Chapter 4-Professional distance

His footsteps stopped just inside the kitchen doorway.

I had turned the phone over by then. Both hands on the counter. Face arranged into something that had no name for what was behind it.

I did not turn around.

I stood there and listened. Donald’s silences were never empty. They were always full of something he had already decided and was waiting for you to catch up to.

He came to the counter. Opened the cabinet above it. Took out a glass.

I did not move.

He filled it with water from the tap. Drank half of it standing there. Set the glass down.

“Did you call the Aldermans about Friday?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

“Before the weekend,” he said. Easy. Already turning back toward the hall.

He walked out. I stood there until I heard his study door close.

Then I picked up the phone.

Two messages still on the screen.

The old version knew exactly what she wanted.

Forget that.

I read them both. Put the phone face down. Stood at the counter with hands that were not entirely steady.

I did not reply that night.

Or the next morning.

I made coffee. Stood at the window. Left the phone on the counter. Went upstairs to shower. Came back down. Picked it up. Put it in my bag. Walked out.

I had lunch with Priya.

Priya had known me since before Donald. Since before the ring and the house and the hedges trimmed perfectly straight. She never pushed. She just looked at you and waited and somehow that was worse than pushing.

We met at the place on Calloway Street with the good bread. She was already there when I arrived. Already watching the door.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you mean it.”

I pulled off my coat. Stood there a second too long before I remembered how chairs worked.

“Anita.”

“The tiles.” I sat down. “Tell me about the contractor.”

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she let me keep not saying it.

“The contractor used the wrong grout,” she said. “On the entire backsplash.”

I nodded. Tore a piece of bread.

She talked and I made the right sounds. Part of me noted that this was the third week of the same backsplash story. It was tile. Just tile. And I was sitting here with a marriage quietly coming apart and she was explaining grout.

I tore another piece of bread.

Somewhere in the middle of it I noticed my left hand pressing flat on the table. Too hard. Too still. I moved it to my lap before she saw it.

“You’re not here,” Priya said.

“I’m here.”

“You’re physically here. The rest of you is somewhere I haven’t been invited.”

“I’m fine, Priya.”

She looked back at me. Not angry. Just tired of the answer.

“Of course you are,” she said.

And went back to her food.

That was worse than if she had pushed. I knew she knew that.

I ate half my plate. Checked my phone in the bathroom. Nothing.

I looked at my face in the mirror and did not like what I saw.

I ran the cold tap and pressed my wrists under it and waited until whatever it was went back down.

I went back to the table.

Priya looked at me once and said nothing.

We finished. I paid.

Outside on the pavement she hugged me and held on a second longer than usual. I let her.

Then I walked to my car.

I sat with the engine off.

Cold leather. Grey November light that did not care about anything.

I was not ready to go back to the straight hedges and the clean kitchen and the study where Donald laughed for someone who was not me.

I started the car anyway.

Both hands on the wheel.

I made it two blocks.

The light went red.

Something in my chest opened. Not loudly. Not all at once. Just a pressure that had been sitting there for a long time finally moving.

I put both hands over my face and sat at a red light on a Tuesday in November and I did not cry exactly but I was not not crying either.

Someone behind me honked.

The light had changed.

I put the car in gear.

By the time I turned onto our street my face was exactly as it always was.

Donald’s car was in the drive. Study light on.

I went inside. Filled a glass of water. Drank half.

I took out my phone.

His message was still there.

The old version knew exactly what she wanted.

I read it and my pulse jumped before I could stop it.

I put the phone in my pocket and went upstairs to change.

Dinner was quiet.

Afterward Donald went to his study and I cleared up and moved through the rest of the evening the automatic way I had learned to move through evenings in this house.

One thing then the next.

Not feeling any of it.

I went to bed first.

I lay in the dark and listened to the house settle.

Donald’s voice low from the study.

Then silence.

Then his footsteps on the stairs.

Measured. Unhurried.

He came in.

I did not move.

He changed in the dark. Got into bed. His lamp did not come on.

Then I felt him turn toward me.

His hand came to my waist. Light. Careful.

My body went still.

Not a decision. Not something I chose.

My breathing went flat. My muscles locked. My mind went somewhere else entirely and I lay there counting because counting was the only thing available.

One.

Two.

Three.

He felt it.

I know he felt it because his hand stopped. Not quickly. Slowly. Like he was giving us both a way to pretend it had not happened.

He turned away.

The silence that followed was different from every other silence in that house.

It had weight.

It had shape.

Neither of us named it.

I lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling and waited for morning.

My phone lit up on the nightstand.

I reached for it.

One message.

A number I did not recognise.

No words.

Just a photograph.