Clear Blue Mourning

We said hello in April. 

I remember the trees, oddly enough. Wisteria was blooming everywhere, and it was so warm. I had come a long way to see you. We walked around that campus, and the tour guide smiled at us. She said she liked my haircut--very fashion forward, she said. I wonder what she would say if she could see it now. 

I wonder what you would say. Probably that it suits me. You never told me anything else. 

I learn about you then--about the music. How it’s always playing. In the house, in the car, in your mind. You knew every singer and band in existence. That’s what it felt like, at least. Taylor Swift sings about beginning again, and I think I  know what she means. 

It’s months till I see you after that, but the music follows me. The moving truck’s radio is scratchy, but I can just make out Elvis rocking in the jailhouse. 

I remember when you told me you made the down payment. I had insisted the house was too much space, too big for our little family. This is our house, Bon Jovi tells me. You echo him, pressing the key into the palm of my hand. 

The first thing I do is jump head first into the lake, your laughter ringing out across the water. 

I look at our kitchen and I remember you standing there, no shirt on, gold chain necklace glinting in the sunlight that streams through the giant glass window over the sink. You smile at me when I tell you that whatever you’re making smells amazing. The cast iron pan sizzles as Kenny Chesney plays from the speaker on the island. He sings that no shoes and no shirt means no problems, and I laugh at the irony of you standing there, bare feet and bare chest, belting along with his smooth twang. 

I promise to learn to play the song on our guitar, and I do.

I step out onto our back porch and see you sitting on the patio furniture, cigarette in hand while Dean Martin tells us that we’re nobody til somebody loves us. 

He’s right, I know. 

Your eyes glance away from the view of the lake and you smile at me, telling me I look tan. I tell you I’ve been up on the deck, sunning myself like a cat. You make a face--you never did like cats. Too much trouble, you always said. 

You’d hate the neighbor’s new cat. It likes to climb on our cars, leaving little pollen-covered pawprints on the roof. I look in our downstairs bathroom, thinking of colder weather and Zac Brown, and I remember the beautiful shade of magenta the walls used to be. You didn’t like it, so we painted it eggshell, and then the cabinets didn’t fit the color scheme. It looks far too medical now, bright walls wrapping themselves around black wooden cabinets and a heavy granite countertop. I can’t bring myself to care about changing it. Not now. I look in our dining room and see dinner with guests. The table was too big for just us--you said it made us too far apart, especially when we put the leaf in. We both preferred to eat in the kitchen, or at the breakfast table by the backdoor, squeezed in together in the sunlight with the little rolling bar cart sitting next to us. You laughed when I started nestling potted plants in between the Jack Daniels and Tito’s handles. I said I was trying to make it prettier. You lied and said it was working. The mixers didn’t agree. Midland says he’s got a drinking problem, and I tell him it can’t be near as bad as yours, and we both laugh. 

I look at the bedroom, and the clouds you tried to paint for me. They don’t look like clouds at all, just white and grey and pink blobs in varying shapes. I remember asking you why you used colors other than white. You said you were trying to make it look like the sun was setting in the corner of the room, because that’s my favorite time to look at the sky. I cried, and you thought it was because I hated it. Samantha Fish begs us to tell her she’s our dream girl. 

Selling the house terrifies me. I know someone will paint over those ugly clouds, probably color over the soft blue of the walls in its entirety because the color is so obnoxious. 

I didn’t like that my windows didn’t have any screens. Bugs could get in, I said, wrinkling my nose in disgust. You told me I could use them to sneak out and meet with my boyfriend. I shoved you and rolled my eyes, but the corners of my mouth curled up in the hint of a smile. There’s still no screens in those windows, despite the number of mosquitos that have snuck in when I open them to let the sunshine in. Bill Withers’ tells me there’s no sunshine when she’s gone, but the sun keeps shining despite your absence. It’s almost cruel.

I look in our garage and I remember riding shotgun, no seatbelts, singing along to the radio at the top of our lungs, the wind whipping through our hair and the top down. You were speeding but it was just us and the open road, no cars in sight for miles. 

I wrote a song about that car. You’ll never get to hear it, but I think you’d like it. You always liked my music anyway. The call comes in January, when the air is freezing and the sun sets at five o’clock. The Beatles tell me to let it be as I smash plates in our backyard in anger. There are doctors and nurses and family members all making suggestions about what to do. We take their suggestions, listen to their advice. We get more time together, but at what cost? 

I see you in our living room, lying still on the couch. My voice ringing out through the silence, my guitar vibrating in my shaking hands as I sing about amazing grace, tears rolling down my cheeks. 

We said goodbye in April, the scent of Wisteria drifting on the breeze. 

I see you in the beaches and the forests and the mountains, my eyes watering as I drive down the interstate. Dolly Parton tells me she can see the light of a clear blue morning. I wonder if I can see it too, peeking through poorly-painted clouds.

Maybe I can.

Dorothy Shytles grew up in many different places, but she now calls Virginia her home. She spends her days writing, playing one of her six instruments, or sitting on her back porch and watching the world go by. Music and words have always been her passion. She loves dogs, the color yellow, and going on long drives.