a kiss that no one sees

The small of her back. I remember it. She’d stand next to the bed in the morning, her face away from me, sometimes in a towel and sometimes not. She’d brush her hair, making it right and perfect and well, right. Just staring into the mirror. Like I wasn’t even there most of the time. I think there were times she wished me not there. Other times it seemed like she’d die without me there, without me to prop her up, take care of her, but really, she didn’t need me. She doesn’t need me now.
One time on a road just outside Winnipeg, or it could have been the Dakotas, I can’t remember now without having to mentally retrace my steps to get me back there, she stood on the side of the road holding her camera out in front of her, all the while just slightly pushing the shutter button down, but not all the way. Like she was waiting for something to happen, so she could catch it right as it happened. Sometimes it would be, or seem like, minutes over minutes before she’d actually take a picture. Of anything. That day was no different as she looked off into the field by the side of the road and just held the camera there, still, waiting. And then. It was over. She pulled the camera back down and put it back in her pocket and said she was ready to go.
I’d catch her sometimes looking at herself in store windows as we passed by them. She’d say she could see her age better in them than she could in real mirrors. She’d fix her hair or adjust her dress and it never seemed vain, just her fixing things, making sure it all worked and was in the right place.
The right place was not with me. She said so early on. She warmed me that it would be over before I knew it but at the same time would talk of things we could and should do in the future. She’d talk of trips to Whitefish, Montana and nights we’d have in Tucson, Arizona. But I knew she was just making things romantic for herself. For me. Love was something she was going to do over and over again. I just knew one day she’d be gone and I’d have to be okay with that.
I miss her now. It seems unbelievable that she’s gone, like when someone dies, at first it doesn’t seem real that they’re gone. It can’t be. You just saw them, you just spoke with them. You remember their laugh, the way they were. You keep expecting them to walk right back into the room and for things to just pick-up where they left off. But they don’t. It doesn’t. And that has to be ok.
I remember her. I remember holding hands and driving places, having dinners in the truck stops along the way. Waking up in the car in the middle of some California town next to a taco truck in a parking lot. I remember that.
One day I Toronto I saw her walking down Queen Street with someone, a man, and thought for a moment that I should cross and say hello. See how she was. If she remembered me at all. But I found myself just watching her as she moved farther away with each step. And it seemed like the right thing to do. She looked happy. And so was I.