Micro-story #3
Anniversary
The first temperamental thaw to cut a swath across upstate New York came early, revealing the grass had grown mangy and long at Hillside Cemetery. Except at the grave where Miles Greene stood. The swollen mound of dirt that was fresh in October of the previous year had settled. Wiry patches of grass had sprung through the soil at his feet while all around him sporadic piles of snow still blanketed the earth. The morning had dawned gray in the valley, but now peeks of sun were burning through the cloudy canopy.
The stringy, naked limbs of the weeping willow beside Miles hung still. There were no bugs, no other nuisances like cars driving by on the cemetery roads snaking through the hill, and only the distant sound of a maintenance worker running a pressure washer could be heard among the solemn air hanging about the headstones. He had complete privacy and yet didn’t know what to say. It often felt absurd, and a bit cliché, to speak aloud at the grave. Yet it also never felt like he was talking to his wife at all if the words weren’t coming out of his mouth.
With the day being one of significance, Miles decided first to set down the pot of blooming white gerbera daisies he had brought, sweeping aside crusty snow and browned, dead leaves from the base of the marble stone. The flowers would likely be dead by this time tomorrow, but, he supposed, tomorrow didn’t matter, in more ways than one.
“I know it’s been awhile.” He swallowed, and shrugged. “I have no excuse.”
The distant pressure washer cut out. Miles looked around to make sure he was still alone.
“Thought I saw you the other day. In the apartment. Even said something to you before I realized….”
He scratched at the length of growing beard irritating his neck. It would be nice, he thought, when the new facial hair got past the itching stage. On the plus it had been keeping his face warm against the winter chill.
“I’m…” He had a difficult time getting it out. Miles took a deep breath, cleared his stuffy nose, and resigned to the uncomfortable truth. “I’m gonna go see a therapist. Your brother’s idea actually. I guess to him it’s a weird thing that I keep seeing you everywhere. Maybe I just shouldn’t share everything with him. Anyway…my first appointment’s on Thursday."
His eyes wandered away.
“Not really anything else going on. Just…kind of…here.”
The pressure washer started up again.
“You got a subscription renewal notice in the mail for Cosmo. Kind of strange that you still get mail when I go back to the house to grab the bills. I cancelled it, by the way. Your Cosmo.”
Miles sighed, a long trail of steam exited his mouth. His minute attempt at levity did nothing to ease the heavy lump in his throat, in his chest, anchoring his sorrow.
“Can’t believe it’s been thirteen years since that day in the café. Right about this time I was sitting in the lounge, looking out the front glass, waiting for you.” He shrugged, shoving his freezing hands deep into his coat pockets. “And now...here we are.”
There was not much else to say. He had satisfied the urge, and obligation, to be there. Miles knelt down and, as he always did when he visited, placed his hand on the top of the stone, just above where Stephanie’s name had been etched.
“I’ll try not to stay away too long this time,” he said. “Happy anniversary.”
With that his steps crunched off the frozen ground as he turned and walked away, forcing himself not to look back at the settled mound of dirt, at the the small pot of white daisies giving company to the lonely grave, through the lifeless arms of the willow tree.
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