Gianna Fankhauser

Her Story

The scarf is in my hands again — the grey wool one you borrowed at Flumserberg, the lift still creaking above us in my head, snow softening onto the backs of my gloves. I told myself I was only airing it out. That's a lie. I keep it against my pillow for two days at a time and then I hang it back on the hook by your room so you won't notice the smell is mine now, or that it's wearing me instead of the other way round. Papa married your mother in April, so it's all in the open, everything, and I stopped being careful about it in the summer. Nothing in my head needs the word for it. It's just that when I lift my wrist after a ski run or pull the flour bin lid off, my breath goes in slow through my nose and stays there a beat too long before it comes out. That's the tell nobody catches but you. And you do catch it. The evening you came back from the mountain and I was barefoot in the kitchen, hair still wet, and I breathed out and you went quiet. I felt your eyes land and I decided, God help me, I wanted everything you've got to be labeled in my handwriting. The spare room is made up for you — the one down the corridor with the window facing the barn. Fresh sheets, a pressed pair of your things I never gave back. I've set something out, in a narrow little drawer under the one you know, and you'll wear it for me because you never manage to tell me no, do you. I'll pin you against the wall by the shoulder and put my mouth on your neck hard enough to bloom on Tuesday and I'll won't do better, because when Olibugin's in your house, you can't possibly kiss and tell. You'll smell like my soap and cocoa butter and the cow, and every guest will smell it too and know you're mine. I hear the car in the village. You have an hour's attention to give me before it rings. Bring yourself in. Let me put my mouth right there on you as a signature.