I was released from the hospital after two days. I went home. I had no more gallons near my bed and no more solid cloud.
I can’t deny that a small part of why I threw out his water was the hope that it would somehow enable him to come back to me. But since I would be a fool to count on this, it was mostly an attempt to put closure to my endless grieving. I hoped I would find it easier to get over him if I didn’t have his water around, floating around my consciousness constantly.
What I hadn’t predicted was that now that I had released him into the world, all water became precious to me. Damon could be anywhere.
During the week that followed my release from the hospital, I often stood on my balcony and looked up at the clouds and thought of him, and wondered if he was part of any of them. When it rained, I went outdoors and walked without an umbrella, crying, remembering the night when he rained in my arms. He was perhaps raining on me now.
Puddles made my throat constrict, tap water was especially upsetting, not to mention the water in toilet bowls. I could no longer drink water; it was too hard, psychologically. I had to get my fluids from other sources, like fruit juices or sodas. I regretted having thrown out his water; I hadn’t anticipated the consequences on my mind.
What was more, I three times imagined I saw him, in crowds, at a distance, the way I had when he came back into my life after my kidnapping. Two of the men I thought were him were not him, and the other I was not able to verify.
I started wondering if I was insane. Why did I catch imaginary glimpses of Damon in crowds when in fact I was certain that if he were alive he would come to me right away? He wouldn’t torture me that way. But then again, if anyone would, he would. And maybe it was hard to return to the real world abruptly. Maybe he had to seep back into reality slowly, gradually, or he would get some kind of toxic shock syndrome.
When I came home one day, a week or so after my return from the hospital, I saw a white rose on my balcony.
I took the elevator up and rang the doorbell of my upstairs neighbor, whom I didn’t know. A handsome man answered the door.
“How did a rose get on my balcony?” I asked. “You must have thrown it from your balcony.”
“I swear to you I did not throw it from my balcony. I didn’t put any rose on your balcony.”
I then visited my downstairs neighbor, just in case they had had the initiative to stand on their railing to give me a rose. But the tenant was an old woman, and she assured me she hadn’t stood on her railing. I believed her.
I pondered the rose. It was very beautiful and of an amazing, almost colorful white. It was not damaged in any way. You’d think if my upstairs neighbor had tossed it down, it might have lost a petal, at the very least.
I remembered a time in my life when objects were left for me, with special messages hidden in the letters of their names.
The next logical thought occurred to me. I knew it was a long shot, but I would try. I went to my computer, opened my dictionary program, and typed in whiterose. I asked the computer to search for any anagrams using those letters.
A single word appeared on the screen.
I knew, then, that Damon was back.
About the Author
Described by the New York Times Book Review as a “lovely comic surrealist,” Amanda Filipacchi’s fiction has been translated into thirteen languages and her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic. Her novels have been called “hilarious and thought-provoking” by Tama Janowitz and “whimsical and subversive” by Edmund White. Filipacchi earned her MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University.