He stared for at least twenty seconds, but evidently he couldn’t find any similarities between the rubber ducky and the heart-shaped locket.

“I guess… they both fit in my hand?” came the tentative answer.

I was not amused. “Come on, George, it’s obvious. If you know what you’re looking for.” I guess he didn’t, because when I came back from the market, he was still staring at them. To me, he looked absorbed. No other word for it. Maybe, after all we’d been through, he really did care about our relationship.

He threw the items in the purple trashcan underneath my desk. “You know, Isabel, I just can’t seem to care about our relationship any more.” He stood up, tossed a glossy photo on the couch, and underwent the elaborate ritual of weaving between my ice statues towards the door. Tossing a casual “good-bye” over his shoulder, he opened, navigated, and closed the door.

I shouted, “They’re both a part of my quantum soul, and so are you!” Too late. George couldn’t have heard me. That was one heavy door, as I remember. I paid an extra fifty bucks for it. The guy at the home improvement place said it could withstand a nuclear blast. Anyway, good thing I got it, because I hate making myself look like a fool. Quantum soul? What was I thinking? Good God. George might have laughed himself to death. If I wasn’t so crazy about that man, I probably could have pulled myself together and come up with something that sounded halfway believable. Maybe I should have done that before I asked him how they were similar, but it must have been a last-ditch effort on my part. I honestly can’t remember why I asked him that. Too much coffee? George always blamed my problems on coffee. I noticed his umbrella resting forlornly on the floor. It pointed toward the kitchen door, maybe the oven or the counter. I stood for a while, pretending it wasn’t there. It was. I turned away.

I sat on the couch, not bothering to retrieve the ducky or the locket from the trash, and looked at the photo. It wasn’t a photo. It was a postcard, with a beautiful shot of Venice on the front and a square on the back. Just a neatly drawn, thick-edged, black Sharpie square. I never understood him. Maybe that’s why I cared so much. The postcard soared into the trash, where it sat unsmilingly next to the ducky. That was my favorite ducky, but it no longer had meaning.

Have you ever made an ice sculpture that seemed absolutely perfect? Like God sat there with you and took you hand and gently slid the chisel into the block, time and time again? Like, when you were finished, you had an absolute truth about the world in solid ice form, sitting in front of you, gazing back and telling you, “You’ve finally accomplished something worthwhile”? Sometimes I thought I had, and sometimes I thought I hadn’t. But when George left, I felt that my best work was within reach. Art is feeling, and at that point, I was emotion. It pulsed, it shot through me; at times it was sluggish, at the others piercingly quick. Time for another block.

When I carved, I never knew what I was creating until I was about half done. Usually I could guess, but sometimes I was wrong. This time? George. He’d left, he was gone; maybe I could create one last George. My mother used to tell me that I was a clinger. I always tried to ignore her, but every now and then she was right. For example, she knew her cookies and pies. She was right again, and I knew it. I wasn’t bitter.

It was taking shape. Good, bad, no one could have known yet. The ice was sharply drawn, striking, each stroke of the chisel one line; flat panes and rough edges dominated the block, now a jagged, rough cylinder. A pedestal? George? But now my mind conflicted with my hands. Should I let go of George? Consciously purge the sculpture of all things George? Or should I let my hands do what they may? My hands missed George as much as my mind.

I was still debating this point when that heavy door opened, and George, windswept and soaked from the Seattle storm outside, stepped back into the room.

What do you do when this happens? Do you keep carving, as if he were a spirit, a ghost of the past best left disregarded? Do you throw a sharply biting quote at his heart, try to spear him with pain? Do you stare until he leaves? I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I didn’t try to know. I dropped the chisel and ran to him, dodging my past attempts at shaping ice into thoughts, and embraced him forcefully.

“George! I care, I care, I love you, I need you, and I know I’m a clinger and I’m strange and I didn’t know the similarity myself and there is no quantum soul but I can change, I can be whom you need, I can be a new Isabel, but don’t let our relationship fall apart, it’s too important to me, and it can be important to you! George… I’m sorry.”

For a while, he didn’t speak. He just stood there and stared ahead, not embracing me, just getting my dress wet. I didn’t let go. This was my last chance. This was my life. This was everything that mattered to me. This was the final conclusion.

“I forgot my umbrella.”

“I know.”

“I’m getting you wet.”

“I know.”

“Your sculpture is melting.”

“I know.”

“I never said I loved you. But I do.”

“I—oh…”

“I need you.”

Need is a complicated thing. But I knew I had no need to think. George reached around me and we were one again. All the statues melted, long forgotten, as the rain abated.