Still, I felt special, like they were fighting over me. At first, the war was fought with pamphlets and flyers. I came home one day in autumn and from across the dry lawn, I could see a neon blue flyer tucked neatly into the screen door. The next day another flyer, this time a deep red, was placed in the same spot. Cath said it was more of a "burgundy". She liked it so much, she pinned it to the fridge with two souvenir magnets from my uncle's retirement party in Barbados.
The following day brought another blue flyer, which I immediately hung on the fridge, right next to the burgundy, using two souvenir magnets from my parent's 35th wedding anniversary in the Dominican Republic. I was brushing my teeth that night, when Cath shouted from downstairs, "Oh, so you like that company better?"
"Not really," I mumbled back through the toothpaste, but I don't think she heard me. The truth was that I didn't have an opinion, but I couldn't swallow the idea of her monopolizing the fridge.
The next day, three more burgundy flyers had appeared on the fridge, held up with souvenir magnets from my brother's 28th birthday bash in Key West. I suspected that Cath had stolen them from around the neighborhood, but said nothing.
"Not really," I mumbled back through the toothpaste, but I don't think she heard me. The truth was that I didn't have an opinion, but I couldn't swallow the idea of her monopolizing the fridge.
The next day, three more burgundy flyers had appeared on the fridge, held up with souvenir magnets from my brother's 28th birthday bash in Key West. I suspected that Cath had stolen them from around the neighborhood, but said nothing.
By the time an actual human came to ring our doorbell, our refrigerator was completely covered in these flyers with glittering Carribean-themed magnets peeking through the cracks. We invited Mr. Burgundy into the house. Actually, Cath invited him in. I used to answer the door, but the sound of the bell now gives me panic attacks, so Cath has taken over as resident gatekeeper. I let her do the talking.
She sat him down at the kitchen table. He kept tapping with his fingers on his blue clipboard, one of those that doubles as a waterproof binder. I stood next to the dishwasher while they chatted about variable rates. "Looming", Cath calls it. She used to say to me, "You're six foot five. You're too tall to stand over people when they sit."
She sat him down at the kitchen table. He kept tapping with his fingers on his blue clipboard, one of those that doubles as a waterproof binder. I stood next to the dishwasher while they chatted about variable rates. "Looming", Cath calls it. She used to say to me, "You're six foot five. You're too tall to stand over people when they sit."
It seemed like the conversation was going pretty well, until Cath got up to grab a jar of lemonade and the man, turning politely, happened to glance at the impromptu refrigerator shrine.To his credit, he recovered pretty quickly, but there was no hiding the horror in his eyes as he turned back around, his chair squeaking against the linoleum. "Wonderful house you have here."
Out of guilt or possibly embarrassment, we spent the next fifteen minutes signing the paperwork to open an account. As we ushered the man out, he explained that we might experience a very brief power disruption as the service was switched over. "Don't forget to reset your clocks!" He laughed nervously, threw one last glance towards the kitchen, and politely jogged to his van.
The power went out sometime early in the morning the very next day. I started watching the Goonies on demand at midnight and I fell asleep before they made it to the wishing well. When I woke up, the TV was off and Cath had pulled a blanket on top of me. I got up and, with moaning ankles, made my way to the kitchen for water. All the lights were out. Even the digital clock on the oven was missing. Fortunately, Cath's old clock from college was mounted on the wall. Its glow in the dark hands pointed to 3AM over a "Dole '96!!!" background.
When I woke up again, it was ten in the morning. Cath had already taped the refrigerator door shut.
I was limited to canned foods. I had inherited a considerable collection about five years earlier when my brother in law died. He had been a doomsday prepper, one of those people who prepares for societal collapse by hoarding canned food, ammunition, and pennies minted before 1982. He had kept a blog called "Peter the Prepper". When he died, Cath had asked me to help her take down the website. I couldn't figure it out, and she was crying every night. After a week, the crying turned into dry sobbing, so I just blocked the site on her computer so she could get some sleep and rehydrate.
My options were peaches, baked beans, or evaporated milk. I decided to go with peaches. With my mind set on playing solitaire, I spent the next twenty minutes searching for a deck, before concluding that Cath had already claimed them. The house was really quiet. It was missing all the tiny sounds associated with electricity, the humming, the creaking, the hissing. I ended up spending the next six hours alphabetizing my collection of Magic the Gathering cards.
I went upstairs to take a shower. Cath's door was closed, and it was quiet on the other side, so I carefully placed my mouth near the crack and whispered, "Hey, is the water heater still working?" I waited a moment and then pressed my ear closer. I could hear the faintest echo of her breathing. She was never a loud sleeper, but never silent either. If I had to pick three words to describe Cath, "quiet, steady, snoring" wouldn't be the worst choice. I had mostly forgotten the sound.
Later, we ate dinner together. I ordered pizza and clumsily lit a couple of candles. Cath placed a bottle of wine on the table and spooned salad into two bowls. She ate with small bites and spent most of the time examining the buttons on her shirt. This made me curious about the buttons on my shirt, so I looked down to find a white tee with a stain. At first, I was disappointed by the lack of buttons, but I soon began to notice a striking resemblance between my stain and the island of Great Britain, which held my attention for several minutes.
I looked back up and Cath was staring at me. It was her unique, trademark expression, the same look she had given me after our first date, like I had done something wrong, committed some horrible and unspoken social offense. The look that made me hesitate when I picked up the phone to ask her for a second date. The look that I later learned wasn't cold at all, but merely an unconscious reflex, emerging when she lost herself in maximum fascination, maximum affection. She was, under the surface, warmer and more vulnerable than anyone I had ever known. Outwardly, she was molded in the form of something harder, more oblique. Inwardly, she was tender, an extraordinarily deep reserve of empathy.
It had taken my family much longer to see it than me, but even they had eventually acknowledged her loyalty, her truthfulness, her magnetism to small and broken things, the baby birds she had rescued, the spiders she would spend hours carefully seducing into the narrow gap between a cup and credit card, the aquarium-loving boy across the street whom, for his birthday, she surprised with a tank she had found at a yard sale and de-scratched in our garage. I had no idea she went to yard sales. I had no idea she knew how to remove scratches from glass.
In recent years, it seemed that her capacity for selflessness grew at approximately the same rate as mine decreased. Maybe I hated it for it. Her face was now etched with lines, small ones at the corners of her eyes, and deeper ones that no one could see except me.
The kitchen was dark now, the cabinets flickered with the funeral flames of the candles. Cath looked at me for a moment, and I knew the moment would end, knew everything would end eventually. Still, I tried frantically to hold on to something, anything. Words moved on the back of my tongue and then collapsed, frozen, choking. I realized I had forgotten what her mouth tasted like. I realized I had forgotten the recipe for the triple cheese nachos we had invented the night before our wedding. I realized I would never play basketball again. I realized that over the last five years, she had lost so much more than I had. I looked down to see someone else clenching my silverware, their knuckles straining white.
The lights came back on a few moments later and I dropped my pizza in surprise. Cath giggled softly. There was a time, not so long ago now, when I would have desperately tried something else to make her laugh again. I would have acted like an idiot, made a ridiculous face or an embarrassing sound effect, anything, just to further propel the delicate momentum of her laughter.
Now I sat, surrounded by walls buzzing with electricity.
"I'll clean up."
She smiled and murmured a soft thanks before heading upstairs.
I continued to sit for a few minutes more, trying to think of five years ago, trying to think of five minutes ago. The fridge sat, the compressor quietly humming, its front face covered with flyers, its door still taped shut. I sat there for a few minutes more and then got up, stacked the dishes and, with moaning ankles, made my way to the sink.
Out of guilt or possibly embarrassment, we spent the next fifteen minutes signing the paperwork to open an account. As we ushered the man out, he explained that we might experience a very brief power disruption as the service was switched over. "Don't forget to reset your clocks!" He laughed nervously, threw one last glance towards the kitchen, and politely jogged to his van.
The power went out sometime early in the morning the very next day. I started watching the Goonies on demand at midnight and I fell asleep before they made it to the wishing well. When I woke up, the TV was off and Cath had pulled a blanket on top of me. I got up and, with moaning ankles, made my way to the kitchen for water. All the lights were out. Even the digital clock on the oven was missing. Fortunately, Cath's old clock from college was mounted on the wall. Its glow in the dark hands pointed to 3AM over a "Dole '96!!!" background.
When I woke up again, it was ten in the morning. Cath had already taped the refrigerator door shut.
I was limited to canned foods. I had inherited a considerable collection about five years earlier when my brother in law died. He had been a doomsday prepper, one of those people who prepares for societal collapse by hoarding canned food, ammunition, and pennies minted before 1982. He had kept a blog called "Peter the Prepper". When he died, Cath had asked me to help her take down the website. I couldn't figure it out, and she was crying every night. After a week, the crying turned into dry sobbing, so I just blocked the site on her computer so she could get some sleep and rehydrate.
My options were peaches, baked beans, or evaporated milk. I decided to go with peaches. With my mind set on playing solitaire, I spent the next twenty minutes searching for a deck, before concluding that Cath had already claimed them. The house was really quiet. It was missing all the tiny sounds associated with electricity, the humming, the creaking, the hissing. I ended up spending the next six hours alphabetizing my collection of Magic the Gathering cards.
I went upstairs to take a shower. Cath's door was closed, and it was quiet on the other side, so I carefully placed my mouth near the crack and whispered, "Hey, is the water heater still working?" I waited a moment and then pressed my ear closer. I could hear the faintest echo of her breathing. She was never a loud sleeper, but never silent either. If I had to pick three words to describe Cath, "quiet, steady, snoring" wouldn't be the worst choice. I had mostly forgotten the sound.
Later, we ate dinner together. I ordered pizza and clumsily lit a couple of candles. Cath placed a bottle of wine on the table and spooned salad into two bowls. She ate with small bites and spent most of the time examining the buttons on her shirt. This made me curious about the buttons on my shirt, so I looked down to find a white tee with a stain. At first, I was disappointed by the lack of buttons, but I soon began to notice a striking resemblance between my stain and the island of Great Britain, which held my attention for several minutes.
I looked back up and Cath was staring at me. It was her unique, trademark expression, the same look she had given me after our first date, like I had done something wrong, committed some horrible and unspoken social offense. The look that made me hesitate when I picked up the phone to ask her for a second date. The look that I later learned wasn't cold at all, but merely an unconscious reflex, emerging when she lost herself in maximum fascination, maximum affection. She was, under the surface, warmer and more vulnerable than anyone I had ever known. Outwardly, she was molded in the form of something harder, more oblique. Inwardly, she was tender, an extraordinarily deep reserve of empathy.
It had taken my family much longer to see it than me, but even they had eventually acknowledged her loyalty, her truthfulness, her magnetism to small and broken things, the baby birds she had rescued, the spiders she would spend hours carefully seducing into the narrow gap between a cup and credit card, the aquarium-loving boy across the street whom, for his birthday, she surprised with a tank she had found at a yard sale and de-scratched in our garage. I had no idea she went to yard sales. I had no idea she knew how to remove scratches from glass.
In recent years, it seemed that her capacity for selflessness grew at approximately the same rate as mine decreased. Maybe I hated it for it. Her face was now etched with lines, small ones at the corners of her eyes, and deeper ones that no one could see except me.
The kitchen was dark now, the cabinets flickered with the funeral flames of the candles. Cath looked at me for a moment, and I knew the moment would end, knew everything would end eventually. Still, I tried frantically to hold on to something, anything. Words moved on the back of my tongue and then collapsed, frozen, choking. I realized I had forgotten what her mouth tasted like. I realized I had forgotten the recipe for the triple cheese nachos we had invented the night before our wedding. I realized I would never play basketball again. I realized that over the last five years, she had lost so much more than I had. I looked down to see someone else clenching my silverware, their knuckles straining white.
The lights came back on a few moments later and I dropped my pizza in surprise. Cath giggled softly. There was a time, not so long ago now, when I would have desperately tried something else to make her laugh again. I would have acted like an idiot, made a ridiculous face or an embarrassing sound effect, anything, just to further propel the delicate momentum of her laughter.
Now I sat, surrounded by walls buzzing with electricity.
"I'll clean up."
She smiled and murmured a soft thanks before heading upstairs.
I continued to sit for a few minutes more, trying to think of five years ago, trying to think of five minutes ago. The fridge sat, the compressor quietly humming, its front face covered with flyers, its door still taped shut. I sat there for a few minutes more and then got up, stacked the dishes and, with moaning ankles, made my way to the sink.
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