Condolence

Everyone was alive in that house
The recently-widowed wife was there also
invisible inside the house somewhere
just as she was in her husband’s lifetime

Some woman made tea
and placed a cup before me
It was hard to believe he would not come back
It had happened many times before
I would wait for him
drinking tea to pass the time
But today I would not have that endless wait
His daughters’ sad dry eyes
pleaded silently
Maybe they wanted to ask me to keep coming back
to do something for them
even after the formal condolences were over.

The man was smiling down at me
from a childhood photograph
I was shown the mark on the stairs
the spot he made when he fell
I had seen him run up and down these stairs so many times

No one in the family had the courage to walk upstairs
and step on that mark
It was this small detail that made me aware
he was really dead
and that I had not come to wait for him
but to offer condolences.

CONDOLENCE