I am sixty-four and the grief of the past two months has carved me hollow. Every morning I wake with the same violent start as though my heart has forgotten, for one merciful second, that she is gone. Then memory rushes back like cold water poured into cracked lungs. I cough on it. I always cough on it. Tonight I no longer pretend this is costume. The black satin mourning gown weighs thirty pounds if it weighs an ounce. The sleeves are so enormous they make my arms look like broken wings. The skirt is a black tide that drags behind me, heavy enough to drown small regrets. When I move, the silk screams sharp, wet slaps against itself, the sound of something being torn apart over and over. I have wrapped my head in a midnight black satin headscarf so vast it feels like I am being buried from the crown downward. The fabric is cool against my scalp, almost tender, the way her palm once was when she smoothed my hair before sleep. I pull it brutally tight underneath my chin. I want the tightness of the choke to hurt a little. I need to feel something that isn’t absence. Then the veil. Three sheer layers of black voile chiffon. The first kisses my eyelashes like soot. The second presses against my lips until I taste funeral flowers. The third falls to my waist and beyond, turning the room into a world seen through smoke and tears. Through it everything is dying again, softly, perpetually. My hands tremble as I button the twenty-four jet buttons of the double layer bodice rising from my belly to neck of the mourning gown. Each click of the button is a small gunshot in the quiet house. When I am finished my fingers inside my satin gloves are tired, elegant, useless. I cannot even touch my own face without feeling like I am trespassing on someone else’s sorrow. I descend the staircase one deliberate step at a time. The hem catches, drags, catches again. Silk on oak. Silk on oak. A dirge with no mercy. Halfway down I have to grip the banister because the weeping comes without warning, great, ugly sobs that make my whole body heave against the buttons of the bodice. I let them come. Let them tear through me. There is no one left to be ashamed in front of. In the drawing room I do not sit in her chair. I kneel. The skirt pools around me like spilled blood. I press my gloved palms flat against the carpet where her feet once rested. I lower my forehead until the veil puddles on the floor between my hands. I breathe in the ghost of her perfume, the ghost of her skin, the ghost of the mornings when I still woke as someone she recognised. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to the empty room. The words taste like rust. “I’m sorry I waited so long to become her. I’m sorry you never saw me like this. I’m sorry I’m still here breathing when you’re not.” The veil sticks to the wet tracks on my cheeks. I do not lift it. Let it cling. Let it choke. Let it witness. Outside, the night presses against the windows like a second, colder widow. A car passes. Headlights rake the room in white knives, illuminating me for one merciless second, an old crossdresser in extravagant widow’s weeds, kneeling, shaking, face hidden behind layers of black illusion, crying like something newly orphaned. I do not rise. I stay there until my knees scream, until the sobs turn to the small, broken hiccups of someone who has cried until there is almost nothing left to give. Only then do I speak again, so quietly the words barely disturb the veil. “You would have loved her,” I tell the dark. “You would have loved me.” And for the first time since the funeral two months ago, the silence does not feel like punishment. It feels like the last gentle touch of someone who finally understands.
I am sixty-four and the grief of the past two months has carved me hollow. Every morning I wake with the same violent start as though my heart has forgotten, for one merciful second, that she is gone. Then memory rushes back like cold water poured into cracked lungs. I cough on it. I always cough on it. Tonight I no longer pretend this is costume. The black satin mourning gown weighs thirty pounds if it weighs an ounce. The sleeves are so enormous they make my arms look like broken wings. The skirt is a black tide that drags behind me, heavy enough to drown small regrets. When I move, the silk screams sharp, wet slaps against itself, the sound of something being torn apart over and over. I have wrapped my head in a midnight black satin headscarf so vast it feels like I am being buried from the crown downward. The fabric is cool against my scalp, almost tender, the way her palm once was when she smoothed my hair before sleep. I pull it brutally tight underneath my chin. I want the tightness of the choke to hurt a little. I need to feel something that isn’t absence. Then the veil. Three sheer layers of black voile chiffon. The first kisses my eyelashes like soot. The second presses against my lips until I taste funeral flowers. The third falls to my waist and beyond, turning the room into a world seen through smoke and tears. Through it everything is dying again, softly, perpetually. My hands tremble as I button the twenty-four jet buttons of the double layer bodice rising from my belly to neck of the mourning gown. Each click of the button is a small gunshot in the quiet house. When I am finished my fingers inside my satin gloves are tired, elegant, useless. I cannot even touch my own face without feeling like I am trespassing on someone else’s sorrow. I descend the staircase one deliberate step at a time. The hem catches, drags, catches again. Silk on oak. Silk on oak. A dirge with no mercy. Halfway down I have to grip the banister because the weeping comes without warning, great, ugly sobs that make my whole body heave against the buttons of the bodice. I let them come. Let them tear through me. There is no one left to be ashamed in front of. In the drawing room I do not sit in her chair. I kneel. The skirt pools around me like spilled blood. I press my gloved palms flat against the carpet where her feet once rested. I lower my forehead until the veil puddles on the floor between my hands. I breathe in the ghost of her perfume, the ghost of her skin, the ghost of the mornings when I still woke as someone she recognised. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to the empty room. The words taste like rust. “I’m sorry I waited so long to become her. I’m sorry you never saw me like this. I’m sorry I’m still here breathing when you’re not.” The veil sticks to the wet tracks on my cheeks. I do not lift it. Let it cling. Let it choke. Let it witness. Outside, the night presses against the windows like a second, colder widow. A car passes. Headlights rake the room in white knives, illuminating me for one merciless second, an old crossdresser in extravagant widow’s weeds, kneeling, shaking, face hidden behind layers of black illusion, crying like something newly orphaned. I do not rise. I stay there until my knees scream, until the sobs turn to the small, broken hiccups of someone who has cried until there is almost nothing left to give. Only then do I speak again, so quietly the words barely disturb the veil. “You would have loved her,” I tell the dark. “You would have loved me.” And for the first time since the funeral two months ago, the silence does not feel like punishment. It feels like the last gentle touch of someone who finally understands.
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