Wintersong

A sliver of light filters in through a crack in the blinds. It’s small, but bright enough to illuminate the room in a semi-circle of glow.

It also serves its intrusive purpose; rousing April out of her peaceful slumber with a groan. Attempting to ignore it, she picks up the pillow on the other side of the bed and holds it over her face, blocking herself.

A bird directly outside the window starts to chirp their morning chorus and that’s it. No more sleep for her, apparently, so, with a small groan, she sits, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

There’s the ever internal debate over what’s worse; mornings or bedtime. The latter had its perks, to be sure. Sleep was a welcome distraction, a good way to forget. But the bed seemed exceptionally large, serving as a glaring reminder that she was alone. Then there were the nights where nothing helped, not pills or tea or documentaries on Communist countries and she’d lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling.

The morning wasn’t much better. She’d roll over and for two seconds, in her hazy mind, she expects to see Ben next to her. Thinks she’ll hear him snoring or catch him hogging the covers. And then, it hits her with all the force of a mac truck that he’s gone. And then it’s like he died, all over again.

Ignoring the ache in her chest, April pushes herself out of bed, cursing under her breath when her bare feet make contact with the cold hardwood. Maine winters are a bitch and though she has both the heat on and lit a fire the evening before, the house still feels like an icebox.

A pair of yellow eyes peer out from the dark abyss of under the boxspring and she bends in half to sweep her hand across the curve of a long, lanky spine.

“Morning, Cal,” she greets, “you hungry?”

Cal meows in response, stretching in the small patch of sun. He’s a majestic Maine coon, found by Ben by the side of the road when he was just a kitten. He was healthy and even tempered, but he’d never quite filled out the way they had expected and April supposes that was part of his charm.

“C’mon then, you,”

She grabs for her robe on one of the bedposts, twisting auburn strands into a sloppy bun. Finding slippers seems like a lost cause; Ben teased her mercilessly for her losing them all the time.

As she makes her way downstairs and down the hall, into the kitchen, she has to wonder, not for the first time, if the most innocuous memory is still going to make her feel like she’s been drop kicked in the chest.

There’s no other choice but to go through the motions, just like she’s been doing for a year.

Cal gets half a scoop of wet food in his royal blue bowl and she forgoes the massive oak table to sit on a stool by the window with her customary cup of Jasmine tea. Ages ago, she was serious about the preparation, how long she would steep it, indulge in fresh leaves, but now she can’t muster the energy required to fill the kettle, so the microwave it is.

On the picket fence outside, a cardinal comes to perch, pausing a moment before retreating to the bird feeder a few feet away.

Her mother, God love her, is big into reincarnation and April knows that if she were here, she’d insist that the cardinal was most definitely Ben and that it was a sign and on and on until April would have to politely ask her to shut up.

But thankfully, her mother lives 300 miles away and she has other things to occupy her time rather than speculating what Ben’s come back as. It’s time for work which has been a saving grace, if there was one.

April gets up, heads to the bathroom to shower and in the steam, resting her forehead against cool tile, she has her customary morning cry. The only place, after a year, she can really let herself fall apart...a good, snot inducing, chest aching, soul baring sob fest. She doesn’t sink to the floor anymore, more like braces herself and when she’s done, the water washes it all away and she can go on.

Ben, she knows, would not have approved of these “secret sob sessions” as she liked to call them. “Why not just break down over your coffee not being hot enough or in line at the grocery store like a normal person?” She imagines him saying. “Surely, people would understand.”

But they wouldn’t. The first year, people are kind, they are supportive. They encourage you to “let it all out,” to rage and to lie in bed all day with the covers up to your chin and give you allowances for existing on Campbell’s tomato soup because it’s just about the only thing you can choke down. They get it when you can’t bring yourself to put up a Christmas tree or even say the word for that matter. They invite you over for dinner and take you to the movies, they call to check in, they tell you if you need anything, they’re only a phone call or a text message away.

After that year mark, something changes. When you start to “get better,” the phone calls stop coming. The texts become few and far between. You don’t get invited anywhere anymore because everyone is under the assumption that you have plans with someone else. It’s no longer acceptable to lose your shit in at the Target customer service counter. And you not putting up a Christmas tree when it was Ben’s favorite holiday suddenly seems inexusable.

She dries off with a fluffy pink towel and goes upstairs to dress; black sweater, black jeans, fashioned her long hair in a neat French braid. Working from home is the only godsent from the pandemic because even the thought of stepping into the office makes her nauseous.

In the small room she’s deemed the study, April sits with her laptop, another cup of tea to replace the lukewarm one and closes her eyes to gain focus. It’s slowly coming back, this ability to concentrate. She’d been out of work for a total of eight months; two of those were when Ben was sick, lingering in the hospital and the other six for bereavement and finally, she feels as though she can give it her full attention.

She likes her job, likes editing children’s books, likes the daily grind and the mind numbing distraction it provides her. She’s good at it, too, something Ben always liked to remind her of when she would come home exhausted after a 12 hour day or raging about how unfairly the business treated women. He’d believed in her, encouraged her to pursue her dream of writing her own book one day. Her biggest cheerleader.

The thought chokes her, so she puts it out of her mind, getting back to returning emails and making calls. She works straight through lunch and the sound of the doorbell makes her jump, though she knows exactly who she’ll find standing there when she opens the door. Like clockwork.

“Special delivery. I swear to God, April, if I didn’t come by everyday, you’d forget to eat, wouldn’t you?”

April smiles, taking the paper sack, “Probably. Hi, Lena. Come in.” She bends to acknowledge the dark haired little girl standing next to her. “Hi, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.”

Maisie is a carbon copy of Lena, dark, big eyes and olive skin, but she has her father’s smile...a smile that could melt the polar ice caps. It sends a little pang into her chest everytime she sees her.

“I missed you, too,” she puts her arms down to be picked up. “I lost two teeth.”

“Oh, my gosh! Show me.”

Dutifully, Maisie opens her mouth and pulls her lips to reveal the missing top and bottom tooth. “The tooth fairy gave me $5.”

“Wow,” April arches an eyebrow toward Lena who shrugs. “When I was your age, I was excited if I got a buck.”

“Inflation,” Lena replies smoothly. “Let’s go eat. Wash your hands please, Mase.”

When Maisie heads in the direction of the bathroom, her friend slings an arm around April’s shoulder. “Got you a BLT, hope that was okay.

It’s a running joke because all April will eat for sandwiches are BLT’s or grilled cheese and she shakes her head. “Think that’ll do. Thanks for lunch.”

“Well, I’m not gonna let you starve. Maisie would never let me hear the end of it.”

“Love you, too.”

Her work “friends” (April learned pretty quickly to reevaluate the definition of a friend) had remarked how weird it was that she was so close to her husband’s ex-girlfriend, forgetting that they shared a child together and their break-up could not have been more amicable. What they hadn’t understood about Lena was her grace under pressure, the way she could launch into a conversation about any given topic (and she knew a little about everything), her sense of humor, the way she was a nurturer...it was just who she was.

Most of all, they didn’t know, what they couldn’t know, was when everyone else had stopped calling, stopped checking in, Lena was making sure she ate, Lena brought her to therapy, Lena held her while she cried, but she never pushed, never judged. She was an angel in the body of a tattooed, petite painter and sometimes, April thinks if it weren’t for her and Maisie, she probably would have died a while back.

And the astounding thing was that Lena needed her, just as much. She was strong, probably stronger than April could ever be, but Ben’s illness and death had rocked them all. Ben was her first love, her high school sweetheart and the father of her daughter. Not many people knew that April held Lena while she cried, too. Maisie had deemed them “The Three Musketeers,” and it was only appropriate. They’d be forever bonded in a club that no one wanted to be a part of.

“So,” Lena says in between bites of her salad, sneaking a glance at her daughter, “Maisie and I were talking the other day.”

“About you,” Maisie fills in helpfully. “And Daddy.”

“Huh. Is that so?” She looks up sharply. “I know where this is going. You two are going to gang up on me. Not fair, guys. The sides aren’t even.”

“Don’t be so defensive. Maisie and I were just talking about how much her dad loved Christmas. Do you remember two years ago when it snowed? I don’t know who was more excited to go outside, Ben or the actual kid,” Lena grins.

“Oh, I remember.”

A white Christmas had been the most exciting thing ever to Ben and he and Maisie had spent hours outdoors in the cold that day, building snowmen and sledding while she and Lena watched from the kitchen window with their glasses of wine, laughing at how they both ran around like crazy chickens among the blanket of white. When they were finally coaxed to come inside, they all sat by the fire with hot cocoa, under the twinkling lights of the tree.

It had been magical.

The memory makes an unexpected lump ball up in her throat and she swallows hard against it, the BLT suddenly tasting like sandpaper.

“Anyway,” Lena broaches carefully, her chocolate eyes boring into April’s much lighter ones, “last year was crummy and no one felt much like celebrating, with good reason. But Maisie and I decided that the best way to honor her father’s memory is to do all the things he would have wanted to do. And spend it with all of the people that he loved.”

All at once, she knows exactly what her best friend is getting at. “Oh, Lee. C’mon.”

“Hey, Mase, why don’t you wash up and then you can go play with Cal,” Lena gestures to the cat who’s been rubbing against her daughter’s ankles all during lunch. “Looks like he wants some attention.”

Maisie immediately springs up, nearly knocking over her chair in excitement and Lena lightly admonishes her to be careful while Cal follows her down the hall.

When she’s out of the room, Lena turns to her.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking. But hear me out.”

She loves Lena, she really does, but she doesn’t want to hear her out. The thought of spending Christmas in someone else’s home or even away like was suggested the previous year makes her stomach turn.

“I know Ben loved Christmas. I’ve never met anyone who loved it more. That’s exactly why I can’t do it, Lena. I can’t bear to look at a fucking tree or a single candy cane or watch goddamn Rudolph on TV without thinking of him. Thought you of all people would understand.”

God, it’s not what she intended to say and it comes out sharp and kind of mean. Lena looks as though she’s just been struck. Then her eyes change and flash and fuck, April knows that it’s not good.

The anger she holds is normal, according to her therapist. Par for the course when you lose someone unexpectedly and so tragically young, he says. Hell, they were 27 years old. They were supposed to have their whole lives ahead of them. April had been trying to get pregnant, for fuckssake. Of course she was angry. She was furious, if you wanted to get technical. At COVID, at Ben for getting COVID, at the scientists for not coming up with a vaccine sooner, at the whole world.

But the last person she wants to lash out at is Lena.

An apology forms on her lips but it’s Lena shakes her head.

“You wanna know something?” She asks quietly, “Maisie brought up the idea of having Christmas here because she thought you might be more comfortable. And it’s where Ben was. Where most of her memories of him were. That kid loves you so much, April. She’s hurting, too. She’s 7 years old and she lost her father last year and the only thing she wants to do is be around someone who gets how totally fucking unfair this all is.”

April puts a hand to her mouth. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It just all really sucks. No one understands that better than me. But you aren’t the only one who lost him. Think you need the reminder sometimes.”

The truth is, she did need the reminder. Grief felt so solitary most of the time that she tended to be selfish, to focus only on her own pain. But Lena, as she usually was, is right.

If she’s broken hearted, she can only imagine how Maisie feels.

Lena embraces her, kissing her cheek. “Just promise me you’ll think about it, okay? You have ten days to decide. And whatever you wanna do, I get it. But we all feel like shit. Might as well feel like shit together, right?”

Later that night when she’s alone and in the massive bed, tossing and turning, April considers Lena’s proposal. If there’s one thing she knows it’s that Ben would have wanted her to say yes. He also would be telling her to snap out of it and quit acting like someone died.

She missed his sense of macabre humor more than anything.

Outside the window, the stars gleam brightly; cut diamonds against a navy canvas and she sighs.

Perhaps being alone wasn’t the answer.