Picking Up Strands

I found a long dark hair on my pillow this morning—his hair, not mine. David's been gone for three months, and still the apartment holds evidence of his presence. I should have cleaned everything by now. A reasonable person would have bleached the place, made it sterile.

Instead, I'm sitting at his baseball game. Or what would have been his game. Saturday league, over-30s, men who never quite accepted they couldn't play professionally. I'm wearing his jersey—number 17, "RIVERA" stitched across the back—because his sister asked if someone would. Nobody else volunteered.

The man beside me keeps looking at my hair, then at the empty seat beside me, then back at my hair. I haven't washed it since Tuesday. What's the point?

"You're David's friend, right?" he asks, and I want to laugh at how insufficient that word feels. Friend. We were planning marriage, not that I told anyone. We were picking venues. We were having arguments about whether to invite his alcoholic uncle.

"I'm his friend," I say, and the word tastes like ash.

The crack of a bat pulls my attention to the field. Someone hit a home run. David would have missed it—he always swung too early, too eager. I'd tease him about it on the drive home, his arm warm against my shoulder, the smell of his shampoo and that ridiculous leather glove he refused to replace.

The baseball arcs through the sky and I realize I'm still waiting for something to happen. For closure, maybe, or for the world to acknowledge that a whole life ended and nobody knows what to do with the leftover pieces.

I find another hair on my shirt, wrap it around my finger, let it drift away on the wind. Somewhere, someone else is finding pieces of people they lost and trying to decide whether to keep them or let them go.