I looked through the window and there she was: hair curled, hat on, blossoms protruding from her ears and pollen sitting on her eyelashes.
When I met her that day I realised I might never know what it was like to miss someone ever again. She was the mother and the gardener and the maid and the sister I had always imagined.
Somehow, in between all her coming and goings, we managed to forge a friendship of mutual respect. I was curious but shy and although I never expected for her to confide in me without invitation, she scribbled short, sweet notes for me on pieces of crumpled paper and then flattened them out and folded them before putting them into my palm.
“I can’t tell you who you are” she once wrote and I cried silently upon reading it. Later, when I was fiddling with the piece of paper, I noticed that scribbled on the back of it was another line. I can’t repeat what it said because I have long forgotten, but my chest hurt from laughing and I had to make a night time herbal tea which half knocked me out but at least calmed me down.
There she was. I saw her through the window.
The last time I needed her to be there she had already left and all I had of hers were blossoms that she discarded on the pavement. We had danced together in sleep and found each other among spirits but after she was gone it was as if I forgot my how to sing and all I had to console myself with were the bits of paper she had scrawled her uncertain wisdom onto.
I adored her but she left me. I think of her when rain pours onto the pavement but I can’t see which cloud is releasing it. And then I smile when I remember that it didn’t rain during all that time we spent together. The window I look out of now has a different view, but all I see is the shadow of her curls.
Gabriella Florek 