She went to the apartment in search of memories. The separation had left her like a newborn, alone with her present. When she entered the building, she noticed their names were no longer on the mailbox. Someone had removed them. And she felt a pang in her heart. She thought that Ricardo had probably gone there before her. He was in a hurry to sell the place once the divorce was finalized.
Cecilia climbed the stairs slowly, just as she always did when they lived there. That spiral ascent soothed her soul before entering the house. As if, with each step, she was shedding the remnants of the day: the awkward gestures, the traffic jams, or the rain that had caught her without an umbrella. Although it hadn’t turned out that way, she always believed that her little everyday Everest was enough to keep their relationship safe.
She opened the door. The house was empty, so empty it seemed like a wasteland. As if a hurricane had erased all traces of their presence. No one would guess they had shared ten years there. On the walls where the paintings once hung, the traces left by tobacco smoke looked like ghosts hanging from a hook. She sat on the small bench by the bay window, her back pressed against the glass, hoping the cold would wake her from the stupor in which her heart was trapped. She felt a strange sensation in her feet and thought it was the same feeling she had the first time she stepped on that floor. She took off her shoes. She closed her eyes and squeezed her eyelids in an attempt to bring back to this endless present the memory of her first time there. She had gone alone because Ricardo found these things boring. The moment she entered, she had felt as if her feet were anchored to the ground, as if that parquet floor had always known the sound of her footsteps. A tingling sensation had climbed up her legs and settled in her hips, like a presence that had entered her bloodstream to tell her that, finally, she had found the place where she could nest. She would no longer have to keep searching.
In the dressing room, the empty closets loomed over her like bites on a soul shaped like a Gruyere cheese. That’s where she had always stored her clothes, so she leaned in, looking for scents. Her perfume was still there. Then she remembered that silk blouse that kissed the first button of her jeans and felt Ricardo’s hands again behind her, clutching her waist. And her body shuddered in a sharp jolt. She ran from room to room, searching for other remnants of the woman she had been. The dry green of the kitchen cabinets, the bathroom tiles, even the door handles bore her name. Looking at the color of the walls, she thought she would choose it again. And, without knowing why, she felt safe. She tried to remember when she had chosen the hummingbirds on the wallpaper that decorated the hallway halfway down and saw her index finger pointing to it among hundreds of models in the catalog. Then she thought that maybe the same had happened with the sofa, with the dining table, and with the headboard of the bed. Maybe everything she once believed they shared had actually been hers alone, perhaps her being had filled the shared space with her things, her details, her breath. And Ricardo had simply agreed to everything.
She entered the bedroom. A scrawny wire dangled from the ceiling, its broken lampshade like a forgotten ballerina in the middle of the stage. She stood beneath it. The overhead light erased the shadows. Four notches in the wooden floor marked the square where the bed had been. Cecilia tried to relive herself in the shared bed. She saw his body pressed against hers, rolling from one side to the other, her hair brushing his shoulder as she fell asleep. Yes, she had been happy beside Ricardo, even if she never really knew who he was. When she stepped out onto the terrace, the stains left by the plant pots reminded her that she also liked flowers.
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