. But something more than the dirt caked into my clothes held me from rushing at her with my arms wide.
She pinched off a leaf of the purple flowering Agastache—I Googled a lot of plants this week—and held it under her nose, closing her eyes as she breathed in the scent.
“Google, at first. Then I went down a YouTube rabbit hole. Then I downloaded a plant identification app and took out what was invasive. But after I started ripping everything out, I realized I probably should have checked with you first.”
