We split up two weeks ago and, although she supposedly moved all of her stuff out, I keep coming across items she neglected to take. Like today I was in the bathroom trying to find a clean towel, dripping water all over the place, when I came across one of her orange flip-flops lying in the cabinet under the sink: one of her stupid orange flip-flops with the plastic daisy on the thong part. Stupid me. I stood there with that flip-flop in my hands, looking at it like it was some newly discovered Mayan artifact or something. Thought about all the trips we took to Dillon Beach last summer, when we first started dating and all was right with the world. She liked to wear those flip-flops to the beach: a cheap pair she bought at Target or Wall-Mart. They smelled like petrochemical death, and I used to kid her back then she was going to get some kind of tumor from wearing them. Oh, I was droll.

Yesterday, when I was looking for a phone charger, I found a book of poetry she left behind. It was under the aquarium, sandwiched between a couple of my Rolling Stone magazines. She was always big on that stuff, always dragging me to readings. I could never stand the shit. Anyway, I opened the book at random and started reading one of the poems:

And though I really didn’t get all of it, the poem, for some reason, reminded me of a Saturday morning when we were still good, and I woke up next to her, and I wanted to wake her up and make love to her but she looked so beautiful and so peaceful sleeping there, a tiny beam of sunlight streaming through a hole in the bedroom blind and landing on one of her pale arms, I just couldn’t do it. I just lay there and watched her sleep for awhile. 

I read that poem a couple of times, dropped the stupid book on the carpet, and then forgot what it was I had been looking for…

Three days ago, I found a tube of that stuff she used to put all over her face—some cucumber gook that she would leave on until it hardened into a tight plastic mask. It was supposed to keep her face from getting wrinkly. I used to tell her she had absolutely nothing to worry about, that her face was perfect. (Of course, I hadn’t said a thing like that in a long long time.) She would put that stuff on her face after showering at night, and then forget that she had it on and try to cuddle with me. Anyway, I found a tube of it under the love seat in the living room. Don’t know what the hell it was doing there. I sat down on the love seat and read the ingredients on the back and thought about how she looked with that shiny cucumber mask covering her heart-shaped face.

Tonight, it is storming outside. The lights flicker in the apartment with each strong gust of wind. I sit around and get drunk, and after awhile I am certain she has left other artifacts behind. I can’t rest until I get my ass off the couch and start rummaging around in the pantry, the closets, in cupboards, and shelves. Sure enough, there’s a whole bunch of her stuff. An orange hair scrunchy, a French postcard of two girls in brocaded dresses (something she bought in an antique store long before I met her), a Def Leppard CD (not my favorite band), a pink ruffled sock, and a pair of gray panties that had somehow ended up buried under socks in my sock drawer. With that, I know I have to call her right away. I go to the telephone and dial her parents’ house. It’s about one a.m. Her mother answers the phone. Obviously I have gotten her out of bed.

“Yessss,” she slurs.

“Mrs. Chapman, I…I’m sorry to wake you,” I say, trying to sound sober and in control.

“Who is this?” she says, a little more awake now.

“Hi…it’s me…David Greene…” I say. “I hate to bother you at this hour but is ummm Angela there…?”

“David? What is it? No, she’s…she’s out with a friend right now, David.”

A friend? What friend? Who could she be out with on a Wednesday night at one a.m.?

“Oh, well…” I say, trying to think of something to say. “Could you just tell her…could you just tell her she left some stuff here she might want. A CD and uhhh…some clothes and stuff. I’ll hold on to them if she wants them. I won’t throw them out…”

There is a long pause on the other end.

“Mrs. Greene?” I say.

“Yes,David, I’m still here…I’ll let her know. You should probably go to bed. Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“O.K. Oh…and David?”

“Yes?”

“I’m really sorry things didn’t work out with you and Angela. All right?”

“Me too. Thank you, Mrs. Greene. You’ll tell her…about her stuff, won’t you?

“I will…goodnight David.”

And she hangs up the phone. And I stand there for a while in my silent apartment, with the receiver in my hand, all of the artifacts closing in around me…