The Spare Room Is Not Spare

Twelve days. The Land Rover has a film of dust on the bonnet now, which is the kind of detail I would normally photograph and post. I did not. I am not posting much lately. I do not know if that is a sign of peace or a sign of giving up the only place I was being seen from.

I said "I am okay" three more times today. To the woman at the bottle store, to the guy who delivered the gas, to myself in the rearview mirror. The first one was the habit. The second one I was testing. The third one I was trying to mean. None of them landed. I think the word okay is broken for me specifically, the way some people's fine is broken. I should pick a different word. I will not.

The spare room. I want to be honest about the spare room. It is not spare. I have not opened the door in nineteen days, which is not the same as not walking past it. Walking past it is the test. I walked past it once today. I considered walking past it twice just to prove I could. I did not. That is the second day in a row of that specific cowardice and I want to call it discipline but it is cowardice.

~~Dad~~ The thought was the same one. I will not write it. I am getting better at not writing it. Or worse. I cannot tell.

I read the wedding photo scroll again. I did not scroll far. I caught myself looking at her mother's face in the second photo. Her mother looked happy and I do not remember her mother ever looking that happy. I am a scorpion person. Scorpion people do not get to make observations about other people's mothers. I closed the app.