Longing.

The last time I visited, that photo was still on the coffee table. I remember trying to keep the conversation going, but my eyes kept drifting to the frame—to the wind in my salty hair and the earring he gave me glinting in the sun. It’s my eyes in that shot that haunt me; they’re half-shut with that heavy, liquid trust cats have when they know they’re safe. He was laughing, holding me from behind, until his breath seemed to move the very air around us.

​Now, I text and get nothing. I call and hear only his voicemail. I want to just show up, to see him like I did then, but I can’t reach him to say I’m coming. It has been almost three months. Google warned of roadworks, so I chose public transport and the trip will be a two-hour trek of trains, buses, and a final 1.3-kilometer walk to his door. I’ve prepared my excuses: if he isn't here, I’ll tell myself the trip was for the scenery, the heritage houses, and the dogs to pat on the walking path.

​But the silence at the door is suffocating. The porch swing groans—a dry, raspy sound like a warning. The stillness makes me bold. I pull a tissue from my bra and rub a clear patch through the dust on the window. I peer through the glass as if gazing through a microscope at a world a million miles—or a million years—away. I reach out and touch what I once knew. Behind me, the autumn sun is deceptively bright, stinging my neck like a bee.

​Vertigo hits me. Is this what grief does—turns you into a prowler on the porch of your own memories? If only the curtains were open wider. I see a hard-edged silhouette, like a bookcase denting the fabric. He never owned a bookcase. Perhaps he shifted the furniture. Or worse.

​I turn to leave, but my shoes squeak loudly. I freeze. Did I open the gate when I came in? If I leave it open, would they notice? They. Why am I saying they instead of he? I bolt—jumping over the last three steps, only to slip and sprawl across the lawn. Bedraggled, I scramble up, ready to run for my life. Instead, a small part of me whispers: Remember the key?

​Yes—the keys in the old paint can. I look at the side of the house. The jacaranda tree casts heavy shadows, pressing against the fence. The grass squishes. Every step is a loud, wet scream: trespassing. My eyes are too loud. My head is missing in an upside-down universe.

​I find the wood of the wall and drag my hand until the paint feels like splinters and scales. The wall ends; my hand drops into nothing. I turn the corner into a rhythmic pounding: drip, drip, drip. The smell of peppermint and parsley is a physical weight. I stumble over a pot plant. Wait—I know that ceramic flower. Lola’s flower! Oh my beautiful Lola! And there’s her bike. I touch the rust and the heat of the past burns my skin. My hope rises like a fever. Is he here?

​I run for the shed and go to my hands and knees behind its door. I reach out and tip the paint can, clenching my tongue between my teeth, and roll it toward me. The lid pries off easily. The keys look different, but I don’t care. My brain is a static hum. The world has narrowed to the size of a keyhole.

​Back at the door, my hand shakes so hard the metal chatters. Click. Scuttle, click. The tumblers give way. I’m in.

​The hallway crams me; the walls spin. I see the velvet. I see the table. I collapse. The photo. Sobbing, I run my finger around the frame, laughing as I trace our happy faces.

​A toilet flushes.

​My heart stops. The laugh dies in my throat. Footsteps in the hallway. Heavy.

​"Mum, is it you?" he asks.

​He takes a step toward the coffee table, his hand reaching out into the nothingness—reaching right through the space where my heart should be. I feel a chill where his fingers pass.

​"Mum, I miss you. I can... I can smell your perfume."

​He leans down and picks up the frame I just dropped. He doesn't look at me; he looks at the empty floor.

​"Please, Mum," he whispers, his voice breaking. "If you can hear me... know that we miss you. We’ve missed you every day since you... since you died."

The word died echoes, a cold stone dropped into a deep well. The static in my brain clears, replaced by a terrible, searing light. I look down at my hands. They aren’t grimy with garden dirt; they are translucent, shimmering like heat rising from a summer road. My face isn't stained by that grimy tissue or ruined by mascara. I am scrubbed clean of life. I cry out, but the sound dies in the air before it can reach him.

​He stands so close, yet he doesn't wrap his arms around me. There is no warmth, no solid weight of him. He moves right through me to the window—the one I was just peering through—and he pulls the curtain back.

​The light floods in, sharp and merciless. I see it now. It isn’t a bookcase denting the fabric. It’s a stack of cardboard boxes, taped shut and labeled KITCHEN FRAGILE.

​"Mum, I can’t live here anymore," he says, his voice loud and agonizingly clear. "It has too many memories."

​The front door swings open. Melissa enters, her belly rounded with a life I’ll never touch. She looks at him, puzzled, her eyes scanning the empty space where I stand. "Is there somebody here?"

She stared down the hallway toward the back door, now standing wide open. "I thought I locked that?"

​He offered a sad smile. "It’s just the wind, honey."

​Melissa’s brow furrowed as a strong perfume caught in her throat. "I don’t know..." she murmured, putting her hands on her hips while her eyes scanned the empty passage again.

​Suddenly, Lola’s footsteps thundered up the back stairs. As she burst down the h into the living room, her face lit up with instant recognition. "Grandma!"

​