When I Say Grief

after Meredith Martinez

My husband left me in February. He left with my love in his hands, and I walked to the pharmacy for a carton of eggs. The eggs were carried home in my dirty tote bag like a promise kept. I did not swing them, jerk them, or threaten to jostle them excessively. I walked past the K-Mart and the spinal specialist. The sky was pregnant gray, but passing the shops, all I could see was red. The thought of brittle shells crawled beneath the skin of my fingers. My hands felt stone cold then, the way a neck crack tastes. Once home, I placed the eggs in the fridge—cleared out a whole shelf for them. It’s not so hard, to make space for a fragile thing. All you have to do is open the cold, hard machine with an oath to move gently inside. That night, I could not sleep, for I could hear the phantom cracking of the eggs inside my ears. I felt them between my teeth. What happens to sadness grinded in the mouth? It never speaks. I hurried through the bodies that furniture makes in the dark, my stomach and pelvis slick with sweat. I kneeled in front of the refrigerator’s chill. Gently, I opened the carton of eggs. I counted them. I pressed my finger to their heads, sighing when I hit a special rocked groove. I rolled them around in my palm until I felt their insides move back. This was how I named them, how I loved them, how I vowed never to leave them first or even second. I bought ninety more cartons until April came. I broke teeth. I saw red. I had a man—a body in my arms—and then, I did not. What happens to an egg that is never eaten? It dries out. It becomes unusable. Spoiled, miscarried. When I say grief, this is what I mean.