Recognition

I’ve gone to great length to erase her existence from my home. Despite the ample chunk of life I’m cutting away, I’ve done away with nearly all photos, any belongings that carried a ‘shared’ status, letters, keepsakes, holiday gifts…even giving the mutual friends who found their way to me, through her, - a wider berth. I tore up the house; put my stamp of approval on anything that she wanted and gave much of what we had in common, away. Caring friends performed Indian rituals to remove her presence – fumigating every corner of the home with punked herbs. Not wanting to kill this part of my life entirely, I pared down our twelve years to a few spare items (self-incriminating letters from her that would justify my feelings of betrayal; a few photos of us in which I look particularly stunning) – small enough to fit nicely in a shoebox where all my momentos from failed relationships are laid to rest. The basement wasn’t smudged during the ritual, so I may have exposed myself to haunting thoughts on laundry days. If only that were all.

We still work at the same company, four floors apart. Eight hours a day. I walk by conference rooms and see her in meetings. I see her coming and going on the streets downtown, in the hallways, in the lunchroom. It came with the territory; we both knew when we split, we would still be thrown into each other’s presence. That we would continually be forced to read each other’s faces.

But she only has one face now. A single look.

It is a sheepish look, like all the animation is siphoned away with our mutual recognition. This might be what salty sorrow or regret look like when the water’s been boiled away. And when this look overtakes her, she holds it in place, frozen until we disengage. No questions get asked or answered. I don’t know if she’s cognizant of it. I don’t know if she has premeditated it - whether she feels that my seeing anything substantial in her eyes is the least she can do to protect me. Or whether it is all that I deserve.