When it flows through your body, it drains you of all energy, leaving you barely able to turn over on your side to look at her; weakly able to brush a lock of hair that now covers her eye; just able to laugh for no apparent reason. The same courses through her blood as well, and she cannot even lift her head when you move in to kiss her. 'Do I have any gray?' she asks. 'No, of course not,' and you both laugh. But she turns her head away regardless, and with numb fingers, you search for the telltale signs of disappearing youth; you part her hair gently, in layers. 'Are you sleeping?' you ask quietly. 'No,' she says with eyes closed and smiling. 'No,' she whispers, intermittently, as though you are still asking the question, until you find one. Still, you cannot remove it, because it endears you towards her even more, and you stare at its whiteness, a bit of it reflecting like silver in the sunlight; you start your search anew, hoping for another just like it.
The radio fades, energy draining. The music in your ears like soft tinnitus, just below the rustling wind. It's Willie Nelson, and it reminds you of that photo of her with him, but in the picture she's smiling. She has remained behind a closed door all day, the periodic exile of a single mother, or the recently abandoned; unwilling to come out, even to replace the batteries, the cord chewed through days ago, unfixed, added to the growing list of disrepair; the window crank in the bathroom, the box fan in need of a plastic knob, the curtain bracket held up now by tape, a single tack nailed through the fabric and into the concrete. 'We can fix it ourselves,' she had said so optimistically in the morning when the faucet began to drip, 'Just you and me.' And by evening devolved into a pile of useless hardware and caulk, and another exile behind a bedroom door with a broken hinge.
The day blushes and fades, drained of its light. She is coming to visit, the first time in years, and though you have imagined the moment, a thousand thousand scenarios of forgiveness without shame, the heat of summer weakened you into your old habits. The perfect dinner will be rushed; the wine, unchilled; doors will be closed on old messes you meant to clean; winter, a world away, is the season of change. 'I was always a better man in the Fall,' you once told her. 'No, you were just gone more. Your traveling season. Hotels and missed phone calls. Of course you were nicer.' 'I had to make a living.' 'You shared that burden with all of us.' And you changed the subject, telling her you liked the gray, though it reminded you of how tired you were, and how much you wanted to leave.
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