I need to be getting up off my duff and into action.
The plants on the balcony – I can see them from here – are calling my name, their parched little throats desperate for a cool drink of water. (The bidens, however, prefer lemonade.)
The metal alloy safety deposit box we were supposed to close weeks ago (the papers we need to add are waiting here in the house) (“fat lot of good...”) so we can open another nearer to home is ringing in my ears. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
The treadmill is tired from the weight of the clothing and cats, the machine long ago having forgotten the feel of feet on its pressure points.
Jeeves and Galoshes are meowing in the hallway, demanding their daily dental treats. You’d think I would be so pleased that the cats are taking care of their teeth that I would be rushing to feed them.
The exquisitely written book club novel I was supposed to finish reading for yesterday’s dinner is sitting downstairs on the record player.
The book I am supposed to finish writing is lying dormant and lonely in the back room, inside the other computer.
The dirty dishes that are clinging to the counter and begging to be washed are fossilizing as I type.
The email I should have replied to hours ago is trapped inside my drafts folder, some of the words leaking out around the edges. Help me!
The plumber who has to be called – shower leak into the kitchen ceiling; hot water absent from the bathroom faucet; dripping pipe under the kitchen sink; dishwasher waiting to be installed – is somewhere in the phonebook, his name lost to me.
There’s so much to be done, but there’s only one problem: Sarah.
Sarah loved the bidens and would touch them whenever she came to visit.
Some of those waiting safety deposit items belong to Sarah.
Sarah and I had a weight loss challenge last summer – a dollar for every pound not lost. (Cruel, heartless irony.)
Jeeves was Sarah’s cat, purchased and named for her father after Don died. He (Jeeves, not Don) lies here beside me, just the way Boots (also Sarah's cat) did, mourning Sarah’s loss.
Many of the exquisite book club novel characters die, some of them young.
Sarah inspired my novel. Was there anyone more excited when I won the writing prize last year? (And the year before that?) (And the year before that?) No. And would she laugh over my deliberate lack of modesty here? Harder than anyone you know.
And I wonder -- and I mean, I wonder -- how many times I happily, gleefully washed dishes in preparation of Sarah’s arrival.
Maybe worse than anything – at this point it’s impossible to know – none of those waiting email belong to Sarah or will ever be Sarah’s again.
And it was Sarah who bought us the dishwasher which, albeit compact-sized, she hefted and heaved last December, days before her tumour first began bleeding. She could not have been more excited when we arrived for our separate Christmas – and in fact, her first bleed began minutes after we opened our gifts.
It isn’t that I am trying to excuse myself for my inaction. I have been good about getting myself up and about for the myriad generous invitations we have received (I will say it again – I do not know what I would do without friends), so you would think that it wouldn’t be this difficult to pry myself away from this room.
But every time I make a move to move I see her, I sense her, I hear her, I feel her, I want her, I need her, I love her, I long for her.
For Sarah.
Who cannot raise her daughter, cannot touch the flowers, cannot wash the dishes, cannot buy presents, cannot pet her cats, cannot visit, cannot send an email, cannot read a book, cannot write a book, cannot listen to music, cannot laugh or cry.
