Sitting at the stoplight, looking in the review at my husband driving the little two seater in traffic behind me. It’s been on loan for a few months, and we’re bringing it home. You and I bought this car together - now it is 20+ years old. You didn’t want to buy it, you were against buying new cars. But you’d had new cars before - I never had, so I wanted it, I didn’t care about the depreciation because I knew I’d be the only owner the car ever has. You doubted it, but I knew because it was - and still is - the only car I have ever liked. Watching this car of ours behind me, at a certain distance the driver, tall & indistinct - he could have been you. I begin to cry. Out of nowhere I wonder to myself if the priest (Father N) who married us is still alive, if I should call him and talk about you to him, and maybe hear what he has to say about grief, and if there is any possibility you’re still around though neither of us believe, have never believed. I can ask him about signs.
As I think this on the radio, Coldplay starts singing about Jerusalem bells a ringing, Roman Cavalry choirs are singing. I wonder if that is a sign, and I am irritated at the thought that it probably isn’t because there has been fuck-all in the way of signs. To me, the dishwasher and the washer or dryer or toilet have always sounded, as they go about their automatic business, like they are talking. It would be the right place for you to send a message but I’ve stood quietly listening and you don’t.
The irritation about lack of signs dries my tears by the next stop light, where a man in flowing priestly robes - I mean, full on Roman Catholic vestments - crosses the street in front of me. Holy shit, I think. I talked to S., who is Catholic. She thinks it’s a sign.
We didn’t buy the car right away. There were four of them in the city that we lived in - I checked all the dealerships. This impressed you, as my disdain for cars meant I avoided all things car related as much as possible - I truly didn’t care if you bought whatever car you wanted without consulting me, which you did. And now here I was going around in my spare time to dealerships. When there was only one left in the city, we bought it. I had some of the happiest days of my life in that car; so did you. One of our last conversations before you left the city was about it. I was wrong, you said. You held onto it, I didn’t think you would. I know, I said. Toldja! And we laughed together, standing there on the steps of our condo with the car parked in front, less than two miles as the crow flies from where I sit typing this now (and with the car parked in front), and there was an affection to the moment that contained in it all the miles we traveled - not just in the car, but all of our twenty years - and it was good.