Sometimes I imagine that Shirley comes home. At least to visit. She looks around our loft, in which little has changed in nine months. “That’s new,” she says, pointing to a framed photograph in the bookcase. It is of her, sitting at the table, in front of that same bookcase. I got it to balance the old photograph of her, taken in the sixties, before we met; glamorous with long hair and large sunglasses. “Why are all my glasses still here?” she asks pointing to a half dozen cases—Robert Marc, Iyoko-Inyaké, Ray-Ban. I sense disapproval in her voice. We go upstairs to the bedroom. She looks in the closet. “You’ve kept my Zuri dresses and Trippen shoes,” she says. “And all my beautiful coats. Why? Shouldn’t you get rid of them?” I am abashed, but I don’t know how to do that. “Maybe later,” I tell her.
Photo: Kenyan print dress by Zuri