Could it be that these were my happiest days?  Finally at last I felt here is someone who can connect me back to all my previous selves including the person I myself had discarded and my role in all this was to be that person and also if possible to ease Ginnie at least a little out of her grief.  For Ginnie this manifested itself in times of intense indecision and self-doubt.  There were days when she couldn't leave the apartment or if she did had to return because -- for instance -- the man who made her cappuccino answered her question with a look she couldn't interpret.  We held each other in bed and when Ginnie asked me if I wanted to fuck I said no because it was something else I wanted.  I would, she said.  She was so small I felt I could hold every one of her bones in my pocket.  I would with you she said and I was convinced I was on the edge of something. We touched all the time, even at dinner, and sometimes I pretended that she was the woman whose husband had disappeared and I was the husband who returned.  Maybe we even had a child or maybe she was the child, though in many ways she was old and worn out already and her face looked like a young boy's face with makeup.   In the mornings I chose Ginnie's clothes for her when she needed me to and I began reading a book to her about the Alexander Technique, which if done correctly can improve both posture and self-esteem.  

 

april  february

 

I didn't ask her about Kiki, we never talked about Kiki. I've learned now that the present cannot answer the past.