Always Together

Always. Together.

Always. Together.

Always, together.

He fisted his hands in his black hair, staring at the coffee stain on the pale linoleum between his legs.

Always together.

Hunched over, elbows driving daggers into his thighs, Alex resembled a bug curling in on itself, waiting for its inevitable death. A certain air of rotting misery clung to his form. It slept behind the wobbly chair, looming over his shadow made by dingy yellow light emanating from the five-candle chandelier. Their wedding gift.

The sun had set hours back though this early into spring it was still dark most hours of the day this far North. Upstairs, Vivi’s glass lampshade cast a green light across an empty room. Alex could see it perfectly in his mind. Except Vivi should have been halfway under the covers, a cup of tea balanced precariously on her knee as she thumbed through an old book.

The hands in his hair tightened further.

“Always together,” he whispered.

On the desk, in another room sat a manilla envelope containing adoption forms. Atop it, a phone holding the single note the dial-tone. It droned. Cut through the stifling silence. Alex could hear it from his spot in the kitchen. Smoke from the burnt dinner hung around the ceiling, sticking to the cracks. Alex sucked in a panicked gasp.

It tasted like failure.

“We were supposed to be…”

Alex shook his head as bitter sorrow crowded in his eyes and ears.

The floor creaked as he shifted his weight in the chair. A silver spoon tumbled out of its case in response, shrieking as it hit the countertop. Alex closed his eyes at the sound, imagining the shrill scream of failing breaks and metal as it dragged across the asphalt.

“What happened to it?” He frowned at a spot of cracked linoleum. “The car must’ve…” Alex released his hand, one hand falling to his thigh, the other floating over his broad nose and covering his lips. “Christ. The tires…” His lips moved against his palm as he spoke. “The tires were bald.”

Three knocks banged through the house.

Cloudy blue eyes sifted through the haze, glaring at the door at the end of a long hallway. Alex blinked. Settling back in the chair, he breathed in the smell of burnt salmon. Vivi’s favorite meal, as ruined as she was.

A flash of image struck his mind. Vivi, thin and blond, covered in that blue paisley dress she liked so much, contorted around a wide, white steering wheel.

Three more knocks banged against the door.

Alex staggered to standing, casting a dirty look at the chandelier and its warm light before shuffling down a narrow hallway. Small round prints from Vivi’s sharp heels were embedded in the carpet. Halfway down, he slipped into the empty room. The dial tone was louder. With a slow blink, he clicked the phone back into its home.

The silence rang in his ears.

Three more knocks.

Alex traipsed down to the door. A spot of blue nail polish near the lock caught his eye. Too red and tired to water, they burned instead. He unlocked the door with a clunky click and pulled it open to reveal a plump woman with white curls and a splotchy red face. Marie. Beyond her, grey clouds were darkening his stoop.

“Hi, Al. I just heard about-”

“Alex.”

“Sorry?”

“You can’t call me ‘Al’.”

The plump woman glared momentarily before she schooled her features into warm comfort. Alex vaguely wondered how many doors she went to after funerals. Was it like a party to her? Some twisted way to get her amusement in retirement?

“Isn’t that your name, dear?”

“No, it’s Alex.”

She frowned again, this time pursuing her lips and reaching out to touch him. Alex jolted back.

“You can’t call me ‘Al’.”

He shut the door softly, clicking the lock closed.

“Only Vivi called me Al,” he said more to himself than Marie.

“Alex!” The voice called.

He thought sullenly that he should have slammed it in her fat face.

Was it raining? It sounded like it was raining. Vivi had always liked when it rained at night. He paused halfway back to the kitchen and glanced up the carpeted stairs.

“Oh, Alex. Honestly!”

Foggy blue eyes looked through the smog of tainted memories. The smell of chamomile and lavender wafted down to him. Alex abandoned the thought of grieving in the kitchen.

“This isn’t healthy. It’s been nearly one week since the funeral and no one has seen you. Come on, Alex. Talk to me! We could…”

The voice faded into a shrill whine as he shuffled up the stairs and down another narrow, carpeted hallway. By the time he reached the sagging queen bed still covered in Vivi’s favorite floral quilt, he could barely hear the woman at the door.

There was still a nagging, insistent sound piercing the silence of the room. It was more of a keening wail, muffled by dissociative distance, than it was the screechy voice of Marie. Alex scratched at his hairline. Maybe she really did feel bad about Vivi.

He sniffed quietly, lifting his eyes every so often to search for the source of the sound. He could not find it. The sound did not vanish nor did it ease in its intensity as the minutes dragged on but Alex slowly tuned it out as he passed a reverent hand over the quilt covered in oranges, reds, and yellows.

Vivi had spent every free minute of her life for a year piecing together this creation. It smelled like the herbs she grew and the flowers she plucked from the garden. The garden that would never be tended to by her delicate hands again.

The sound increased in power, rattling in Alex’s chest.

“Oh,” Alex whispered, tracing the outline of a carnation. “It’s just me.”

The words cracked him across the face like an angry slap.

“Just me.”

There was no Vivi to soothe a hand down his back. There was no pale hand he could press to his lips, no lap to rest his weary head on, and no gentle humming to sing him to sleep. Vivi was gone.

Alex curled up on his side. He clutched the comforter, balling it in his fists and tucking it against his chest. Why had she left? Their marriage vows had been only two words, always together, and she had abandoned him. He was alone. Alex buried his face in the comforter.

“Just me?”

The rain battered the roof. It dripped into a metal bucket on the far side of the bedroom. Suddenly, Alex could hear nothing other than Vivi as she laughed and sang to the dripping water. She had insisted on the metal bucket. The storm’s instrument to dance to.

Alex sucked in a deep breath meaning to calm down, but as it left his lungs, it morphed into a feral, breaking scream. His knuckles went white in the fabric as the sobs racked his frame.

“We were…” he gasped between cries. “Supposed to be…”

Always together.