To keep myself from crying, I reach for my phone to see what poem Cosmos sent today. I need his messages, the words that remind me that the world is still beautiful. Even if that beauty feels very far away right now.
But when I look at my phone, there’s no text. No poem. Everything hollows inside me, empty. Has he given up on me at last?
He’s been so persistent. It doesn’t seem like him to just give up. I knew it would happen eventually, but I’m not ready for it to end yet.
Some part of me expected him to keep trying forever. Or at least for longer than this.
What if something happened to him? Maybe that’s why he didn’t send anything this morning. He could have been in an accident. My mind spirals with possibilities that make me shake. Maybe he’s lying on the same operating table where he does surgeries, helpless, bleeding, dying. Leaving me for good.
Without thinking, I’m dialing the hospital. Theline rings. I’m not sure what I’m doing until I get the pre-recorded message, triaging callers to the right department. What option do I choose? None of them are right. I just need to make sure he’s okay, and calling his cell feels like too much. I’m not strong enough to actually hear his voice.
I just need to know he’s not dead. That’s the first place my brain goes now. Grief has a way of multiplying fear. Everything feels like it could be fatal once you’ve experienced something catastrophic.
When someone answers, I stumble over my words. “Hi, I’m just, um, calling to find out if, uh, Dr. Cosmos Romero still works there. Is… is he okay? Did anything happen to him?”
“Hold a minute.”
Standard elevator music plays over the phone while I wait. Dishes clatter in the kitchen. A car drives past outside, engine backfiring.
“Hello, this is Dr. Cosmos Romero. How can I help you?”
I freeze, suspended in time, even though the clock keeps ticking forward. I shouldn’t have called. After too long of a silence, he whispers, “Hazel?”
I don’t know how he knows it’s me, but my name from his lips startles me so much I drop the phone, fumbling to hang up. My heart throbs with a new ache.
At least I know he’s okay. Nothing happened to him. He’s just moved on. Everyone gives up eventually. This is good… I guess… A clean break. I can’t expect him to keep reaching out when I haven’t given him anything in response.
“I can find my own poems,” I say aloud to the sunlight on the ceiling and Mom’s ashes on the nightstand.
Chapter Forty-One
“You sure about this?” Kiara asks from the doorway.
“I can’t expect you to sleep on the couch forever.” I tape up the bottom of a cardboard box and try not to think about what I’m about to do. It’s been long enough. Kiara’s lived here for weeks, and her stuff is still in boxes all over the living room. I have to do this. I can do this.
“I could sleep in here without moving anything out.” Kiara puts her hand on my arm. She’s made this suggestion before.
I shake my head, not trusting myself to talk without crying. The thought of her sleeping in here with Mom’s things is more painful than packing everything up. I don’t want someone else living in this room, mixing their things with Mom’s. It needs to be empty first. I just have to work up the energy to do it.
I clear the tightness from my throat. “I’m not getting rid of anything, just moving it to the garage.”
I hand Kiara an empty box, and she gets to work folding up all the clothes hanging in the closet. When she puts the coral dress Mom wore the day I went away to college in the box, I grab it off the top, take it to my room, and hang it in the front of my closet. I’m not sure why. It won’t fit me.
“Is it okay if we put on some music?” Kiara calls from Mom’s room.
For the first time today, I smile. “I’ve just the thing.”
I get my phone and find the playlist of nineties songs Mom played every time she cleaned the house. The alt-rock sound of Weezer blares through the speakers.
Just as I set my phone on Mom’s dresser, it buzzes. My heart skips in my chest, hoping it’s Cosmos. I haven’t heard from him in almost a week.
Ex-dad:
I’m going to be in the area for a conference. Could we get breakfast tomorrow morning?
I wait for another message to come through. Something acknowledging what happened, to make me feel guilty about our last conversation. Something subtly manipulative. But nothing else comes.
Apart from trying to call twice that first week, he hasn’t hounded me. He’s given me space. Maybe he really is trying.
