Another year, another July 11, another summer day of sticking my hands into the soil and rooting around with the roses and missing you. I whip butter and sugar to make the mocha icing you used to spread over Angel Food cake. I have people for dinner and the kitchen smells like yours used to: Onions and wine, a faint strain of flowers, chocolate tempering on the stove. You never met my husband, but you'd like him if you did: Today, I wrote out a to-do list, and he did the things on it without a word: Compost, trash, light bulb in hall. He's handsome, he works hard, he's kind, he reads books. I lend out books and remember what you warned: Never lend books or money. I have no money to lend, anyway, but books I can't help it, I'm sorry. I lend them. I think of it this way: When I lend books I know I'm really just giving a gift. It's summer and there's no work and I read fervently, hungrily, a book a day the way you used to. My neck is sore from reading. Outside the rain's about to come and it smells like your house used to in summer, ripe magnolia blooms dropping onto the ground. The years pass without you, and I try to be grateful for every beautiful day I'm alive.
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