The Taste of You

"I still expect Keats to call.

"It doesn't matter that five years, almost six years, have passed and that the logical part of my mind understands and accepts that he's gone; I still think sometimes that his voice will be on the line when I pick up the phone.

"I'm sure you've heard people say that a million times. And you've heard people say that they see him in other people's faces, sometimes people that look nothing like him on second glance, but at first, he's there, and in one second you're angry because he tricked you, but you're also overjoyed because he's alive. Even if it was all a ploy to get away from you, even if he faked his own death to dump you, you're thrilled because it means he's in the world. And because someone, somewhere, gets to hear the stories about your life together. Gets to hug him. Gets to hear him laugh.

"Because the burden of carrying all those things alone, of knowing you're the only one who remembers him, is too massive. You can't breathe under something that solid.

"And so you'd take the lie in an instant, if someone told you they'd seen him, talked to him. You'd lean into their words and try to memorize the fact that he has a wife in Seattle and that they just bought a widescreen TV and a Saturn that gets excellent gas mileage. It doesn't matter if he never mentions you, thinks of you, at all. It doesn't matter if he's forgotten your name, so long as he's there, out there, alive. And not just vapor, just bones, just sound and fury. Just ghosts."

I looked at Dr. Parrish, and he looked at me.

There was nothing else to say.