Dear Steele,
It was around this time two years ago, on a Friday. I sat at the dinner table by Aunt Ruth in a sober mood. Breakfast was being served. You had slipped virtually out of consciousness that week and not even the pleasure of your beet juice could you feel. The day before was onerous. Those eyes, your eyes, looked at me, in me, through me and past me without ever making contact. It was a deadening gaze worse than any Zombie face you could make with your pupils spun back and the encompassing white of your eyes on display. Those were your eyes, but your spirit had already taken flight, and the language they spoke was of some transitory world. Aunt Ruth had prayed for your final resting peace that day, and yet still, with a defiant faith, I had hope sitting at the breakfast table with me.
All I had to say was: Why didn’t they call me. Why didn’t they call me? Why didn’t they call me? Why didn’t they call me? I left specific instructions at the hospital for them to call me. It was an effort to exert power over my actual powerlessness as a not-married-wife, no-really fiancé, girlfriend. The call that sent me to my grave was from his uncle and all I had to say was: Why didn’t they call me. Why didn’t they call me? I chanted it all the way from Beverly Hills to Elliston Flats. I chanted as I wailed. How could it be true if I didn’t get the call? I chanted as my mother took the wheel and drove me to the hospital. I chanted as I dialed the numbers to the nurse. I chanted as I listened to the phone ring. With all the rhythm and with all the beat, I had not enough to shock the dead back to life.
What a morning you and I had.