I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.
- Winter Love
The cup is from your mother, and it's not a proper teacup. Too thick and heavy, stained all around the rim. Strange, that she bought it for you, when she was so particular about tea service and little fingers lifted.
Or maybe it isn't strange at all. She'd never trust you with the fine china, so why wouldn't she give you this clumsy lump to drink from?
Bollocks. This is the sort of mood you're in today. Psychoanalyzing a cup, deducing it, really—oh, wouldn't he be proud!
You haven't heard from him or about him in weeks. Not since a hole the size of South London was blasted through Baker Street.
John and Sherlock fell on the canopy of Speedy's, only some bruised ribs and signed hair between them.
He might have called.
Keep on, Mary used to say. Keep on, Mol.
But Mary's dead, leaving nothing but a pair of wide blue eyes to little Rosie.
You reach for a lemon, the best old Mr. Simon had to offer, and then the phone rings.
.
The first time you meet Sherlock, you are twenty-nine years old.
.
It took you till twenty-five, actually—took you till the other side of uni to have a real boyfriend. You know your taste in jumpers doesn't do you any favors. You know your hands still smell like formaldehyde, most days.
Not the kind of hands a bloke wants on him, you know, Molly?
.
You're on the wrong side of thirty-five now and you have lemon juice on your hands when you finally say, I love you. You have never been pretty enough, and being clever enough won't push words out of a mouth pinched closed.
You know that too.
.
This is the life you have built: half-a-dozen friends and counting, counting down.
Half-a-dozen heartbreaks.
.
Will you be godmother?
Of course.
(You're never sure if you believe in God. But you believe in them.)
.
How do you love half-a-dozen people that much?
.
Take that, Mum. Take stock of what you said I'd never have.
.
Hello, Sherlock.
I'm not having a very good day.
.
Dial tones and disinfectant, half a pint of ice cream in the freezer, a laugh that cracks like something thawing, love and friendship, love and dead bodies, love and bodies that only look like they are dead.
.
Molly, I need—