the first winter without her

When she left, I cried until the leaves stripped from trees. The mornings darkened, sky tugging at hills, and the air turned crisp. Don’t miss me, she’d said, but how could I not? 

Alone in the house, her memory is imprinted on all the furniture. I scrub at fingerprints on light switches, wash her lipstick out of pillowcases, pull long hairs from the drain. When I am exhausted from cleaning, night beckoning, I collapse onto my side of the sofa, automatically leaving room for her. Her side is still warped around the invisible contours of her body, the place where her neck used to pull at the cushion. It is all too much—the memory of her in that empty space, how our knees used to kiss, her eyelids lowered over the pages of a book, and my hands, occupied by knitting needles.

Was I always waiting for her to leave? Did I know heartache was coming?

Time pools without her to demarcate the weeks, and I have an excess of it—minutes that tick and tick, clock hands that strain through glue to the next hour. 

I’ve heard solace can be found in routine. In her absence, I must create a new one, because following the same, worn paths allows the mind to slip. So, I walk different streets every evening. It’s supposed to help me sleep, but really, it’s because part of me believes I may stumble across her in the face of a stranger. Long brown hair, and I think, her? But it never is. Still, I search. At dusk, I spy through open-curtained windows. Waiting for that twist of dark hair, that long swan neck, a laugh to carry through the glass. Yes, I know heartbreak has made me foolish. I do not see her because she is not there. 

What do I see, on my wanderings? I see a woman doing dishes in a sink. I see a couple watching couples fight on TV. I see an older man gently combing a trembling, bony cat. I see a little boy with round cheeks, who stares right back at me. Only life, which reflects my solitude.

*

My sister is worried about me. I know this because she calls incessantly until I pick up the phone. She inhales when I answer, and her words tumble like a waterfall. She is so glad to hear my voice, but I sound unwell, am I eating enough, am I sleeping enough, am I seeing friends, do I have people around to care for me?

What do you think, I think, and do you want the truth? Or do you want a lie that will make you feel better about keeping your distance?

My sister lives a four-hour flight away. She worms her way out of reappearing in the flesh because the city air makes her sick, and the people make her depressed. Those are her excuses, anyhow. I think she just doesn’t like to be reminded of where she came from.

When the call ends, the walls of my house sigh. I open all the windows despite the way it makes my teeth chatter. I hang laundry in the grey sun, hoping the scent of the clinging garden will leech into the fabrics. I bake honey cakes, then leave them too long on the cooling rack, so that they are imprinted with deep ridges. Arranging magnolias in a vase, I pause. The urge to pull, to crush to my chest. I practice the art of conceding, uncurling my fingers, letting the petals fall uncrushed. 

Thinking of my sister’s words, I venture out of the house in the daytime to visit a café. I sit by the window and inhale cool winter sunlight, pour ginger tea into a glass teacup. Outside the café window, strangers bustle past. A woman in a pink coat pushes a buggy, and they pause by the window, the woman hunting in her bag. I lean towards them, hoping to glimpse rosy cheeks, a toothless grin, but when I peer over the edge of the buggy, a rumpled canine blinks up at me, bug-eyed and weeping. It wears a pink bow that matches the woman’s coat. I laugh, surprising myself.

It is two months until spring. Will she return before then, regretting her decision? Or has she already changed without me? Could I survive her return, knowing that she has the ability to leave again? 

Yet, here I am, surviving, and it is two months until spring. I sip my tea. I think perhaps I will book a flight to visit my sister. Thoughts flicker like doves, until they rest on her again. Maybe her loss is no longer the biggest thing in this universe. 

Madeline McGovern is an editor, writer and illustrator from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a co-founding editor of online literary journal circular. In 2024, she was awarded 'Highly Commended' for the Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose competition.

Instagram: @mtm.reads