Somewhere along the line, I lose track of the divide between the living and the dead. In a thrift store, for almost a minute, I can't remember whether or not my parents are alive. Staring at a china tea set with a pattern of brown plums I swear used to sit in my grandmother's cabinet, I can't place which inevitable tragedies are in the past, and which are still ahead of me.
Summer ended in a screech of brakes one July night, and October transitioned prematurely into winter with a flare of golden sunlight and an overdose of anaesthetic. There have been others - a long succession of fatalities the whole year through, but those two were the deaths that really unmade me. Since then, I guess, the shadow has always sort of been there. Maybe before.Β Β Maybe it started with that first small, broken body. Or else it's just getting older and outliving friendsΒ Β that does it. Bereavement as the new normal.
Which leaves me here, staring at thrift store china, trying to remember if I'm an orphan.