The rhododendron outside my house looks like it’s wilting. At night, the leaves hang stiffly from their stems, spurning the wind that tries to sway them. A thin layer of frost covers them like hardened candlewax and shines against the porchlight. The tortuous and uneven branches make this one pop up higher than the other, or that one lean a little more to the left. With long and feathered skirts, they stand together like tiny ballerinas holding their opening poses, waiting for the music to start.
It’s 11:45 p.m., and I’m standing beside the rhododendron and wondering how I’m supposed to take care of it. There are white spots on the leaves, and some look gnawed on or burned. Where they used to reach out and touch are now gaps that uncover the vines growing against the house behind it and landscape fabric poking through the earth below. It looks depleted and hungry, and I wonder if the neighbors have seen it at this time of night. I wonder if they see me out here now, in freezing weather, wearing sandals and no socks; long sleeves but no jacket; sweatpants that I hold up with one hand, so they don’t fall down. I try snapping my calloused fingers and calling my dog while she sniffs the same three spots of bleached grass in the front yard. The cold clings to my body.
In my hand, my phone vibrates and reminds me that I haven’t logged my dinner yet. I can’t remember the last time I used this feature of the app, but I never turn off the notification. In the morning, it will ask me about my breakfast, and in the afternoon, it will be lunch, until we circle right back to dinnertime. I will hit snooze and snooze and snooze, and then it will be 8 p.m., and I’ll think we’re better off trying again tomorrow. My stomach will hurt, the nausea will build, and I’ll wonder if this is what hunger feels like now. A longing that can only be made whole by emptiness. And with that thought, I’ll feel a tightness at the base of my throat as it races to keep something down that I don’t want to come up. He is gone, I am still here, and I am alone.
Next door, my neighbor’s lawn is decorated with inflatable snowmen and glowing reindeer slowly moving their heads up and down in silence. Inside, sisters have returned home and raise their children together, saying things like hold your brother’s hand and get out of the street in pink morning air as a parade of second, third, and fourth graders march to the bus stop. At that point, I’ll be half-awake in my bed, staring at white walls sprinkled with tiny nail holes. My dog will either be on the floor or standing hard with front paws on my chest, and my phone will buzz again on my nightstand.
Eventually, I will creep out of bed and make my way to the back bedroom, where the scale will say good morning and tell me how I’ve been. My body will hunch and curve as it looks for something to absorb and settles in on the ripples of sand that cover my chest and back. I might feel soft and kind or cold and mean, and my emptiness will grow and expand from my stomach to my mouth. I think of these mornings, the ones from yesterday, today, and tomorrow, as I stand in audience with the rhododendron, and I feel full.
I do not know when the emptiness will feel more empty. But in the daylight, after I hear the screeching brakes of the school bus followed by its roaring engine trailing away, after the sisters pile into their cars and pull out of the driveway, I will let my dog back outside to sniff her same three patches of grass. I will turn and see this rhododendron, with its tiny ballerinas pirouetting to unsung music, their skirts fanned out against white sun. I will hear first and then see the frost thaw and drip like teardrops from the rounded points of leaves, and I will breathe in and out the taste of winter.
And I will remember that he is still gone, I am still here, and I am alone.