Mcclelland & Stewart, Sachbücher, Origami Dove (Englisch, Susan Musgrave, 2011)

MAGNOLIA Another Valentine&rsquo s Day behind bars and I bring you light from the stars that you might find your way back to us out of darkness. I bring you memories of me &ndash naked, happy, nine months&rsquo pregnant tasting applesauce in the kitchen. I bring you the wind, the way our house creaked as you rocked our newborn daughter who couldn&rsquo t sleep. I bring a handful of rain that you may remember the sound of it, and the smell of the earth when you turn it in your hands. I don&rsquo t know why our life took the turn it did, but now the smell of earth reminds you &ndash the magnolia tree you planted the day our daughter was born: did it live? I bring you tears, the ones you wept mixed with the milky scent of those I kept locked up in me as we sang our daughter to sleep those first merciful years &ndash if I could I would give you wings to carry you up to the sky. When I kiss your eyes, your sudden cry startles the magnolia to a deeper white. THE ROOM WHERE THEY FOUND YOU smelled of Madagascar vanilla. After touching you for the last time I scrubbed the scent from my skin &ndash I would try to remember later what the water felt like on my hands but it was like trying to remember thirst when you are drowning. They say love doesn&rsquo t take much, you just have to be there when it comes around. I&rsquo d been there from the beginning, I&rsquo ve been here all along. I believed in everything: the hope in you, your brokenness, the way you arranged cut flowers on a tray beside my blue- and- white teacup, the cracked cup I&rsquo d told you brought me luck, the note you wrote, These flowers are a little ragged &ndash like your husband. The day you died of an overdose in Vancouver I found a moonshell in the forest, far from the sea when I picked it up and pressed it to my ear I could hear you taking the last breath you had the sad luck to breathe. Our daughter cupped her hands over her ears, as if she could stop death from entering the life she had believed in up until now. Childhood as she had known it was over: the slap of the breakers, the wind bruising the sea tells her she is no longer safe in this world &ndash it&rsquo s you she needs. I see you pulling away after shooting up in the car while we stood crying on the road, begging you to come home. The vast sky does not stop wild clouds from flying. This boundless grieving, for whom is it carried on? CONJUGAL VISIT Nothing out of the ordinary, only a doe and her fawn nudging the hard yellow apple you left on the grass, a fist- sized Golden Delicious, the kind that makes your mouth bleed when you bite into it. The doe raises her head when you step out onto the deck to smoke your last cigarette of the evening. Nothing out of the ordinary, only the same forgivable habit. I say, nothing when you ask what&rsquo s the matter later, and then I start weeping I can&rsquo t help it I can&rsquo t stop.