Down to the Last Drop

CW: Death, Grief, and Cannibalism

To my dear Ethan,

The first time I did it, I swear it was an accident.

I’d just brought you home. You were so small. If I’d wrapped my arms around you any tighter, both of us would have shattered into a thousand pieces. But I didn’t care what happened to me. I had no concept of thoughts, feelings, time, space, or existence itself. All I knew was that I had you, in one way or another.

The house was so quiet when we got back. I kept waiting to hear your footsteps. I held my breath in anticipation of your voice filling the kitchen. The clattering of pots and pans as you fumbled your way through one of your grandmother’s cookbooks. The hum of the tune you always had stuck in your head. The hearty laugh as I teased you for getting flour all over my apron.

I let out a long, painful breath. The silence swallowed it up.

I set you down on the kitchen table. My fingers traced over the intricate design of your urn. Gold leaves against a marble backdrop. You would have picked something less ornate. You were always the practical one.

Just stick me in a mason jar, you’d joke. As long as I’m with you, nothing else matters.

Without even noticing, I’d taken the lid off. I wanted to see you. What remained of you. Pale ash and miniscule fragments of bone. Calcium and carbon.

I wanted to touch you. I dipped my hand into your urn. You felt like sand between my pinched fingers. You proposed on the beach. Do you remember that day?

Time passed. I only noticed once the setting sun painted streaks of golden light across the kitchen. I placed the lid back on your urn and forced myself to focus on something else.

Making a cup of coffee was once so simple I could have done it in my sleep. But each step had become its own herculean task. Obstacles to overcome in the name of moving forward. I hadn’t noticed you clinging to me until I’d stirred in the milk and sugar. A thin layer of ash stuck to my fingertips. I rubbed them together, not even considering the cup beneath them.

Like the first snow of winter, you fell delicately over the top of my coffee. I grimaced and took the mug over to the sink. But I couldn’t bring myself to pour it out. I couldn’t throw you away like that.

I took a spoon and stirred you into my coffee. After debating it for a while, I took a sip.

I know I should have recoiled in disgust. The coffee didn’t taste any different, but the knowledge of what was in it should have been enough to make me gag. But it was warm and smooth and sweet. All the things that reminded me of you.

With each sip, you were closer to me. I drank that cup of coffee down to the last drop. As I stood by the sink with the empty mug in my hand, two thoughts came to my mind.

Number one: I was crazy.

Number two: I wanted another cup of coffee.

So that’s how our routine began. Every morning, I made my coffee the exact same way. One spoonful of sugar. A splash of milk. A sprinkle of you.

The world kept spinning, as it always does. Your name came up less and less in conversations. As weeks stretched into months, mourning gave way to bitterness. How could someone like you fade away so soon?

I tried in vain to find support in your parents. I thought our shared grief would finally be enough to bring us together. But without you there, it was like I was talking to strangers.

Maybe people got sick of me bringing you up. But with no one to talk to, I retreated to the comfort of our secret ritual. The less I leaned on other people, the more I needed of you. A sprinkle became a pinch. A pinch became half a teaspoon. Soon enough, I could feel the grit of you on my tongue as I sipped my coffee. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get enough of you.

Your urn was half empty when I realized how bad things had gotten. The bitter loneliness gave way to a gnawing fear. What would I do when you were gone for good? How could I cope with losing you again?

I tried to quit. But coffee didn’t taste right without you anymore. No matter how hot I made it or how much sugar I dumped into it, it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t give up coffee and I couldn’t give up you.

Spoonful by spoonful, you disappeared. Part of me wanted to tell someone about our routine. If someone else knew, maybe they could help me stop before it was too late. But how could I? I couldn’t dare to imagine what our friends and family would think of me. Or how your parents would react if I told them what I was doing to you.

A year after I brought you home, I put you in a mason jar. The urn had grown far too big for what little was left of you. I cut back as much as I could. I limited myself to one cup of coffee a day. I bought smaller spoons so I’d use less of you with each scoop. Still, you shrank further and further with each passing day.

One cup of coffee after another, I clung to your warmth. Even as the spoon scraped against the bottom of the jar, I kept going. Part of me was screaming to stop. To quit before there was nothing left of you. But another part of me wanted to push through. To keep going until every part of you was a part of me.

Three months later, there was barely enough of you left to fill a tablespoon.

I held what remained of you over my coffee mug. The war raging in my mind kept me frozen in place. Would going through with it bring me peace? Or would I be more broken and alone than ever without you?

The spoon trembled in my hand, sending bits of you tumbling down into my coffee. I made a choice. I dumped you, spoon and all, back into the mason jar.

How long did we sit together on the kitchen floor? I’d spent over a year reclaiming my grip on time, space, and reality. It all slipped away again at that moment. I was back to the day I brought you home. Clinging to you so tightly that both of us could shatter at any second.

The next morning, I called your mother and told her everything. That might have been the craziest thing I’ve ever done. But somewhere in my grief-stricken brain, I knew she would understand. The world may have kept spinning, but a mother like her never lets go of her child.

She stayed eerily quiet until I’d finished my confession. But when she spoke, there was no disgust in her voice. No anger at what I’d done to you. There was sadness and, unbelievably, empathy.

Hours passed. We swapped stories about life between waves of tears. There was laughter and solemnity. Both of us poured out apologies and accepted them in turn. She told me about her mother whose ashes she keeps in a locket. She’s worn it every day for the last twenty years. In all the time you and I were married, she never told me that.

She helped me get in touch with a grief counselor. His name is Connor and his eyes look just like yours. Something about that makes it easier to open up to him. If I only focus on his eyes, it’s like I’m talking to you again.

Connor was surprisingly understanding when I described the details of our routine to him. He said it was completely normal to seek the comfort and connection of a lost loved one. But he thought that my method of doing so wasn’t good for my health.

He sent me home with a bundle of pamphlets. Each one was from a different company that created art out of ashes. Everything from Christmas ornaments to tattoo ink. There were so many options, but I was hesitant to choose one.

I started spending more time with your mother. We go out to brunch on Sundays. Do you remember the little café where you first asked me to be your girlfriend? I didn’t even know it was still open. Well, it is and they still make the best French toast in the world.

I showed her the pamphlets but told her I wasn’t certain I could let you go. Even if it was only for a few days, it would be the first time without you since I’d brought you home. And there was no guarantee you’d ever come back. If something went wrong, there really wouldn’t be anything left of you.

Do you know your mother has the patience of a saint? Even as I was weeping into my French toast, she comforted me. She told me that it was alright to be afraid, but that I needed to put my trust in other people to help overcome that fear. Just like I’d trusted her with the truth of our secret routine.

A year and a half after I brought you home, I put you in a tiny plastic tube and shipped you across the country. For six weeks, I agonized over that decision. I was convinced that I’d get a letter in the mail with an apology and a coupon. Sorry we lost your loved one. Here’s a 10% discount for the next time someone dies.

But despite my fears to the contrary, you came back in a small, velvet jewelry box. I gasped the first time I opened it. The ocean-blue pendant reflected the sunlight off of its many facets. A swirl of ash curled inside it like the crescent of a wave.

I put on the pendant and pressed you against my chest. Pain, loneliness, and fear washed away. For the first time in a long time, I felt peace.

I wear you around my neck every day. Connor is proud of me for taking such a big step forward in handling my grief. Your mother thinks you’re beautiful.

I’ve been putting off writing this letter for a while. Connor suggested it as another way to feel connected to you. But I finally decided today was the day to sit down and do it.

I just made myself a cup of coffee. It doesn’t taste the same. I know it never will. But I still have you close to my chest. Now and forever.

And as long as you’re with me, nothing else matters.

Your loving wife,

Ivy