Rest in Peace, Sweetie

by Amelia David

Even though my husband died last Friday, the only thing I seem to think about is the feeling of freshly-scooped ice cream between my toes. The kitchen tiles were slick with rapidly melting dairy, and Matthew sat slumped against the refrigerator, the back of his polo shirt damp, his favourite fork poking out from under his left hand. 

I didn’t fall to my knees and sob when I discovered his body, I didn’t scream or wipe snot off my upper lip. 

Rather than acknowledging the grief that I was certain would eventually pool at the bottom of my stomach, I dampened the yellow sponge next to the dish soap and wiped his face clean, as though he was a three-year-old boy. The arches of my feet were sticky with milk chocolate, and I later noticed that I missed a spot under his nose. 

Instead of making a mental checklist about his funeral, I mopped the floor before the ants could attack it, and my shoulders sighed with relief. 

On Saturday, a coroner would tell me that Matt’s heart gave out, that his body couldn’t contain the artificial sweeteners concealed inside his laptop sleeve and suit pockets, that I had failed as a wife by refusing to pay attention to the overgrown boy with sticky fingers that tried to reach for my waist in the dark on weekend nights. 

The coroner’s words were sterile, brusque. I didn’t know how to tell him that the man I married loved eating dessert with alternative utensils: tubs of ice cream with forks, airy cupcakes with a butcher’s knife, caramel macarons with unevenly split wooden chopsticks, and I didn’t know how to tell him that my husband’s lips stopped tasting like confectionery six months into our marriage.

At the funeral on Sunday, his thin aunts looped their arms through mine and spoke in cool, soothing tones meant to calm an agitated infant. His parents refused to make eye contact with me, and his brother’s eulogy was full of meandering sentences about their family’s shared adoration for French desserts. 

When I got dressed that morning, I wore a sleeveless brown dress; my pale skin and the hazel-coloured fabric stood out like a bar of chocolate in a sea of liquorice, and I made sure to play my role as the grief-sodden widow with aplomb. 

I smiled with pursed lips and glistening eyes when people handed me dry chicken sandwiches and backhanded compliments, and comforted his weeping sister while their mother smoked in the bathroom. His father left the wake early, and the doctors on his side of the family shot pointed looks at me when they thought I wasn’t looking. The house gradually grew quieter as visitors realised that no more honeyed words of encouragement and advice were left for the griefless widow who seemed relieved that her husband was dead. 

Even though my husband died last Friday, the only things I can seem to think of are the texture of his hair between my index finger and thumb, the way his body grew softer and more pliable when I told him I hoped sugar would kill him before I did, the way his breath slipped out of his body when he realised I wasn’t kidding. The kitchen tiles grew slippery with the end of our marriage, and Matthew sat slumped in defeat against the refrigerator, the back of his polo shirt damp, his left hand no longer holding onto his favourite fork. 

---

Amelia David is an avid reader of fiction, a former student of English literature, and an individual who hopes to break away from writing personal essays. Her work has been published in Roi Fainéant Press, Mag 20/20, and Esthesia. She drinks too much green tea and blogs occasionally at pretendedconfusion.wordpress.com.