– “You’re too much in your head,” I hear her whisper in my ear. I can feel the warmth of her breath, as she says this. It vibrates and tickles the folicles of my ear. I smile and turn. She’s quick. The room is empty by the time I turn. Her scent lingers. The mixture of her own unique chemistry and Burberry, a scent sweeter than any ever hosted at department store beauty counters. I close my eyes then and breath it in, deeply. I can hear her giggle, distantly, like she’s in the next room. She could be anywhere. The house is big and she’s quick. I look back down at the table, at the notepad I’ve been sketching on with words and stick figures. I let it fall. I should externalize these ideas, I think. But I can’t resist. I let the pen collapse from my hand. It bounces on the notepad and rolls off and onto the table. I don’t watch this. I hear the thump and roll, as I make my way through the kitchen and towards the giggling. It echoes. She could be anywhere. I close my eyes as I make it past the doorframe and into the den. Breath in deeply, and she’s there. It’s there. The bit of her and Burberry. I’ve missed this. I’ve been working a lot. In a big house, two people can feel like they live by themselves. I open my eyes. I follow up the stairs. She could be anywhere. She loved the upstairs balcony. When we first moved in, I would always come home and find her up there. Even in the winter months when the leaves littered the front yard and light drizzles were common place. She would be sitting out on the balcony in her pjs or sweat pants, wrapped in a warm throw, with a book and her glasses. When it was drizzling, she’d sit holding an umbrella, with the throw, the sweat pants, a book and her glasses. She hardly wore those glasses out of the house, but she would always have them on when she sat out on the balcony. But nothing lasts forever. Her initial enchantment with the balcony faded after our first year in the house. It was a sad moment, when I drove home and the balcony was empty. She could be anywhere.
I push open the double doors leading to the balcony. There is a drizzle. There is no umbrella. No throw. No book. No sweat pants or glasses, and no her. The air is simply stale cold. The leaves fill the dirt spaces of the yard. The lawn itself has withered. I miss that first year. Not everything in life adds to the experience. She always added to the experience. Even when she was cross and her voice trembled and I felt like a jerk for something I was still to discover but was already apologetic about, she added to the experience. I look around the balcony for traces of her. There are none. Her enchantment faded after that first year. I hardly saw her wear such comfort, as what she wore on that baclony, after she stopped visiting it. I stand there hopeful that the simple act of standing there might revive enchantment. It doesn’t. I simply feel stung by the winter cold. She could be anywhere. I turn back in, closing the doors. The breeze has swept out the remnants of her, mixed with Burberry. The only scent I can find is that austere scent of wood expanding in the cold, as the doors and their frames add to their volume. There is a creak, like the house settling. But I know it’s her. I cannot hear any giggling now, but that creak, light as the house settling, reminds me of her movement in the first few weeks of our inhabitance. When you buy a house, you’re susceptible to the energy left by the previous owners. They had had kids, and we were young. We moved in and we would play hide and seek in the lost hours of the day, as the sun’s bright hues faded and cascaded in burnt orange across the windows. She would scurry across floor boards, less like a mouse and more like a house settling. I hear it again, the creak, the settling, her scurrying. It’s a big house. She could be anywhere. I follow the creak through the halls and past the landing, across the upstairs loft space, up the creaking wooden ladder and into the attic. Sparse shadows fill the room, cast by the dying light trickling in through the rounded attic window. The creaking continues as I make my way about the boxes, old broken furniture, and special garments wrapped in plastic and covered in dust hanging off of a clothes rack. I find myself at the window, the creaking has stopped. Outside, the light is dying, and the drizzle continues, a barren branch waves a gesture of saddness. With a gust of wind, it is thrown against the side of the house and before it retreats, the creak returns, briefly. The space is empty. It’s cold outside. It’s a big house. She could be anywhere.