Stars Go Blue by Laura Pritchett Page A

if it could nearly burst her eardrums apart. It’s cold, very cold, and she can seethe breath misting in front of her in clouds that dissipate and appear, dissipate and appear. There is a simple fireplace along one wall, and it sits empty and dark, mocking her with the lack of heat that it could provide, a simple case of matches and dried wood, and this unfulfilled possibility reminds her of herself, where there’s not a flicker of light or barely one at all and she wonders, yet again, if she should go to a doctor herself and ask for antidepressants or antianxiety pills or something, which she never in a million years would have thought were necessary, given her energy and spirit and spunk, but which Carolyn suggests over and over, and which now she will no doubt need. “Oh god,” she says to the empty fireplace. “Oh please god. Take him kindly.”
    The dog has been trotting around, sniffing, wagging, but comes up to her at the sound of her voice. “Stupid dog,” she says, but reaches down to pet her. “Ben liked it here.”
    She remembers well the contentment that swarmed around him after this cabin was built. A sad mourning contentment, but contentment nonetheless. Unlike the crowded dusty farmhouse, cluttered with doilies and knickknacks and years of kids and grandkid photos, and of their artwork, and of presents given, of accumulated debris, of a messy but full life, everything here is simple, clean, tidy. In that way, it seemed fake to her. A mirage. But it’s built sturdy, and lets in less dust. And perhaps there is nothing wrong with a mirage from time to time.
    She herself was relieved to be alone during that time. At least, at first. She could move through her days—the grief-filled ones and the slightly better ones—at her own pace in her own way. It was a gift, she decided, to live alone in a house. But the heart can house many emotions at once, and she was also angry at him for leaving. Lonely when she ate dinner. Bitter about the farmwork and how there was so much of it, even though theycontinued to share it. Plus, she was cold at night, with no body heat. And ultimately, this life was boring. Or something that resembled boring. She missed the chaos of life—the full catastrophe of living, as she called it, a phrase she lifted from Zorba the Greek . She was not in her life, not really living it. She was living a small life, and that seemed a crime.
    She walks into the bedroom. Ben had slept on a single mattress and frame that he had taken from Carolyn’s old bedroom. The comforter, flowered and also from the same bed, is tidily arranged. He had also moved in Carolyn’s old dresser, handmade and wooden and simple. She opens the drawers. There are white handkerchiefs, undershirts with stained armpits (and she knows that he didn’t shop for things such as packages of undershirts once they had split up; he probably didn’t even know how). In the next drawer down is a pair of jeans, two work shirts. More slips of paper—always bits of paper—which she unfolds. There is her name, the names of the neighbors, instructions on how to play bridge (Oh, how smart he had been!). Always in pencil. She leaves them there, all of them. She looks in the closet and there are only shoes, all old ones, including a pair of slippers she had once given him in the very early years of their marriage. She remembers shopping for them, picking out the best pair of soft leather with sheep wool inside. Back then, she had truly loved him, truly wanted his feet to be warm and protected. She remembers clearly standing at the store, holding them, debating whether they were worth the price, and she had been filled with a wave—yes, that was the right word—of gratitude for having Ben and her daughters and a ranch and the emotion called love lodged in her heart.
    There is one time in her marriage that stands out. Like the first kiss, it was the one other time when