Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots by Jessica Soffer Page B

clamoring for more more more. And now, I wondered if she’d felt it—her father’s death. I wondered if she’d suddenly felt less secured to the world—one side of her body lighter, dizzier, refusing to stay put. I wondered where she was when it happened, if she’d been aware of the tiniest zing.
I’m still here,
I wanted to tell her suddenly.
I won’t leave you again. Not ever.
    I felt like a fraud. I was more sorry than I deserved to be.
    I looked around. The voice on the phone made me feel as though someone had barged in here, opened the curtains, exposed something uncouth. The coffee table, I noticed, was strewn with unopened newspapers and supermarket savings packs. There were empty ripped-open envelopes. Every day, I’d gone through the mail with him. On the way back from the study, I’d drop the envelopes here. There must have been forty of them now. I gathered them up, threw them out.
    I had never been this way. I had never lived like this. I had always replaced soap before it grew a film. Everything in the closet faced north.
    I found myself in the study, standing by Joseph’s desk. I picked up one of his pens, a heavy thing with a complicated ink system. I remembered this one. I’d bought it for him years ago. The first thing he did with it was write me a note:
To the most beautiful woman I know. I’m hungry in case you are wondering.
    I opened the middle drawer and found a lone pill bottle. They really were everywhere. I wondered if I’d put this one here in one of my pathetic, failed attempts to clean up. I’d put a vase in the refrigerator, a VCR warranty in my sock drawer. There was so much stuff. Our possessions grew and grew. Then, one day, they stopped. I wondered if I’d ever buy anything again that presumed life would march on—a plane ticket, a magazine subscription, something decorative for our home.
    I dropped a folder, some receipts, and unhinged paper clips onto the desk. There were gum wrappers, used tissues, ancient credit card statements, chandelier bulbs, and blank postcards from Delray Beach. I was making a mess
. I’m sorry, Joseph,
I thought.
I didn’t mean to ruin your things.
    There was a recipe for coconut cake, a kitchen timer that jingled when I shook it; there was a movie stub from years ago. I kept going through the things, piling them on his desk, imagining building a giant shape that might resemble my Joseph.
What if you could sculpt the person you loved the most,
I wondered.
What would it be made of?
    Toward the bottom of the stack, I found an oak leaf, big and fingerlike, lovingly pressed between two pieces of wax paper. It looked fresh, brand-new. I hadn’t done it. I’d read about this in a craft magazine. It was something Martha Stewart did, not us—ironing leaves for decoration. I found another. A red maple leaf. Then an itty-bitty brown one. I did the ironing around here. When, in all our years, had Joseph ever ironed?
    I put them aside, feeling as though I’d intruded on a private moment. Perhaps he’d been planning to give these to me with a very special card. Thousands of things, I thought, were only halfway realized. His juice box had liquid left inside. His clothes remained unwashed in the guest-room bathtub. The Bellow story was dog-eared midway through.
    I kept going through his things.
    It was while I was cutting up some unused credit cards that I saw the note written on a piece of fabric. It was torn, but not enough. It was there. Right there, on top of the stack on the desk. I’d put it there, not noticing. Front and center. It wasn’t even ashamed of itself. And it was nothing fancy, just a scrap of old thin cloth, as though it were a tag that had been itchy and yanked out. White with purple letters, like veins on old skin. It was in a woman’s handwriting.
     
Meet me at the Bow Bridge at sunrise.
     
    I felt like I was going to pass out. I was weak. I was
weak.
I sat down slowly in the desk chair, not wanting to rush this. It felt like this