100 Proof

Did you expect someone? he asked. Or did you expect me in particular?

She thought about the way, sometimes, he tasted like moonlight when he kissed her. She considered his laugh, and how thinking about him, even when she happened to be in a drab conference room, made the edges of everything sparkle.

How could I have expected any of this? she said. If I’d known it was coming, I’d never have been able to be so delighted.

He took her hand, then. Next, he kissed her. He feared saying aloud how much she made his world sparkle, too.

The day started with a long walk under a steel-gray sky. She had not expected it to be so cold that morning, so she’d only worn the lightest sweater, which meant even after speeding her pace, her cheeks and fingers still tingled, and her nose was still numb at its tip. It was only later, when she had returned indoors and worked through a cup of milk-lightened tea, that she could put the chill behind her, relax the tightness held between belly and sternum, and embrace whatever the next hours had to bring.

They had lost each other in the storm, one minute walking next to each other, the next unable to find each other even by voice. She opened her mouth to call his name, and the dust coated her teeth and tongue. In the past, she had listened to the advice: stand still, wait for it to blow through. But instead she took one step, then another, unsure of her direction or what she sought. She only knew, at this moment, she was finally ready for an adventure she could call her own.

She had always wanted to be a morning person, but had never quite figured out the secret of slipping enthusiastically from bed as the light turned from black to blue to pink. But when she could force herself to do it, she found herself listening more closely, paying attention to the clock ticking in the kitchen, the heater clicking on and off, the refrigerator’s purr. She found herself roaming the house, coffee scalding her palm through her mug’s walls, learning her space while it was, simultaneously, the loudest and the most still.

He said good morning to each person that passed by, and he said it low and slow and carefully, so they wouldn’t know he might ask for money if they responded, so they would only hear him if they were listening, carefully, not stuck in some dark place in their own head, not drowning out the world with relentless beats, not in conversation with the person by their side, not already checking email on their phone and firing off responses, and every now and then, someone, indeed, said good morning back, as if to a fellow human.

That year, we moved into a dollhouse. We didn’t shrink, no, of course not. We just moved into a house where the back wall was made of glass, where everyone could see us move woodenly through our days. I made French toast in the kitchen while our daughter played ball with the dog in the playroom. We’d never had a playroom in any other house, but here, we did. He acted as if he were trapped in the living room, a newspaper on his lap, staring plastically into space as the world outside peered in.

When she was young, she ate blueberries with her fingers, sorting them carefully before they reached her mouth. It was easier that way to find the withered ones, and the prickly stems, easier to feel the water-balloon puffiness of the big ones gone past ripe.

Now, there was too much pressure to use forks and spoons, to hurry through the bowl of fruit, rather than taking things one at a time. It had become harder to find the perfect berry, so much harder to separate the choices at hand.