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In my left, I held onto the idea that she’d gone to a man’s bed for
comfort. There, they counted down the days until she was free of me.
What my right hand held was heavier, but my left got all the attention.
We were playacting at love. We were nothing. Nonexistent. Happiness
didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Fulfillment was for after the divorce.
For now we had roles, and every day we walked on stage and said our
lines. In the morning, she cradled her cup and blew on her coffee, smiling at
the first taste, tapping her ring on a mug with Van Gogh’s Starry Night
printed on the side when she was thinking about whatever we were talking
about. My coming day. My hopes for it. My fears.
Me me me me all the way home.
Half our marriage was gone, and it hadn’t occurred to me to make her
happy until it was too late. She was doing everything I wanted and being
exactly who I thought I needed.
She thought I didn’t give a shit, but I did. I gave a lot of shits, and I
didn’t realize how much trouble that was until I was sitting in an aluminum
folding chair behind a run-down warehouse, waiting for her.
Close to midnight, a car pulled down the alley and Ella got out. She
looked disheveled and drawn, head down so she didn’t see me until the car
pulled away.
“Hi,” I said.
She came up the steps and stood right in front of me, keys jangling off a
finger. “Why are you here?”
I could have asked her the same question. She didn’t live here. She lived
with me.
Semantics.
“I want to talk to you.”
“You’re blocking the door.”
I got up, folded the chair, and leaned it against the railing. Ella unlocked
the steel security door, then the interior, and went inside, turning the lights
on as she went.
“What did you want to talk about?” She dropped her bag and peeled off
her jacket on her way across the length of the space, leaving it in a pile on
the floor next to the huge white canvas. It had a red blob in the middle now.
“You decided what to do with this?”
“Not really.” She stopped to kick off her shoes.