The One Who Waits

My life is in one room: four boxes on the kitchen floor, an overstuffed duffle bag on the counter, my keys on the table. Looking at my belongings, all I feel is shame: the brooding child of love and hate which has eaten away at me every day since June left. I laugh to myself, a dark, sharp chuckle that bounces off the emptiness around me. We are born alone and we die alone. But isn’t life about connection? Isn’t love what makes life worth living? Bags and boxes stuffed with my things, but now that she’s gone, I have nothing.

If I take this money and run, maybe I’ll find myself again. I can head west, or east—get a little apartment in Portland or New York, figure out who I am and what I want. But I’ll be alone, and June will still be gone. If I use the money to hunt her down, I’ll have her back. I won’t be alone anymore. But where will I be?

When June and I moved into this vinyl-sided house, identical to the other small starter homes in the outskirts of Minneapolis, we joked that we’d bring a little spice to the suburbs: two twenty-five-year-old lesbians on a block of mostly middle-aged folks with kids and corporate jobs. When we drank beers in the backyard one Friday night and let the buzz draw us to each other, laughing, kissing in the grass, we caught the neighbor staring openmouthed through a window. We continued making out, of course, despite the man’s shock. We imagined our affection provided some substance for the gossipy moms to ponder: after all, is it appropriate for their children to see such scandal?

I still remember the way June’s hair lit up in the golden sunset that evening, her tanned skin glowing in the sinking sun. She was electric, wild, drunker than me as always, lighting sparklers one after the other and waving them in loops and zigzags frantically.

“Naomi, look!” She spelled out my name with the sparks and made a heart around it right as the letters disappeared.

“Nice, Junie.” We had been drinking for hours. A slippery anger snaked through me as she poured herself another drink. She was stumbling, grass in her hair, dirt on her ankles. I sighed as she spilled her drink down her shirt. She reeked of rum, thick, syrupy, suffocating. She didn’t smell like her usual self at all.

June’s scent crystallized my love for her. It was subtle. We had several dates, a table between us, before I could understand her essence. On the third date, she leaned close to kiss me, and I was drunk on her in seconds. June: chamomile, oranges, dirt. She was earthy and ripe, fruit juice dripping off your hands and onto the forest floor. Sometimes her smell shifted and took on something headier, musk and melon. But mostly she smelled like the sun. Bright, warm, natural.

The more time I spent with June, the more I noticed things about her I had been too infatuated—or drunk—to notice initially. We had so much fun in the first few months; we went out on weekdays, dancing into the morning; we took a weekly creative writing class at the local college, penning stories about each other in our matching little black books. Our lives were busy and full almost from the start, and within six months we moved in together. It was dizzying how fast it all happened. Thinking back, I can always remember her face, her reactions to our milestones, her laughing on the couch with a bottle of wine to celebrate our six months, her joy at the gifts I bought her. But I can’t seem to remember what I felt in those early months. I think I thought it was love.

Trepidation crept in me over time. Don’t get me wrong, I loved our connection—finishing each other’s sentences, taking walks together in the evening, trying new bars and restaurants and playing pool with strangers, feeling wild and younger than I did when I was a teenager. But I felt unmoored, unsure. I was a little afraid of her. She could be secretive, spontaneous to a fault. I thought I loved that she always found a way to surprise me. “She keeps me on my toes,” I’d told my friends, beaming.

After a while, I thought we’d settle down a bit. Of course I didn’t want some groundhog’s day TV-dinner routine but I did expect things to slow a little. I expected us to go to bed a little earlier, to wake up earlier. But June was always ready for another round, another song, another cigarette, another adventure. I was tired, more tired than I’d ever remembered being. When I woke up I was tired, when I drank coffee I was tired, and when I went to sleep at night I slept hard and dreamlessly. I lost any motivation to work out like I used to; I felt I never had time to read or watch movies or do anything on my own, really. When we moved in together, I started working opening shifts at the bookstore 6 days a week and couldn’t stay up past 10 most nights. A fundamental part of a good life, to me, is good sleep. Shutting my eyes to the empty black expanse renews me like mother’s milk. I unfurl when I sleep, relaxing my tense muscles, letting my mind—overrun in the day with what I should be doing, what I’m doing wrong—finally drift into nothing. Now, looking back, maybe that was the problem. The more sleep I lost, the less love I felt.

That night we kissed in the backyard, I got sick of mosquitos and rum. I longed for my bed. I didn’t want to kiss June anymore or put on a show for the neighbor. I didn’t want to keep answering her slurred questions about what song we should play next. I wanted to lie down. I wanted silence. I wanted to feel like me again. As much as I pushed it down and pretended it wasn’t there, I knew, most of all, I wanted some time away from June.

And now, six months later, I’m getting it. June disappeared 28 days ago without a trace. She left an envelope on the kitchen table next to the ashtray. When I opened it the morning after she left, my heart slowed in my chest, thudding heavily, its echo loud in my ears. She left nothing but her housekey and a check for $20,000.

Today, the February sky is crisp blue and unrelenting. I load boxes into my car, thoughts flooding my mind like a hurricane: why did she leave, where did she go, how did I let this happen?

I let the car warm up for a minute. The neighbor pulls his trashcan down to the end of his driveway and nods at me on his way back up. I don’t nod back.