Ampersand
by Christy Tending
It’s been the most fucked up winter, I’d say. And maybe she’d correct me. She’d tell me that it’s spring, like that makes any goddamn difference.
My friend—who has died—is watching me make dinner, which would be strange, except the kitchen was one of the places where she was most alive for me. When she watches me do something she doesn’t approve of, she doesn’t yell. (She was from Ohio.) She scolds. She certainly judges, with a wry smile. Her disapproval is more of a stern reprimand, but with love. (She would only correct you if she loved you already.)
She could be cutting, and then feign surprise at the blade of her words. We would cackle at being dangerous. But even when she was right—and her judgment would slice through the meat of a moment—there was nothing cruel in her. The way she used to tell me to quit fussing with the kale and let it braise. The way she rose to the defense of Brussels sprouts. The way she would roll her eyes when I’d take one more piece of bread, knowing I was spoiling my dinner.
Tonight, walking in the side door from gathering lemons from the backyard, she should have been there, but she wasn’t, and I’m so angry she’s gone that I let her judgment chatter on in my head because I miss the sound of her nagging. Because once she’s done, I get to tell her about everything she’s missed.
I want to grab her by the elbow and tell her the gossip. You will not believe this, I want to hiss, gleefully.
This is how I grieve: imagining what she would say. How she’d argue back, knowing the facial expressions she’d make. And as I stir the dinner, I think about how that is a kind of intimacy: even with her body gone, her heart living in another person I’ll never meet.
I tell her about the red tailed hawk that showed up two days after she died, like the ones we’d see on the power lines next to the freeway, driving in her red Subaru. And I admit that she was right: I learned to like Brussels sprouts, not roasted the way she loved them, but thinly sliced with too much butter, sauce thickened with starchy pasta water and lemon zest. We make plans to pick fruit and make jam this summer. I marvel at the sunset with her, because she loved a good sunset, like the one tonight, purple and electric.
And I simmer at the unfairness of a single missed sunset that is so profound makes me want to throw dinner against the kitchen wall.
I want to tell her about the ampersand I’m etching into my arm like the tattoo she had on her wrist: a mark of everything that goes on.
Yes, and.
A symbol of more: that this is not the end. There is a season that comes after us. There are blooms that will only open once we’re gone. I pick up her ampersand—the one tattooed on her wrist, yes, but also the one etched into her ethos—and carve it into the crook of my arm, because there is more to build, and because I miss her and because we owe it to her because she was the best of us.
And, and, and.
Christy Tending (she/they) the author of High Priestess of the Apocalypse (ELJ Editions) and Sobriety Through the Major Arcana (kith books). Their work has been published in Longreads, The Rumpus, and Electric Literature, and received a notable mention in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023. They are the recipient of a residency at Yaddo and the Birdcoat Editors' Prize in the Essay. They live in Oakland, California with their family. You can learn more about their work at www.christytending.com.
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