Chapter One:
The tree branch bounced against the window, and when that didn’t work, a howling gust of wind shook the glass. I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head. I was not ready to face another day. Maybe never face another day.
But I knew it was useless. Like every day, it was time to get up and pretend that I wanted to go downstairs, make something to eat that I didn’t want, and go through a day that I didn’t want to live through.
Except today. Today was different. Today was Harry’s birthday. Today I wanted to live. I didn’t know about tomorrow, though. That depended on what I found out today.
I reached under the covers and pulled out today’s clothes. I started the habit of laying out my clothes the night before as a girl because I didn’t want to have to think about what to put on in the morning. Instead, I wanted to bounce out of bed and into the world to discover what had happened while I was asleep.
That girl was long gone. But the habit remained. And when it was cold, putting them under the covers meant they were warm when I put them on.
However, the need for clothing under the covers was almost over. Spring had begun its buildup to the day everything started blooming, and the world became a jewel box for a moment in time.
But that moment was still just a promise. A few buds on the trees and some early daffodils braved the chilly wind. Outside the window, I glimpsed dark clouds filled with rain that would probably be sleet. So as much as I might wish that jeweled day to be today to help me through what was to come, it wouldn’t be.
It was not as easy to get dressed under the covers as it used to be, but finally I was ready. At least I was dressed. I was certainly not ready.
Well, who would be? I muttered under my breath in the bathroom as I brushed my now gray hair and stared at the woman in the mirror.
The face that stared back at me was not one I recognized. Until I looked into a mirror, I thought of myself as still looking like I did in my late thirties, full of bright hope for the future.
As I stared at myself, I knew that woman was in there somewhere, but time had altered my features, so it always felt like I was wearing someone else’s face. I caught hints of my mother in the lines on that face, and that pleased me a little. Not enough to be happy with the stranger in the mirror, though.
Behind me something flickered, and I saw Harry smiling at me, and even though I knew he wasn’t really there, I smiled back. So now I was staring at a strange woman smiling at herself in the mirror.
“Stop it,” I said out loud. Was it to me, or to Harry, who had left me one time too many? Probably both.
As I headed downstairs, I held onto the railing so I wouldn’t slip and fall and break my neck. I pushed away the idea that maybe that would be a good thing. Only because I couldn’t count on dying. What if I ended up paralyzed in a chair being pushed by someone who I didn’t know and probably wouldn’t like?
“Dark thoughts, Mabel,” I heard Harry say.
“Shut up,” I wanted to say back to him, but what good would that do? He wasn’t here, anyway. Hence the dark thoughts.
By the time I finished swearing at nobody in particular and everything in general, I reached the bottom of the stairs. I had learned to swear long ago in high school, and the urge to swear and the pleasure of certain words that shouldn’t be said rolled around on my tongue, making me smile again.
A small rebellion, perhaps. But it gave me pleasure, and who cared what anyone else thought, anyway? Not that there was a crowd of people just waiting around to hear me swear. As always, the house was silent.
There used to be a clock that ticked. Tick, tick, tick. Constant noise. One day, I silenced it with a curse. And then gave it away in the next bundle of useless things that went to the place that took useless things for other people to be burdened with.
I swore again as I flicked on the light in the kitchen, only because it felt good. I knew I should give up the habit. But then I was the only one listening, and I didn’t mind. And it had its uses. The sound of the words forbidden, yet effective, were a tension release.
And I was in serious need of a tension release. This was the day I both dreaded all year and dreamed about almost every night. What would the book tell me this time?
I knew it would be waiting for me where it always was on this day. I put it away each year after the day was over, and each year on this day, it found its way to the table beside my favorite chair.
If a book could choose—which I suppose somehow this book could—it picked this table beside this chair because it knew that when I opened it, I would fall asleep. Or drift away. Or leave the room, leaving my body behind.
I never could figure out exactly what happened. I had never told any of my friends what happened each year. They would think I was crazy. Or at least I worried that they would think I was crazy.
But the time was coming when I felt I would burst if I didn’t tell someone what happened every year on this day, in this chair. Someone needed to know.
Perhaps Grace. Was she old enough yet? Would she think her grandmother was off her rocker? Would that matter? Knowing Grace, nothing would deter her from finding out the entire story. Made up or not, she wouldn’t care.
Outside, the wind sighed, and I thought it said, “Tell her today. Before the book.”
No, I said to myself. Book first. I’m not telling Grace this now.
But when I reached my chair, the book wasn’t there. And as much as I didn’t want to open it, even more, I did. I wanted to find Harry, at least in its pages.
Panicked, I wondered if perhaps the book was going to make me find it this year. A test perhaps.
But it wasn’t anywhere. And it was only then that I knew how much I needed this day. I didn’t dread it. I yearned for it. Because no matter what it showed me, at least I had my life back with my beloved for a moment.
Instead, now I was a lonely old woman standing in my living room, holding a cup of now cold coffee, realizing that if the book was gone, then there was nothing left in the world for me.
I should have fallen down the stairs and broken my neck. Instead, I sat down in the chair and waited.
If there was no book, something had to happen. It was Harry’s birthday, after all.
