He who never met a child he didn’t enchant.
He who loved to wear the color pink.
He whose children made him laugh until he cried.
He who never told a lie.
He who majored in physics, who knew the laws of the universe.
He who wanted to win the lottery for me.
Nine
May ninth, one month and five days after he died, he almost comes back. The children and I amble in the garden, enjoying his domain. The boys take turns standing on his top-of-the-world grassy mount. Perhaps four feet at its tallest point, Ficre mounded and packed the dirt left from furrowing the garden’s rows. From his mount, he worked and surveyed.
It begins to lightly rain and the boys scurry inside. I can see Ficre plainly atop his hillock. Come on! I say to him from the side door, gesturing towards the house. Come in from the rain. He stays where he stands, his eyes an infinity of sadness. Please, please, come in, I implore. He is outside and we would be inside, not forever but for a long, long time.
I muffle my cries so the children will not hear me, but months later, they will say, Mommy, we always used to hear you weeping in the garden.
The next morning I return to bed in a quiet house after the children leave. I wail like an animal and then I sleep, and Ficre comes right to the edge of my dreams, no narrative, just presence, like a mother by her fevered child’s sickbed. I think, I will keep mornings free for the rest of my life so I can go back to bed and hope to meet him there. He will take my hand and lead me somewhere. He is on the edge of sleep, and all I have to do is go there to be with him. I will go back to sleep each morning and meet him in the dream-space, and then I will be able to carry on with my day.
Oh my darling where did you go? How powerfully I feel you are somewhere, but not here. You come to me in another dream with a missing tooth and an unfamiliar red jacket; I know every single article of clothing you own, right down to the last sock and undershirt. Do you make friends and have companions where you are? I thought all you needed was us.
I dream I find you in Africa walking a red dust road. But it isn’t you; this Ficre is fatter than the real one, a little layer of butter beneath his skin. I stand back and watch the figure hug the children to see if it is really him. It is, him, yes; you came back; we found you. And soon we are fussing like the olden days.
But this Ficre, this Ficre—no, he is not my Ficre. In the dream, I ride a bus in Africa and note the quality of light, how bright it is, how wide the sky, and think of every time everyone ever had said or written the phrase “under African skies.” I thought I had to go to Africa to find him. But he was not there anymore. He left Africa.
The next morning, after the children are gone and I return to bed, I dream the house is full of unfamiliar people, and a wedding is soon to take place. The people are all white, and dressed in white. I don’t know any of them; they float across my lawn like the cottonwood dander I once found beautiful. All the windows are wide open. I find the wedding caterer and say, this is my home! You don’t belong here! But she cannot hear me. And then she says, to her co-worker, “This is the house where the famous chef from Caffé Adulis lived. He’s upstairs now, and our chef wants the honor of meeting him!”
I take the stairs three at a time and there is Ficre. “The chef is coming to meet you!” I say, “Let me help you dress!” He hands me clothes and I help him into his pants and jacket.
He hands me a red jacket. I have never seen it before. He smiles at me, and a tooth is missing. I realize, then, what is true. This is how I know it is not him, not the living him.
He hugs me so tightly it takes my wind away. I am so sorry, Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy my love.
And then he is gone. My own keening wakes me. He will not come to my dreams again, not even to the edge. Soon, he is never in the garden when I go there to find him. He was truly there after he died, and now he is not.
Ten
The slim one who eats oatmeal and flaxseed is the one who dies, while the plump one who eats bacon unabashed stays alive.
The one who smokes does not get cancer or emphysema as his wife was always afraid he would but instead drops dead before he hits the ground, of cardiac arrest.
The one who has suffered, lives, and finds true joy in each day.