Hers

Sometimes, if I close my eyes really tight, I can see her, standing there, in between the spots. She’s gorgeous – at least, sometimes she is. (Sometimes, she’s fourteen and knock-kneed and doesn’t know quite what to do with her hands.) Once, when she didn’t know I was listening, I heard her singing, a lullaby she always claimed not to remember. Her voice is just like his, quick and smooth and a little sad. But she looks like me.

I wonder if she can see me, hear me, smell me. I wonder if sometimes when she squeezes her eyes shut, she catches me, watching her. No, no, of course, not. She may be mine, but I am not hers. Hers wakes up early in the morning in her perfectly clean house and goes to work in her perfectly pressed suit and arrives home at five exactly to greet her perfectly perfect husband. Hers has mine. And I … I get to visit when I close my eyes.