April Winds
Senora has left the windows open, and there is a gush of cool, warm summery winds coming in, surrounding the walls and rooms and the wooden floor. My roommate and I like the house in its quietness when no one is home and we are left wondering where the family has gone. April came briskly and am afraid is leaving as well. Time has a new sense now that four months are coming to an end, an end for which I never prepared for, but for which now I seem to be preparing.
The rooms are stale, but warm. I will miss that. The kitchen is old and reminds me of my grandmothers’ for it lacks modern utensils, and has a certain antiquity about it, mismatched plates and silverware, washed-out tablecloths. The living room is a displacement of colors, random décor of things collected over years and from different countries. I will also miss this natural disorder.
“There is a French girl coming in May,” Senora informs my roommate and I during dinner, “to replace Eli.” Then she says, “Of course no one will be like Eli,” looking at me.
And it is in this moment that I want to get up and hug her and say I will never forget her.
We finish dinner, watch some television and commercials in Spanish, and my roommate and I part our separate ways and go to our rooms. I sleep, though it is difficult, and think how this whole thing has been like a dream.