15

Eva needed help picking up flowers and soil for her balcony pots and planters. As they drove to the garden centre he felt like a hired hand but also happy to be engaging in a domestic task which he hoped one day would be the norm of their shared life, cooking, cleaning, making their home comfortable and inviting. He carried the heavy bags of dirt and the trays of pansies and violas seedlings to her car and then up the three flights of stairs to her place, but it was nothing compared to what he was willing to do for all the years to come.

Eva lined up the seedlings in front of the planters, carefully considering their best matchings while Spencer filled them three-quarters full with soil. She then placed the floral fledglings and their delicate roots into their new homes. Spencer swept up the stray dirt, threw away the empty bags and temporary containers and then placed the finished pots where she wanted them. She was delighted and gave him a kiss. “They’ll love it here,” she said and smiled without restraint, fully possessed by the hope of seeing them thrive.

He used the bathroom after her and picked out the dirt from under his fingernails. When he exited, she wasn’t in the kitchen or on the balcony. He found her on her bed, naked, her body glistened with a film of sweat. The sheer curtains swayed in the breeze and the sun rippled on the light hardwood floor. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and torso. He moved slowly forward, locked in her gaze, and let his drawers drop to the floor. His t-shirt flew off in one move. Soon, screams of slippery joy echoed through the apartment, and afterward, still catching their breath, they locked eyes again, not believing. He felt he must have done something right in life for here they were.

“There’s beer if you want one,” she said.

“You?”

“I’ll have a sip of yours.”

He walked through the apartment naked, feeling the friendly breeze. He took a long quenching tug of the beer in the kitchen, then joined her on the bed and handed her the can. She took a sip and gave it back to him. He set it down on the bedside table next to Clair Keegan’s “Small Things Like These.”

“Good book?” he asked.

“Yep, really good, I love her writing. Such a short book, but it gives this huge picture of what was happening in Ireland by telling this one small story.”

He looked at the back cover. “I’d like to read it.”

“We should go to Ireland,” she said with childish excitement.

“Yeah!” he said, exuberant. Wow, she wants to travel together! Oh shit, Ireland!

He wasn’t ready for it to come up like this. He thought it would be when she realized the large framed photo print in his living room of the rolling green bucolic fields in the Irish countryside was a picture he took himself when visiting there with Jenna, hardly ten months ago.

Her suggestion hung in the air, her smile persisting. A voice inside him cried out, Don’t tell her! Just go to Ireland! And a countering voice, Are you crazy? Grow up! His heart was rapid, a hot flush behind his ears was encroaching onto his face.

“There’s actually something I’d like to tell you about Ireland.” He lay on his back to obfuscate his panic, but her head turned to track him. He met her look, not wanting to appear elusive. Her eyebrows twitched. Her smile had vanished.

“What?” she said weakly.

He pushed himself up on his elbow to appear direct and mature. His words were measured but unsettled. “It’s not a big deal, but you should know.” He took a quick breath. “I was in Ireland last year. I went there with Jenna. I needed time to talk with her and debrief on all that had happened.” Eva kept her eyes fixed on his. “People have different conversations when they’re away from their busy lives.” He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “There was no romantic thing about it, that’s not what it was, we had separate rooms the whole time. It was just a space for us to talk and gain some understanding.”

She turned her glassy eyes toward the billowing curtains. He was certain she would accuse him of still being in love with Jenna and how could he have not mentioned this before!

But she was silent, so he tried to cement his position with more confidence. “I needed to understand things about what had happened between us. So, that’s it. I didn’t want to keep it from you, pretend I’d never been there.”

She frowned, sat up on the edge of the bed and reached for a tissue while rubbing her lower back.

“I hope you understand what it was really about. I hadn’t wanted to tell you because most people misunderstand. In fact, most people did – they thought we were trying to reconcile. I just needed to talk with her. There was so much crazy shit when we parted, things we said to each other, it was awful. I needed to look her in the eye to truly understand what went on between us. That’s all.” With each painful second, he was aware of what he had left out, the secret notion he had when getting on the plane that maybe they would reconcile.

“Do you understand?” he said, her back still turned.

In the most frail version of her voice: “Yep.”

He felt her growing smaller by the second, and in a minute she would vanish. “What do you understand?” he pressed.

She suddenly got up and went to the bathroom. He flopped back, disaster. Another blundering, stupid ass mistake! His temples ached and his armpits itched. In a moment, she would throw him out and rightly so – he deserved it, because he was an idiot. Should have lied. Should have lied! He sat up on the edge of the bed and listened intently to muffled noises in the bathroom and then the toilet hammering shut, which made him jump. He kept still, even leaving felt full of risk. He heard the bathroom door open suddenly and then nothing until there were sounds from the kitchen, cupboards opening, closing, a pan set heavily on the stove. He pulled on his shorts and shirt and followed her there slowly, but stopped at the kitchen entrance, half expecting she would shoo him away or scream. She wore a single black cotton thing, cut above her knees, with bare shoulders, and had started making the dinner she had planned for them. She turned from the fridge with ingredients and looked at him with sad red eyes.

“Would you rather I didn’t stay?” he asked meekly.

“No.” She snapped a tissue out of the box. “But thank you for offering that. I have this chicken and some salad.”

“Thanks.” He cursed himself a hundred times. “Can I help?”

“No, I’m good.”

She poured marinated chicken pieces into the pan, then opened the lower cupboard and crashed through it noisily, upsetting pots and lids without care. He remained frozen. She finally pulled out a wooden salad bowl.

He got his beer from the bedroom and sat at the kitchen table, hovering in his seat, ready to jump up if she needed anything. She took a sip of her beer, which he hadn’t noticed she had until now.

“Cheers,” he said, and immediately regretted it.

She kept her eyes on the salad. An abyss of silence separated them. New tears started, she quickly grabbed a fresh tissue.

“Nothing happened between us. I wish you could believe that.”

“I don’t care!”

“But you do! You’re super upset about it.”

“No!”

“Well, what then? Why are you – what’s wrong?”

She sat down, elbows on the table, both hands holding the tissue over her eyes. Her body shuddered, simultaneously trying to release and contain. “I wish Martin had done that,” she said weakly. After a minute, she stood up, stirred the chicken, got a fresh tissue and sat down again, refilling her glass.

“I was worried you would think I still had feelings for her.”

“Spencer, do you think I’m a fucking idiot? Or maybe you’re an idiot. No one goes to Ireland just to talk!”

“But we did! That’s what we did!”

“I said I don’t care – I don’t care, it’s none of my business, but what’s pissing me off is you’re trying to make everything okay as if there was nothing fucked up about it.”

“Well, there wasn’t-”

She raised her voice to a level he’d never heard from her, her theatre voice, to the back of the house: “I was married too! Stop pretending! Everybody wants to reconcile on bad days, everybody. Can’t you own it?”

His face was red and bent to the floor, a lump in his throat. “I do own it, I do. But we didn’t sleep together.”

“Well then, there’s something wrong with you.”

He knew that already, but wished she would tell him what it was.

They ate the chicken and salad with small forgettable words. He left soon after.

 

That night, he had a dream that he and Eva had been married for many years, and she had told him she wanted a divorce, and he had taken her to Ireland to listen and talk through every detail for an entire week. He could see her black curls lifting in the wind of the rain-swept coast. When they returned home, she dropped her intention to divorce. Oddly, that felt terrible in the dream.
When he woke, he felt displaced, as if he was in someone else’s room. He got up and made coffee and toast, mulling through the odd mix of feelings and flashes of the dream. He was happy that Eva didn’t want a divorce, but sad, very sad for reasons he couldn’t explain until the caffeine kicked in. It wasn’t him who took Eva to Ireland in the dream. It was Martin.

In the afternoon, he cycled through the Endowment Lands, the sun dashed at him through the resolute trees. His phone blinged. Eva texted:

 

Would you be available to come by later for a conversation about last night?

 

He thought himself crazy for being happy to hear from her – it was entirely possible she was going to end it. His stomach and chest alternately jabbed with pain.

On his cycle over, he picked up a bouquet of mixed flowers. She took them, said a heartfelt thanks, and kissed him, closed-mouthed. They sat at her kitchen table, the colourful flowers intrusive beside them. She wanted to sweep away any misinterpretation of her distress the day before. She assured him that she no longer had feelings for Martin. It had just reminded her of their difficulties.

“I understand,” he said. She quickly pivoted and insisted they go for a walk on such a beautiful day. At the park market, she bought asparagus and eggs. They made dinner together and ate on her balcony in view of the mopey flower seedlings. He did the dishes and then found her on her bed, knees to her chest, writing in her notebook. He crawled onto the bed and lay down casually, but didn’t touch her. A few minutes later, she slid down and snuggled, resting her head on his chest. She caressed his waist, then his bare arm. They fell into kisses and everything else. It was passionate, but unsettling. He had the strong impulse to tell her he loved her, but dared not, he always said too much.

After, she used the bathroom, then came back, put on a t-shirt and pj bottoms.

“Do you want me to go now?” he offered.

“No, I was going to ask you to stay.”

He sank into the mattress a whole inch.

In the night, he woke and plodded to the bathroom and sat down to pee. Fumble. Fumble forward. Forward. Forward!