A Big Life

The check engine light’s on again and somewhere above the steering wheel, a shadow ducks away and then emerges again. Long hair, slender, young like I used to be. He has a dance to him, or maybe he just waltzes through me, and then it washes over me, the weird electricity of seeing someone who used to be my heart. A ghost, but he blurs and I realize the book spine I have my finger running down is you. He’s a vision of you and — what if you had disappeared? What if you were a memory with long hair who smelled like patchouli and cried when we said goodbye that first summer. My soul spills, to think I wouldn’t know that you smell different now, or that I wouldn’t know the way you say good morning after you let me sleep extra, like it actually is a good morning. The way you greet the baby like she’s an old friend, or the sound of your voice when you talk to our firstborn about science or magic, the same voice you use to talk about synth music and other things I can’t touch; I think that voice is your purest form. That I wouldn’t think that, or wouldn’t know how it’s different to wrap my arms around you now, or how sometimes I try to climb into the flannel of your shirt, like your warmth in its fibers might heal. That you’d just be a shadow walking across a parking lot, waltzing through me and then prancing back into the dust. I want to turn back, to jump out of the car, to grab him, just in case he smells like the patchouli. Just in case so I can tell him, shh, stay, don’t go. I have a life for you. A big one.