Until we meet again

Here I am staring down at your onion with a 10-inch blade in my right hand. I’m going to cut into it but then I stop and think — maybe I shouldn’t. I consider not using it. Then it will be gone and I won’t have it to remember you by. But that doesn’t seem right, either. Better that it become part of this marinara than it dry out slowly, becoming too wizened to use and ending up in the rubbish. My choice in this matter will not affect the outcome, which is that you are on a plane heading to the United States, leaving your London life and me, and us, behind.

Last night when we said good-bye after a somewhat raucous family dinner atop the dog-eared astroturf-floored dining room of a Primrose Hill pub, where the lamb was cooked medium-well even though it was ordered medium-rare, but we didn’t care and ate it anyway, I was steady and cheerful. We were silly and the evening culminated in a strange assortment of “party tricks.” Who can wiggle their ears? Pick his nose with his tongue (I’m not mentioning names here), make her pecks dance like a male body builder, raise an eyebrow one at a time? But then today it hit me. You really are gone.

It hit Bill at the same time, What’s App’ing me from the high street when he passed some Ibérico jamón and it dawned on him that you were really leaving. So I stood here in the kitchen, making a simple dinner for the kids, blubbering before I had even cut the onion. It’s in the sauce now, bubbling away. I can see you choosing it, maybe from the little grocery store around the corner or the small food shoppe around the other corner, a lock of jet hair falling in front of your eyes as you stoop to pick it up.

And I will just miss you so much. Your enormous, kind, intelligent eyes, your doll-like forearms, the way you stand with your toes pointed slightly inward, hands in pockets, smiling. A subtle waft of Byredo Blanche perfuming the air.

Your charming omission of articles, of which I am reminded constantly because I am reading The Goldfinch and there are Russian characters who do the same thing.

Long walks during which I had to slow down so that you could keep up, chance meetings on our street or in the neighborhood during which you would always smile when you saw that it was I, walking toward you. Your bemused, nonjudgmental air as you observed that I was heading down the street on my way from the gym, headphones in, lip-sinking something frivolous and aimed at a much younger audience.

Patience and tolerance as I flopped unapologetically on your sectional, bald, un-made up, haggard and irritable, suffering from (or I should say inflicting) the latest ‘roid rage from the steroids I had to take after chemo. I would wait for the second week during which I always felt better and then dive into something spicy, delicious and nourishing that you had cooked, without a recipe, savoring every bite. Blissful relief from the bland week of baked chicken breasts and steamed broccoli that had preceded this delicacy.

Throwing out your two-year-old baking soda, shaking my head, as I helped you make a cake in the Cuisinart, of all things (which actually turned out pretty well!). Remembering your welcome intervention at Thanksgiving when I tried for the first time to make gravy.

Standing on the sidewalk as my older daughter bounded down the street, beaming in anticipation of a play date with your daughter. Fighting a wave of sadness as I realized it would be the last time I watched her do this.

Passing your house, knowing I might never again set foot in it. Knowing that its contents are all packaged up — either already gone or waiting to be taken. That the house is sanitized, devoid of your presence. Meaningless.

Allowing myself to feel this pain, I who am not very nostalgic, I who can adapt to anything. Fallible me. Wondering where you will land and when I will see you again.

It was a gift. These last years. Having you all on the same street where we live. Your family. Your dinners. Chris, his epic barbecues, his ruthless yet surreptitious topping up of wine glasses. His unnecessary yet much appreciated comments on our strength. Your whole family and their loveliness. Your beautiful children. Your son happily playing legos with our daughter almost three years his junior.

Oh, my friend. I miss you so. To think I will not be able to text and then magically cause you to appear minutes later. To think that you are thousands of miles away.

I long to hijack you, a girls’ weekend… a getaway. Something. Something that will make it be “till we meet again” and not “good-bye.” Anything but that.

 

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