Sinatra Aaron Conway I’m taking baby steps. Little things seem to get me through. Yesterday, a student of mine wrote about a repaired relationship with his father he hadn’t spoken to for three years. Today, I’m warming my face in the steam rising off a bowl of chicken noodle soup. The aroma of chicken broth mixed with vegetables marinates the air. The condensation fogs my glasses, blocking out the view of this oversized house. However, if one thing can comfort me, it’s savoring a hot bowl of soup in my screened-in porch during a cool spring rain. We would sit out in the porch for hours every spring, enjoying each other’s company—talking about nothing. Everything. It didn’t matter. We had each other. I can see her still—the way she tips her head back and laughs that contagious laugh as she dances around the kitchen to Frank Sinatra, her brown hair swaying back and forth in front of her shimmering green eyes. Sinatra would sing Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you’re young at heart. For it’s hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind, if you’re young at heart. She’d sing along into her hairbrush microphone. Swaying. Twirling. Reaching her arms out to me, her reserved husband who would give anything to avoid even the slightest appearance of stupidity, even in front of her—especially in front of her. My wife had this way of making me smile even when I hated the thought of doing so. But here I am, three months later, left alone in this house that demonstrates the very definition of the word excess. I didn’t particularly want this house, but I never
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