undaunted. Until that one day. Perhaps it was the strength of that particular storm, or maybe we were unknowingly weakened by all that bad weather before this storm. But that day, the storm shattered our limbs and left them broken in the public streets and there was no truck big enough, or chainsaw loud enough to pick up our mess. That storm involved your husband, so perhaps it was only fitting that my husband provided the fury for our last one. That was the beginning, I suppose, the beginning of our end. When I got home from the grocery store today I put the kettle on for tea. It is a motion I perform so frequently that it requires little participation from my brain. This was a good thing, because my brain was busy bolstering up a new appeal against your silent allegations, a fresh way to make you see things my way, on my terms, in my time. I hold court with you every so often, but unlike your Law and Order episodes, the season just runs on and on, no definitive plot twist, no closing argument. The kettle sang, interrupting my thoughts and as I spooned the sugar into the hot water, I had already shaken you off, fortified your fortress in the freezer. When I moved out of the apartment to marry and live on the mountain, we had already entered the silent phase of our friendship. The words that had been piling up between us had already spilled over and avalanched us under their pain and precision. You have probably forgotten by now, but you asked me to store your turkey in my freezer. This was a good arrangement because my freezer remained mostly empty due to my inability to cook well. Your casseroles and soups warmed my children’s bellies during my Keebler Elf fascination. Once we found the courage, or was it anger, to throw our words across the silence, once we remembered to tally the points and to keep a measured score, we forgot about the turkey in my old freezer. That apartment is long since emptied and released from its burden of housing my children, me, your children, our friendship. When I had the electricity turned off, I never considered that turkey. I was facing forward by that time, looking into my husband’s face rather than straining my neck to look back for something I might have missed. I had stopped hoping in us by then. I sometimes wonder in what state of decay that turkey was found. Who was left with the task of cleaning up that horrid mess and disposing of the carcass. You remain frozen in time. I have chosen to remember you the old way, before we broke apart in the big storm. I hope those with confident footing have gathered around to help discard the decay and tend to your new blooms.
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