Love, I think. I mean, I’m ready for it, for sure.
I haven’t had a kiss like that since—I hate to bring it up—since before I was
married. Sorry.
Nice of you to say, and thank you, but I am sorry.
Well, it’s just that new love—I guess that’s what
we’re calling it—doesn’t need this heaviness dragging along behind it.
That’s it. Baggage was the word I was looking for.
Well, truth be told, I didn’t want to throw some
cliché at this, this thing we’re building, this relationship.
That’s right, building slowly. Whatever moments I
can steal. My fault. I’m sorry.
Okay, I’m not sorry, then. It’s nice of you to
understand. Kids take up almost all of your time, that’s just what kids are
like.
I can’t wait for you to meet them, either, I
guess.
Hey, that’s not what I’m saying.
Did you have— Are your parents together?
Lucky you. The thing about my girls is that it’s
going to be hard for them, right?
That isn’t a reflection on you, not at all, but
the life they have now, with their mom and me, that’s the only life they’ve got
and they’re not unhappy with it, maybe they don’t even think of life in those
terms, like to be happy or unhappy with something that just is. I guess it’s
just that it’s, that it would be, change. Who likes change?
No, I like change and— Yeah, yeah, it’ll happen.
It should happen.
Will. Has to. Needs to.
Mmm, that kiss, though. What a gift. Body of work.
Working body maybe.
What I mean is that I’ve been experiencing my body
as a working body, not as a body of or for or even capable of pleasure. Come
here again.
Yes. Wet, fleshy pleasure.
Don’t tease. I can’t wait.
I know I don’t have to wait, but I do, for me.
Of course it’s a generous offer. Irresistible.
Okay, nearly irresistible then.
Do I think about it? I barely think about anything
else.
No, I don’t. Not because I wouldn’t, but my wife
and I, we almost never do it anymore.
No one talks about it. Warns you. Having babies,
having a baby, well, for obvious reasons it makes it unattractive—for the
person who gave birth—to want to do it.
It wasn’t horrifying, actually. Birth was, birth
is amazing. Like the most incredible thing a person can do. A miracle that’s
way too common to be called a miracle. It’s just like all this pain and work
and then, whoosh, with this squelch there is suddenly a new human who needs to
be dried off and fed and kept warm, this little person who you love
overwhelmingly.
I like to imagine what your apartment’s like.
I picture lots of plants. Lots of natural light.
Books. A bowl of fruit. Order. I mostly picture order. That’s another thing
that disappears when you have kids. This order that you’ve tried to maintain,
feels like you’ve just learned to maintain.
No! C’mon! I can’t go back to your place.
Hey, don’t touch!
Okay, okay, okay. Stop. Seriously.
No. I should go. People will start wondering where
I am. I feel like a teenager. I think I like it.
Sure, I like it.
’Kay, I have to go.
Yeah, I love you too.
God, that feels— Feels good, I guess.
Overwhelming.
No, don’t. ’Kay, I’ll see you.
We’ll talk soon.
Trees, near to dropping their lovely leaves, and
two houses’ windowless shoulders shelter the parkette from the hundreds of eyes
that might watch us, you and I, from the aging apartment buildings that huddle
just off the main routes around this neighbourhood. It is always shocking to me
to see just how many people there are so near this place so private to us. One
of the nannies we’ve seen watching us behave like teenagers is urging her
blonde charges towards the parkette and I smile at her and I’m not sure she
recognizes me. For some reason this makes me giggle. I check my phone. There is
a text from my wife reminding me to buy wipes on my way home. A balloon strikes
me in the face, its brightness, its pinkness and gentle, but undeniable smack
make me laugh. It is one of a cluster tied to a fence post at the edge of
someone’s walk. The wind is twisting their coloured tethers together. I snap a
picture and text it to you with a little description of what just happened.
I’m going to have to fix my idiot grin before I
get back to work or people are going to wonder what could be making me so
happy. I search my mental library for sad songs, but they must all be on loan.
I start to whistle “The Only Living Boy In New York,” that being the saddest
song I can think of, and no, I don’t think it’s that sad at all, I think it’s
just lovely. Maybe lovely is a type of sadness, I think. I text you the phrase.
You text me back two emojis: a red heart and a lipstick print. “I love it when
you talk like that,” you text.
The convenience store people must know I’ve got
something going on. “So happy,” the woman says, smiling at me. Her husband
doesn’t look up from the television. I grab a Coke from the fridge. As I’m
paying, I notice that they aren’t watching a Korean soap opera, like usual, but
some sort of news program. A long line of people is walking through a field.
“Missing Girl’s Body Found,” it says across the bottom of the screen. I
swallow, but I don’t know what I’m swallowing. Must have been saliva, but it’s
gone. I hold my money out to the woman standing by the register, but she is
distracted by the TV. “So sad,” she says, then turns to me. “Very bad.”
“Where is that?” I ask.
“Up-uh nawth,” the man tells me, his English much
worse than his wife’s. “Barrie.”
I shake my head.
The entrance sings a tinny song as two large black
youth walk through it. Boys in baseball caps with unbent brims and baggy
clothes. My heart, already jumpy, does this little somersault and feels all
caught up in its wiring and one of them looks at me and I am genuinely scared
for a second. I look down. Scared of what? I imagine a gun concealed somewhere
under all the cloth they dress themselves in.
“Hello,” the woman at the cash says.
“What up Eun?” the one who looked at me says as he
disappears behind a rack of cereal.
“Not much,” she says. She’s smiling. She nods at
me.
I leave.
Without thinking about it, I pull my phone out as
I walk. I call up your last text and I am staring at my screen. I stop walking.
I am filled with anxiety and guilt and fear, fear above all else. I go back to
my list of texts. I click on my wife’s name.
“I love you,” I text. And I mean it.
I go back to the list of text messages. I slide
the box with “Betty”—my code name for you—to the left. A red box with DELETE written
in white appears on the right hand side. I look at it for a while. I look at it
until someone brushes past me and brings me back to Bloor Street and I barely
recognize it, or rather I see it again as I once saw it, a familiar place that
I haven’t been in a long time and I am flooded with this warm calm and peace.
For the first time in a long time, I know what I need to do and what I need to
do is stop whatever you and I are doing, but I don’t know how to do it yet. I
put my phone back in my pocket and walk and start thinking about the right way
to end things with us, but my heart starts to climb, pounding, up my chest and
into my neck and so I picture my daughters, safe in daycare and classroom. I
picture going to lunch with my coworkers again. I picture reading a book on the
subway and not thinking about you or checking my phone for messages from you.
And I’m sorry and I’m a little sad, but I’m not confused. Not at all.
Toronto, Oct 2015
Emoji Sequence: Teacher and writer, Renata Catenacci
Story: Lee Sheppard
Sinfully good. I've been trying to find an adjective that serves this piece justice. What's a stronger word for satisfying? So so satisfying... quenching. And as always, brilliant.
ReplyDeleteJust had an urge to read this again. So glad I did.
ReplyDelete