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Eve is 12 when she feels it for the first time. She’s in Seattle with her parents - her father’s business trip extended into a family vacation. They’re at the Arboretum and she’s never seen so many shades of green. It’s early in the morning and the grasses are wet and everything sparkles softly so she blinks, expecting the vibrancy to fade. She opens her eyes, breathless when it doesn’t. As they walk through the Japanese Garden, her mother points to a tall tree with broad, dark green leaves. The leaves are lacy, and Eve thinks of bronchial tree diagrams she studied in her biology textbook a few months ago - the web of spindly alveoli creeping her out and fascinating her equally. Her mother wonders out loud about the tree - says she likes the ruddy bark and the thick dark green of branches and leaves stretching out from the trunk. Her father glances at it quickly and then looks back towards the koi fish swimming around in the pond next to them.
“It’s a maple.” He says, like he says everything else - without a trace of doubt.
Her mother hums in response, her own attention drifting toward the fish now too.
Eve feels it then - something like a nearly imperceptible shift in the air around them, a shake of the frame, the thread of her sweater catching on a stray nail. She closes her eyes and pictures the bronchial tree from her textbook. It’s late spring, the last gasp of the wet, tender, fragile season that Eve hates (she prefers the crunch of autumn, the red and yellow and golden browns, the first gust of air cold enough to take her breath away). It’s spring and the tree is full and flush with leaves - it’s an evergreen. Eve knows that maple trees aren’t evergreen - they’re deciduous - she knows this because she tripped on the word deciduous reading out loud last year and her classmates smirked and the shame felt hot and sad and something else too. She thinks hard about that moment and remembers Rachel, the girl next to her, reading the rest of the paragraph where she left off - types of evergreen trees include spruce, cedar, fir, and cypress.
The clarity comes quickly - it’s faster than she can even recognize it - a breath in and a breath out and she knows, she just knows, it’s not a maple. It’s a cypress tree.
“It’s not, it’s not! It’s a cypress. Appa is wrong.”
Her parents, having wandered further from the koi pond, turn back to look at her.
“What?”
“It’s a cypress tree. It’s not a maple.”
Her father studies her face and tilts his head slightly. He looks back at the tree, and then back to Eve. His eyes narrow but he’s smiling slightly, and Eve feels a twitch of pleasure at challenging him like this.
“Check the tag, let’s be sure.”
Eve smiles back before turning and sprinting towards the tree, loving the blur of green surrounding her, the wet grasses licking her ankles and her calves. She skids to a stop at the base of the big dark tree and finds the metal tag. She scans the words that are stamped into it in a rush. Chamaecyparis obtusa, Hinoki False Cypress.
She grins and sprints back to her parents and pokes her father in the side.
“I was right, appa, and you were wrong. It’s a Hinoki False Cypress tree.”
He looks down at her and smiles, grabs her fist to stop the extended finger from pushing into his ribs again. He squeezes her fist softly in his big hands.
“Good job, Eve. You are very clever.”
—
I read online that I could try writing to you. I found an article called “Writing to Ease Grief and Loss” and it did caution that violent death should probably be explored with the help of a therapist but Martin is gone and I have this paper right here and plenty of things to say.
You know I had a boyfriend in college for probably longer than I knew you? Yeah. Second semester, freshman year, all the way through the fall of my junior year. His name was David and we met in a class we had together - statistics. I hated it. He did too. We bonded over the trauma of probabilities and conditional distributions. He was cute and rode a motorcycle and that’s all I needed at that time. I know it’s unfair to talk about college, because you didn’t get to experience that (and you probably would have been good at it) - but guess what - you’re just here to listen and you aren’t even here to do that, so I’m going to do whatever I want.
The point I’m trying to make is that when I think about the time I didn’t get with you and the time that I wasted I feel either so furious, so robbed, so unjustly tragic that I could raze this city to the ground or so empty and hollow that I begin to wonder if what I did have with you mattered at all. Leave it to you to inspire these things in me - even a you who is dead.
These emotions are difficult to handle. They always have been, the ones I felt because of, with, in spite of, you. I see the spiral of rage and fury in the distance and to try to keep it there I focus on remembering, instead. Sometimes I rewrite the story. In Paris I see your baby face - mottled - I see your wet tongue peeking out of your cracked lips as you tell me you know what you’re doing and I feel the weight of the knife in my palm and instead of doing the thing, I kiss you. I know what it’s like to kiss you. At least a bit. I place that over the memory, lay it on top like a sheet over a piece of furniture in an empty house - gently, with caution. It’s weird and not entirely satisfying but it’s something other than the gut-punch emptiness of losing you.
The article told me not to lie in these letters - to let everything out. That’s very difficult for me. It always has been. Why did you make us jump? Why did you kill them all alone? Why didn’t I see it coming? Would we have stopped? I hate that you’ve left me with these questions because when you were alive - even when we were apart - it felt possible to answer them, or to ask new ones. I hate that you left me alone. I hate it.
—
It happens again, and again, throughout her life. Tiny moments of instinct meeting awareness meeting knowledge. Eve doesn’t think too much of these moments because they are rare compared to the decisions about marriage and grocery lists and boring jobs and sometimes satisfying sex and taxes and phone calls with her mom. It’s hard to describe them anyway, she realizes after the county road in Bletcham, after Villanelle fired at her ankles in greeting, in warning, in game on. She got back in the car to a fuming Elena and a terrified Frank and thought for a moment about how to verbalize the knowledge that she just had to step out of that car, that Villanelle wouldn’t end so quickly what had barely started, before realizing she couldn’t, so they just drove in stony silence for the rest of the drive.
She wonders if it’s significant that this recurring awareness has happened with her - with this Villanelle woman. It’s happened so meaninglessly in the past - a cypress rather than a maple, an articulate answer during a job interview, a trivia clue guessed correctly at the last moment - that she’s not sure it means anything here, in this context. Later that night, before she gets the call about Frank, she sits in the dark of her office and recalls the feeling of the car’s door handle and the weight of the door as she pushed it open. She knows she should be scared and her blood is beating hot and fast but it’s not fear about the thing she literally opened the door to earlier in the day, invited into her life. It’s excitement, pure and simple.
—
Sometimes I miss you catatonically - I wake up missing you and unable or unwilling to move, so I stay very still and close my eyes and don’t sleep but do miss you. I stay still as the light changes in my room and the sounds of life slam against my window - car horns and men shouting and babies crying and women talking. I stay still even as my mouth goes dry and I watch a film of dust settle on the days old water glasses on the bedside table. I don’t move a muscle and my limbs feel cold and heavy and my unwashed hair starts to hurt at the roots, like it’s too heavy in its grime. After a few cycles of light and dark and purple in between, I lose track of time and some time, maybe early morning, maybe late evening, maybe 3pm, I feel the urge to pee but it’s not strong enough to motivate me to move, so I don’t.
You wouldn’t like to see me like this - I’m not your fantasy woman - not even your boring woman in an oversized parka - I’m piss-soaked and dehydrated and rotting into my mattress.
Eventually the spell breaks and I still miss you, but not in that same immobilizing way.
—
Last night I got too drunk. I went to a bar near my apartment - on Tuesdays they have an 80s night. I showered and found some trousers - I pulled them on and threw a mostly clean shirt on top and decided that was fine. I sat at the bar for a long time drinking gin and letting the bass from songs by Blondie and New Order thump through my chest. I wanted to feel tossed around a bit, you know? After some number of drinks I blacked out - has that happened to you? We never got to really get into drugs and drinking. I know you like champagne - I remember eyeing the way your hand wrapped around the neck of that champagne bottle when you brought it into my house and god, I was so turned on. I know you know you lit something up in me in that shitty van but you should know I was burning long before then.
Anyway, when I came to I was leading a conga line around the bar. Some woman’s hands were clamped over my shoulders and I felt her weight as I pulled her and a handful of other drunks behind me, snaking my way around the dance floor and between chairs. “Heaven is a Place on Earth” was blaring - you’d know it if you heard it. Belinda Carlisle was singing - when I feel alone, I reach for you, and you bring me home, when I’m lost at sea, I hear your voice, and it carries me - and when I stopped suddenly, the people behind me slammed into my shoulders and then I was on the ground, laughing a lot and crying a little, the fucking synths slamming against my chest. The woman tried to help me up but I waved her off and sat alone as the song faded into “Always Something There to Remind Me” and it felt good to laugh, Villanelle, even as the muscles around my mouth stung from the stretch.
When they played “Don’t You Want Me” I went outside and smoked three cigarettes really quickly before vomiting in the alley. I heard the thumping bass and the sounds from people dancing and talking and wiped my mouth, letting the wind rip through my shirt, and was thankful to get the pummeling I wanted. I felt emptied and new, if only for a moment.
—
After Paris the moments seem to stop. Looking back Eve will wonder if something about Villanelle being so close, so suffocating, in the weeks leading up to Rome was some kind of interference, some kind of static blocking the signal. She often wishes for that instinct as the Peele mission marches on, as Villanelle winds her up and pulls her tight, no relief in sight. It’s certainly not instinct that drives her to pick up that axe, to creep closer as Raymond’s hands squeeze around Villanelle’s neck, and it’s not some preternatural awareness that raises the blade up and then down into meaty flesh. It’s Villanelle, her eyes giant, her face dotted with blood. It’s Eve too, feeling more alive than ever before.
In the hospital she recovers alone and doesn’t think at all about trying to find Villanelle, about trying to be found. She pops her shoulder in and out of place and works the joint like she works on avoidance and denial, all in the name of good health.
—
I think the worst way of missing you is when I’m turned on. The fury, the black grief, even the sticky melancholy feels like - I don’t know - feels like it’s something I can express, something I can fight. Missing you when I am, or because I am, turned on is particularly infuriating because you are not and will never be here to do anything about it and because it’s something I associate with you more than anything else. Is that a surprise to you? I don’t think it would be - the death and the violence and the anger - that was something too but come on - we both know what it was driving. It’s the littlest things that set me off with you - with this - now. This morning I was driving with the windows down and I felt the heavy clasp of my gold chain against the back of my neck. I ran my fingers along the front, pulling really gently, and instantly it was you wearing the chain and me pulling it and you were tumbling on top of me and your hands landed flat on either side of my head and you licked your lips and looked down at me and smiled and I could hear your voice in my ear and could feel the press of your hips and your stupid, solid, perfect weight and I had to pull my car over to finish the fantasy and finish myself off. Fucking pathetic, right? I think you’d be way too pleased to know you still make me come so I might set this letter on fire. Not that it matters.
—
A few days ago I took a woman home with me. Or rather, I went home with her. Emily. She looked nothing like you. Dark hair, nice brown eyes, a sweet face. We met at a bar. She was drinking gin, like me, and she didn’t talk too much, which I liked. Much later, in her bed, I twisted my fingers inside her and grunted is this okay and she said god yes, yes baby and I swear to god I nearly left right then. Everything drained out of me like a low tide, but fast. I couldn’t deal with hearing those words from a mouth that wasn’t yours - the echoes of your voice in my ear haunting me while Emily came. She put her mouth on me and I tried, I did. I tried to close my eyes tight and focus on the feeling but you were fucking everywhere but there, your absence like a black hole I knew I was falling into again. I tried to leave politely but I know she was confused by the way I turned cold and panicky, by the way I was starting to disappear in front of her. It felt like a relief to get home and fuck myself until my hand cramped and my calves ached and all I could hear was my own breath and your voice in my ear not haunting now but encouraging, welcoming me back to you and you alone. Please Eve, baby, I’m going to - , god.
—
How do I make sense of the moments after the end? I came up for air and your body was gone - I went back under to look and I paddled for as long as my freezing limbs would let me but your body was gone. Floating downstream, I guess. Riddled with bullets, draining blood into the filthy water, your hair fanning out around you. I floated and paddled until I couldn’t and then I found the riverbank. I screamed - my voice echoing off the old bricks and half-frozen sludge surrounding me - until someone stopped. They called 999 and left - I don’t blame them. My hair was slimy and stuck to my neck, my clothes completely soaked through, one shoe gone. The paramedics came and wrapped me in a shiny blanket and took me to A&E. I sat under fluorescent lights as they cut off my shirt and looked at my wounds and asked what had happened. “I fell off a boat”, I said. They asked if I had anyone to call and I said yes but when they handed me the phone I punched in random digits and didn’t hit the dial - I pretended to have a conversation with someone who loved me, someone who I’d call. Your body was gone and your phone with it.
They gave me dry clothes from the lost & found at the hospital and I called a cab - took it back to the camper van. This is where it gets confusing - where I can’t tell if you’ve left me for good because I swear I could feel the warmth of your body in the seat next to mine - could see your blonde hairs on the mattress in the back - could smell the myself on your lips when you climbed back up toward me and said was it worth the wait - could hear the smack of your skin when I slap you on the shoulder in response before we both started laughing. Fuck, Villanelle. Writing these things down might be helping to free me from the weight of the memories but you need to know I won’t ever be rid of them, wouldn’t ever want to be. As long as I live, you will too - there’s nothing real I can promise you now but I do promise that.
—
The last time Eve feels it she’s alone in a park in Belgium. It’s late October but the weather is mild - the air is thick and swollen with a rain that will fall later but for now it’s quiet and gray and Eve sits on a bench, eyes pointed to the top of a great big maple tree. Its leaves are striking - deep orange, yellow, gentle green and flame red. The air shifts and the leaves are detached from their branches and Eve watches them float down to the ground, falling like the rain will later. They make small sounds as they tumble against branches and trunks and collect in piles, quiet cracks that Eve likes the sound of, and she sits for a while, watching the leaves ripped loose from their trees like slow motion crashes.
It’s a moment that feels peaceful, contemplative, and still. She might feel an undercurrent of quiet satisfaction except that she feels it then - the familiar pause. Villanelle should be here, she thinks. The thought brings with it a pang of grief so visceral she grimaces and covers her eyes with her hand, fingers pulling the skin on her forehead. She should be here, she should be here, she hears the phrase on a loop and she turns it over in her mind as the minutes pass. She knows two things are true simultaneously. One, it’s one of those moments, a moment when she realizes that what should be is not what is, the latest iteration of what she first recognized 35 years ago in the Seattle Arboretum. Two, what she knows now, that Villanelle should be here, cannot be true. Her knowledge of this can’t make it true, her wishing of it can’t force Villanelle out of that river and onto this bench. She can’t square these truths and she misses Villanelle more than anything and she just hurts, so much. The tears roll hot and big down her cheeks when they come and she feels small and alone and completely lost.
Eve misses Villanelle, has missed her in a heavy, constant way since she made her way back to the camper van and numbly pointed it South, heading anywhere but London. She’s felt compressed by the way she misses her - made smaller and pushed down, unable to stand tall. She’s missed her furiously - trashing a hotel room in Rouen, screaming until she loses her voice on a French beach overlooking the Channel. She’s missed her darkly - lying still for 20 hours straight, forgetting to pee and moving only then. Eve misses Villanelle. Fiercely, deeply, without pause.
She sniffles and drags a thumb across her cheeks to wipe the tears away. Villanelle should be here - it echoes in her mind like a rock skipping across a still lake. Villanelle cannot be here - this echoes too, like the kickback from a gun. Eve cannot make this right, despite knowing how it’s wrong. This moment is like the others but so different in this one terrible way - she can’t close her eyes and breathe in and out and bring Villanelle here - she can’t mutter a bet to Bill under her breath and ignite the most important story of her life - she can’t do anything but sit with the knowledge and live with the grief and this makes her sick.
It’s both a surprise and not, then, when she finally looks away from the maple and around the rest of the park. The benches are empty, except for one, about 30 feet away. Villanelle sits there. She’s wearing wool pants and a gray sweater and her legs are stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankle. Villanelle sits there - her skin is smooth and bright and her lips are full and she’s smiling, her hair is honey blonde and her eyes are alert and alight with something and Eve stares and stares and starts to laugh. The sound scares her but it’s real, and she feels the salty paths from the tears split and rearrange as she smiles. Of course she’s here. Eve knew she would be. She lifts her hand - question, greeting, surrender. Villanelle waves back. Eve doesn’t stop to tease apart the implications - she’s hallucinating or Villanelle is alive - because it doesn't matter either way. Eve knew she should be here. She is here. Her laughter dies down and she takes a big breath in. She stands, tall for the first time in months, and walks towards the bench.
—
I think this will be the last letter I write. Last night I asked you how you did it - how you left the river. You told me about a man who survived 60 hours underwater in a capsized tugboat - by some miracle he found a pocket of air in the upside down vessel big enough to fit his body into, and by some other miracle a dive crew was sent down a couple of days later to bring up the remains and found him, a man living underwater, too. The first shot was real - you have the scar to prove it. The second and third were too, but designed to do nothing. Bullets don’t travel in water, after all (Why didn’t I suspect that? Why didn’t I wonder? It felt so real to me, it was so real to me). Your eyes were squeezed shut when you told me this - I could see it even in the dark - but you spoke openly and plainly. I’ve spent years locked up in a solitary cell, been psychologically and physically tortured as part of training, been stabbed (at this you opened your eyes only to narrow them at me and we watched each other bite back our smiles), learned several languages and disguised myself to kill high profile targets, and that was still the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Eve. Forcing my body to still, forcing my limbs to float up and away from yours. Hearing your screams. I wanted to change the topic, a slow moving rush of anger and guilt and fear and confusion rising up from my belly. You continued and said you forced yourself to pretend, to float away, and then you found your pocket of air, about 10 feet down. Your arm screaming in pain, your lungs spent, your body frozen and wracked with panic, you crawled into your air pocket and waited in complete darkness, disgusting river water dripping back into itself. Eventually you saw the signal, a single beam of light blinking three times in your direction. Numb, alone, and still bleeding, you surfaced. Pam met you on the river bank, threw a blanket over your back, and loaded you into the back of a waiting van. When you woke you were in a bed about 5 hours outside of the city. You hid. You recovered. You waited until you could find me again.
The article didn’t tell me how to handle it when the person you’re writing to, the person you’ve lost, the person you’re grieving, comes back. And you are back, there’s no denying it. I see your toothpaste spit in the sink. You burn my bread in the morning and leave dark brown crumbs on my couch. You run your hands over my scar and pull me down on top of your thigh, mumbling into my ear. Your dirty sports bras sit in my hamper, on top of my socks and underwear. I have to steal the blanket back from you in the middle of the night and look at your stupid long legs wrapped up in the sheets. I think this will be the last letter I write to you - the woman I lost that night in the water. Maybe someday I’ll take you to Seattle and show you a tree and try to explain that I knew it’d be like this - finding and losing and and leaving and coming back to each other over and over again. Until then I’ll smile into the bathroom sink and take a bite out of your toast out of spite and sigh into your mouth when I feel the heat of your body on mine and let our laundry pile up until it smells and wage a war over a blanket with you because I can, because you’re here.