On the morning he left I sat stone still with my ears pricked for the sound of him returning and a wish in my daredevil heart that he would not. He’d packed a suitcase and taken his things. And he’d said he’d had enough and he was going for good and there was no point in trying to stop him; but he’d said that before and so I thought he’d be back, like the proverbially black penny.
The morning tipped over into afternoon and still he was not back. I threw open the windows and let the smell of him leak out. And I changed the sheets on the bed and collected the things he’d forgotten to take and put them in a cardboard box that I set by the door. I was singing by the late afternoon and I didn’t know that I was, not right away.
By the evening I was dancing and laughing and drinking white wine from a tea cup and music playing too loud and all the lights in the flat on. And that night I lay stretched out on the bed, on his side and my side at the same time, and the whole world was mine and not to be shared. And sleep, when it came, was untroubled.
That was what it was like for days and I stopped listening for his key in the lock or the ring of the doorbell or the phone calling me back to him. I even went out and I made an effort with my hair and my make-up and I wore a rainbow coloured dress and shoes that were dancing shoes. And men bought me drinks and made passes at me and I liked that. And in the toilets at Pertwee’s Night Club a girl put her tongue in my mouth and my hand on her tits and her hand on mine, and I liked that, too.
And I changed my drink and tried new things on my plate and went to places I’d never heard of before. I was looking for something. I was looking for me. I smoked a joint once, and the guy that I smoked it with said he saw stars in my eyes, and his hand was between my legs and he was breathing heavy like a horse that has run a hard race. And I swam naked in the sea and ate cockles from a shell and had sex on the beach where everyone could see if the sun was not sleeping. And I went to bed with a man twice my age and he was married and I took every penny from his wallet and left him without his clothes, sleeping it off in room 112 at the Marriott Hotel.
And days stacked up into weeks and weeks turned over into months, and I woke one morning, my hands reaching for the empty space in my bed, and I was tired and alone. I got up and put on music, but all the songs were sad songs and I couldn’t dance or laugh or sing. I started speaking to myself then. I told myself that it wasn’t him that I wanted and it wasn’t him that I missed. I said I was good without him and I was. I made a list of everything that was now me and I put ticks and stars all over the page. But when all was said and done, I did miss something, and I cried then.
September 26, 2013: On the morning he left…
Patricia Ann McNair 
On the morning he left I sat stone still with my ears pricked for the sound of him returning and a wish in my daredevil heart that he would not. He’d packed a suitcase and taken his things. And he’d said he’d had enough and he was going for good and there was no point in trying to stop him; but he’d said that before and so I thought he’d be back, like the proverbially black penny.
The morning tipped over into afternoon and still he was not back. I threw open the windows and let the smell of him leak out. And I changed the sheets on the bed and collected the things he’d forgotten to take and put them in a cardboard box that I set by the door. I was singing by the late afternoon and I didn’t know that I was, not right away.
By the evening I was dancing and laughing and drinking white wine from a tea cup and music playing too loud and all the lights in the flat on. And that night I lay stretched out on the bed, on his side and my side at the same time, and the whole world was mine and not to be shared. And sleep, when it came, was untroubled.
That was what it was like for days and I stopped listening for his key in the lock or the ring of the doorbell or the phone calling me back to him. I even went out and I made an effort with my hair and my make-up and I wore a rainbow coloured dress and shoes that were dancing shoes. And men bought me drinks and made passes at me and I liked that. And in the toilets at Pertwee’s Night Club a girl put her tongue in my mouth and my hand on her tits and her hand on mine, and I liked that, too.
And I changed my drink and tried new things on my plate and went to places I’d never heard of before. I was looking for something. I was looking for me. I smoked a joint once, and the guy that I smoked it with said he saw stars in my eyes, and his hand was between my legs and he was breathing heavy like a horse that has run a hard race. And I swam naked in the sea and ate cockles from a shell and had sex on the beach where everyone could see if the sun was not sleeping. And I went to bed with a man twice my age and he was married and I took every penny from his wallet and left him without his clothes, sleeping it off in room 112 at the Marriott Hotel.
And days stacked up into weeks and weeks turned over into months, and I woke one morning, my hands reaching for the empty space in my bed, and I was tired and alone. I got up and put on music, but all the songs were sad songs and I couldn’t dance or laugh or sing. I started speaking to myself then. I told myself that it wasn’t him that I wanted and it wasn’t him that I missed. I said I was good without him and I was. I made a list of everything that was now me and I put ticks and stars all over the page. But when all was said and done, I did miss something, and I cried then.