I knew it was coming and it did: Carlos is gone. He’s gone but he’ll return. Even if five days is not long enough to establish a routine, let alone what it felt like—a lifelong ritual involving our entire beings—I am have absolute faith. Carlos will come back and we’ll return forever to the world we so effortlessly made together.
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All morning long, I tried to ignore the impending rift. Before, after; then, now. Totally within the moment, I recalled an aphorism about not knowing what you think you know and vice versa. Carlos commented that it was too cold for clouds to form. I answered that that was a myth, cold doesn’t affect clouds like that. The sun, though, was blinding; the sky excruciatingly blue; the els and buses running on schedule.
I spent the morning absorbed in details—details were all: the smell of coffee, the wiggly activity of customers, the sound of crockery knocking together, the way my hand looked on the countertop, and oh a hundred other things at once. My life was the same now as ever. And whatever happened—happened. Using all restraint, I tried not to try.
And yet—there was no ignoring the crystalline air outside our doors being too sharp to breathe. Or the rock-solid, six-foot-high snowdrifts rising every several feet. Paul from Mystic made it through the alley, though. And Louie Duvall’s man triple-parked in front and dollied the flour in through the restaurant. Even old Mr. Downey and old Mr. Hedlund trudged their way in today, and shook their heads at the way I do business: letting delivery men in through the front. Tsk, tsk.
At noon, Carlos whisked off his apron and I knew: He was leaving. Busy checking Louie’s order, I fiddled with the paperwork. “There’s supposed to be no charge.” My voice was anxious to attract Carlos’s attention, draw him to me.
He was zipping his jacket, hoisting his backpack. A nasty chill leapt from my nerves to the pores of my skin.
Had Carlos brought his backpack down at four this morning when we flicked on the lights and beat on pans, rushing out Mason and Roger?
I would have noticed. But I would have noticed more if he’d darted up at some point to fetch it from the apartment. et there it was dangling from his gifted, gloved fingers. He had his jacket zipped, his stocking hat on his head.
Louie’s driver was saying, “Relax, man,” and pointing to the “ppd.” scrawled at the bottom of the page. If Carlos waved or nodded at me, if he mumbled, “Later,” I was aware only that as the alley door bounced shut behind him, the air turned bleak. Everything went flat, everything looked fake. And from then until now, it’s been all I can do to force myself to go through the motions—“Hi, good to see you. What can I get you folks?”
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