It’s so cool in here, you say, and you spread your arms out and lean your head back like a beckoning goddess. Don’t you see how I revolve around you?
The house is cavernous. We walk through it with our fingertips gliding along the walls, the countertops, the curtains. It is hard to play house in a labyrinth.
From an adjacent hallway, you call to me. Who is Audrey? you ask.
She was the wife of the woman who lives here. She died last year while they were away on vacation. Meningitis, I think. Why do you ask?
You don’t answer me, so I wander through the halls until I find you outside of the master bedroom.
Her name is everywhere, you say.
What?
Audrey. Her name is everywhere. You don’t look at me when you say this, you just reach out and touch the wall where the name is etched into the plaster. I follow you back through the house, looking where you point: in pencil on the shelf, in marker on the refrigerator, scratched into one of the wooden stools. I feel cold, and when I look at you, you’re crying.
They turn us into ghosts, you tell me. All women become ghosts. And it’s so much worse when we love each other.
I don’t understand you, not really, but I hold your head against my shoulder. You’re always such a silent crier. When I met you I would have expected you to sob, to scream, but you just shake, and the tears flow out as if, like blood, they are being pumped by a steady source. Zeus must hear you in some way, though, because he pads in and puts his big heavy head on your thigh.
When you finish crying we find the most sparsely decorated guest bedroom and close the door behind us. You turn the thermostat down as far as it goes, and you tell me that you like to pretend that you’re on Mount
14 | Psychopomp Magazine