1. twentieth

It is an unexpectedly fresh summer night. The sky is turning from light blue to lavender when I slip on black cobblestone.
I row my arms, trying to regain my balance.
Crack.
„Shit.“ My boot tilts to the side.
My heel is loose. No longer attached to the rest of the shoe. 
Of course.
This night could not have got worse.
I sigh and slip out of the broken boot, then the other. There is no point trying to walk home in these. 
I pick them up and throw them in the nearby rubbish. After that I balance across the stones, my gaze fixated against the horizon, not able to feel the pebbles digging into my sole.
My head aches. I shouldn’t have drunk the last glass of wine. But without it, I did not know how I would have survived that evening.
Agnes talked through the whole night about how the old husband of Estellé just vanished as Estellé herself had before him two years ago. She didn`t even attempt to hide her excitement behind shock and horror. 
In parts, I was relieved. Every bit of time Agnes wasted on other people’s problems she forgot about mine.
And so do I.
Lakes Residence peeks out right behind the two big oak trees, three generations of Lakes earlier had planted there. My feet are hurting, when I finally walk up three steps, ignoring the overstuffed mailbox. I cross the front porch, swallowing when the pang of memories – me standing in front of your door twenty years ago – once again appears, haunting me.
I open my purse and with a clang, my car key falls to the ground. 
I don’t bother to pick it up.
Instead, I open the door, kick them in, and stagger into the hallway, black as a pit. 
With a smacking sound, my purse lands on the heavy hardwood flooring. And when the door is shut, I begin to open the back zip of my dress. It doesn’t work. Something else I am not able to do on my own. With a ripping sound, I tear the black dress open. I peel the rest of my body, and it lands beside the purse on the ground.
I step over it and enter the kitchen. The wine bottle I had left on the counter before I went off to that stupid evening party still sits there. Waiting. I pick it up, lifting it to my lips.
I put my head back and take three big gulps. God, this wine is bad.
With the bottle in my right hand, I walk into the big living room. Cream couch. Beige walls. Colourless life. It smells like a bar way too long after closure in here. I balance past shards of glass and bottles in different stages of decay until I reach the couch.
I freeze.
The brown cushions are still the same as his mom had picked them out when we wed.
And in the middle of the creamy fabric, there it lays. The same red cardigan.
Fearfully I pick it up, letting the bottle fall to the ground. 
I do not realise how the wine soaks into the beige carpet. And I do not care. Instead, I unfold the cardigan, putting it on with awe. It does not fit as perfectly as it did twenty years ago.
I sit down on the couch and draw the papers and envelopes closer. The pen back between my fingers I set it down on a white page. 
Imagining your smell on the cardigan I write a name.
August.