I found her in the kitchen nook in the morning. She was sitting on one of the wicker and leatherette stools that had come from my grandparents’ furniture store. It was a familiar enough sight but felt unfamiliar now. There was coffee on the little wooden table in front of her. She’d poured hers with milk and left mine black. Bad habits die hard. Love habits die harder.
“I made Cafecito,” she said.
“I see that,” I answered. “Thank you.”
I took a drink from the small espresso cup and replaced it on the saucer. It was one half of a pair that had been given to us as a wedding present. They were jet black with a high gloss finish and bright gold rims that shone like slivered mirrors. Mine had a small chip on the saucer that revealed a spot of brittle white that had no shine to it. She drank her coffee from a mug.
“Did you sleep alright?” she asked.
“Not really.”
She nodded. I’d had trouble sleeping for a long time. Recently the trouble had gotten worse.
“What do you think you’ll do today?”
It was a familiar enough question that felt unfamiliar now.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I told her.
“I’ve got some meetings I was going to take from the house.”
“I understand.”
“I was also going to do some laundry.”
“I can set my things aside.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“It would be easier to just wash it all together.”
“Probably,” I said.
There was an innate ease to our life. My life and her life had become our life and there was an easiness in her doing our laundry and me cooking our dinners. Some mornings I would make the coffee and others she would make Cafecito and both mornings had come with ease. It would still have been easy if it were still our life, but it had become something else, something much harder.
She had finished her coffee by the time I was done with mine. I took up my saucer and went to take hers to the sink. It was still the natural thing to do.
“No, thank you” she said, placing a hand over the mug as if refusing a refill from a waiter whose name she couldn’t recall. “I’ll do it.”
“Right,” I said. “Of course. Sorry.”
She shook her head and smiled and the smile felt sympathetic.
“Any ideas for dinner?” she asked.
It was Tuesday. I’d made quesadillas for us the Tuesday before, along with the guacamole she liked, which was simple but very comforting for her. The Tuesday before that we’d ordered sushi and watched one of her shows that had become one of our shows. She had fallen asleep with her head on the far side of the couch and I couldn’t see that her eyes had shut before the end of the episode. It had been easier when she fell asleep with her head in my lap. It was easier to think of dinner for two.
“I was thinking about getting dinner with Lee and Leslie Johnson,” I said over my shoulder as I rinsed the little cup. “They told me not to hesitate to reach out, so—”
“Actually,” she interjected, looking down at her empty mug, “I’m having dinner with them tonight.”
“Oh,” I said. I worked my tongue in my mouth for a moment to find the next words. I only understood the question after answering and I didn’t want the questions or the sympathies. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted to be outside. I wanted to be anywhere but there in our kitchen, in our house, in our life. “That’s good, I’m glad. Maybe I’ll see what Sam is up to.”
“Which Sam?” she asked.
“Sam Gray, from work.”
“Right, well,” she said, hesitantly, “I think he might be having dinner at the Johnsons’, too.”
The water kept running and it sounded louder to me when there was nothing to say. I shut it off and stayed where I was, standing in front of the empty sink, looking out the small window. It was impractical but the view had been nice to have.
“Maybe,” she went on, “it would be easier if we went together.”
It was hard to say whether her voice sounded polite or hopeful. It probably would have been just as hard to tell from looking at her. It had become harder and harder to tell those days. I kept my eyes on the window, on the thick trunk of the gumbo limbo tree just outside. A tangle of branches had begun to push against the powerlines, which stretched in a way that seemed precarious to me. The wires would have to give sooner or later. Something would have to be done, I thought.
“You know Leslie always makes too much food anyway,” she continued. I could tell she was uncomfortable with the silence between us. She’d always had a difficult time with silences, but they’d gotten to feel nettlesome, insisting on making their presence known. They’d come to feel familiar to me. “I suppose I could see about making other plans.”
“That’s alright,” I said, “I don’t want to put you out.”
“You’re not putting me out. I’m just thinking about what the easiest way to go about this would be.”
“Who said there was one? An easy way?” I considered stepping out to the veranda. A cigarette would have given each of us a couple minutes to think or not to. I’d been smoking more lately. She’d suggested that it might be why I’d had more trouble sleeping, but we both knew better.
Travis Cohen is a Cuban American writer living in Miami Beach. His work has appeared in Litbreak Magazine, In Parentheses Magazine, Litro and Islandia Journal and is forthcoming in Permafrost Magazine. He earned a BA in English from Vanderbilt University and is currently enrolled in Florida International University’s MFA program, where he is the Managing Editor for Gulf Stream Magazine.
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