Appearances Memories And Condolences

How much can you say in a single glance?

A span of time measured in fractions of, rather than in full, seconds. Drifting as we are, along a steadily moving stream of black suits and dresses, worn too infrequently to be perfectly fitted, as they once were. Seeking your face, flickering in and out amongst the slowly moving line, tilting, shifting, nodding in sympathy and bobbing in acknowledgement.

But there it is, the briefest flicker and the lingering hold, the shape of your eye as you stretch the upper arch to stay connected, even as your face is obligated to turn where it's expected. I forgot how green they were, how full your cheeks are, how much the color changes as your eyes meet mine. You're betrayed by the blinking it takes to refocus, on the next person who stops to offer you comfort. The brief flicker I can see you fighting, the twitch and blush as your eyes resist the need to slide back over to mine.

Folding the program and sliding it into the inner breast pocket of my suit, I look down as I'm fighting the remembrance of your long, elegant neck, slick with the exertion of the brief hour we'd stolen, alive with your perfume and the scent of your desire, the invitation that awakened every time I drew close enough, painting a reminder of you on the rough stubble of my afternoon cheek. Those quick showers hid the evidence, but we both remember the transgression, as if it was just a moment earlier, one more secret nestled amongst a dozen others.

What could I have possibly said to your mother as we finally made our way up to the head of the line? Something about the shortness of time and the unfairness of how it ends too quickly. Of good friends and promises to drop by that will probably never be kept. The slate of my mind was swept clean, even as I said them, as I saw that you and she'd embraced, oblivious to the bond you shared, the small territory of my heart that you both own, even if your name will never appear, on any will or registry.

How far apart can any heartbeat hang suspended? Even in this frozen moment, that has just begun, but could have lasted forever, if the choices had been simpler, and many not already made, before we had even met. But they somehow do. Impossibly drawn out, in the gaps between the lives we were supposed to live and those we ached to try.

Will I ever know, why your lip is trembling now? Is it your father, and your inability to keep back the pretense of composure for a moment longer, because I'm here? Or is it every aching day, where we had to pretend, ever since? That the other was gone, but still just a few streets over, going about their day, warm, tired, empty of sighs and yet somehow always ready to bear another, always close to our sequestered lips.

And then down, down, down into your arms, embracing the steady forever of you, right out in the open, where anyone could see, but no one can know. Ever as it always was, wishing it could never end, but also dying to see your upturned face, the tears that I know are even now brimming over, for him, for me, for us, and all that once was, and all that has now been lost. That ever-luscious curve of your cheek, the blooming color of a newly ripe peach beneath the elegant fan of your impossibly long lashes, hiding the eyes that had owned me whole, for moments at a time, but cannot sparkle for me any longer.

I am surely saying something, something empty and appropriate, stiff with the posture of what must be expected, in the presence of everyone we know. But I'm hypnotized by the moment when our eyes can meet again, and the way your chin and the corner of your mouth assure me, that it will all be okay. That everything, always, will be as it must. Even if the ache has never left, still there are endless moments of gushing joy, wrapped in piercing memory, treasured but never repeated, in the inevitable cycle of what has to be.

And then I'm outside in the dappled sunlight and the early Spring breeze, trying to be present in the question of where to eat. "That will be fine," I reply.