making a living.
On that evening in September, at the end of our extravagant meal, we looked out over the lights of the city. Anna had ordered oysters, foie gras and lobster, fully indulging in this treat. I could see our reflections in the window, surrounded by the vaguer figures of other diners. The scrambled light and the reflection of candle flickerings made me feel as if I was inside a malfunctioning kinetoscope, its sprockets entangled, images superimposed in error. I had to close my eyes against the soupy, disorienting panorama. We polished off a dessert of chocolate mousse and vanilla wafers and I sat, full, tired and silent over coffee, as Anna opened the gift I had bought with Susan’s guidance. She took the gold necklace with the topaz pendant out of its delicate box and placed it around her neck, happy, I believed, that I had been tasteful in my choice.
She smiled up at me. “It’s beautiful.”
I was thrown by the bit of chocolate and wafer caught between her teeth. I noticed, too, the mascara, clogged like black sleep, in the tear duct of her right eye. I hurriedus through the final rituals of our meal. I wanted to be home. Asleep.
As we got in the elevator to descend to the parking garage, I looked again at Anna’s face. The black sleep was still there, and now, in the fluorescent lights of the confined space, I saw that the caking foundation makeup was doing the opposite of what it was intended for, highlighting instead of hiding the dry lines around her eyes and the splintered creases around her mouth.
“Happy birthday,” I said, again. I’d repeated it too often by now, I knew.
In the full-moon drive home, Anna played a Cat Stevens CD, listening to it with a relish that irritated me.
That night in our bedroom, she came to me, still in her black dress, as I sat on the bed. I was in a movie. Her movie. She lifted up the dress and straddled me. I closed my eyes, desperately trying to summon the hard-on that would please her. As we made love, I kept my eyes closed, then turned away from her the moment we’d finished.
“Happy birthday,” I said, and stayed tightly on my side.
The winter of that year turned bitterly cold, with long, bright days at minus 20 and below, which made my skin itch and increased my irritability. The sunshine was a lie, a trick, and the furnace roared with the rumbling depletion of my salary, thanks to the children who regularly left the front door gaping open in the absent-minded to-and-fro of their adolescent lives. I became desperate. I even went so far as to try to convince myself that time away, even accompanied by Anna, would help. I tried to talk herinto a trip by saying that we needed to be on our own for a while. She had no interest in travelling, and told me, as she gathered up the lazily tossed clothes that littered our living room, that the children needed her more now than when they were young because their inner worlds were complicated. To which I loudly said, “BULLSHIT!”
She sat down and stared at me for some time before looking up to the ceiling where, presumably, she found the words she needed: “You are so selfish.”
We had taken many trips as a family—to Western Canada, the American South, even the obligatory pilgrimage to Disneyland—but we had not been away on our own since the children were born. I had been to the Far East for business, but she had been unable to accompany me then because the children had been too young.
She had always complained about March, a cruel month with false springs and bitter winds that were like a payback for hope, so after she took her eyes from the ceiling I caught them, and pressed on. “We need it. Somewhere warm. What about Turkey?” For some reason I still needed her to want to return there, to want our children to know where she had come from.
And she did it again, just as she had for almost twenty years, since that first time in Fran’s: the eyebrows twitching together and then that smile. I could
On that evening in September, at the end of our extravagant meal, we looked out over the lights of the city. Anna had ordered oysters, foie gras and lobster, fully indulging in this treat. I could see our reflections in the window, surrounded by the vaguer figures of other diners. The scrambled light and the reflection of candle flickerings made me feel as if I was inside a malfunctioning kinetoscope, its sprockets entangled, images superimposed in error. I had to close my eyes against the soupy, disorienting panorama. We polished off a dessert of chocolate mousse and vanilla wafers and I sat, full, tired and silent over coffee, as Anna opened the gift I had bought with Susan’s guidance. She took the gold necklace with the topaz pendant out of its delicate box and placed it around her neck, happy, I believed, that I had been tasteful in my choice.
She smiled up at me. “It’s beautiful.”
I was thrown by the bit of chocolate and wafer caught between her teeth. I noticed, too, the mascara, clogged like black sleep, in the tear duct of her right eye. I hurriedus through the final rituals of our meal. I wanted to be home. Asleep.
As we got in the elevator to descend to the parking garage, I looked again at Anna’s face. The black sleep was still there, and now, in the fluorescent lights of the confined space, I saw that the caking foundation makeup was doing the opposite of what it was intended for, highlighting instead of hiding the dry lines around her eyes and the splintered creases around her mouth.
“Happy birthday,” I said, again. I’d repeated it too often by now, I knew.
In the full-moon drive home, Anna played a Cat Stevens CD, listening to it with a relish that irritated me.
That night in our bedroom, she came to me, still in her black dress, as I sat on the bed. I was in a movie. Her movie. She lifted up the dress and straddled me. I closed my eyes, desperately trying to summon the hard-on that would please her. As we made love, I kept my eyes closed, then turned away from her the moment we’d finished.
“Happy birthday,” I said, and stayed tightly on my side.
The winter of that year turned bitterly cold, with long, bright days at minus 20 and below, which made my skin itch and increased my irritability. The sunshine was a lie, a trick, and the furnace roared with the rumbling depletion of my salary, thanks to the children who regularly left the front door gaping open in the absent-minded to-and-fro of their adolescent lives. I became desperate. I even went so far as to try to convince myself that time away, even accompanied by Anna, would help. I tried to talk herinto a trip by saying that we needed to be on our own for a while. She had no interest in travelling, and told me, as she gathered up the lazily tossed clothes that littered our living room, that the children needed her more now than when they were young because their inner worlds were complicated. To which I loudly said, “BULLSHIT!”
She sat down and stared at me for some time before looking up to the ceiling where, presumably, she found the words she needed: “You are so selfish.”
We had taken many trips as a family—to Western Canada, the American South, even the obligatory pilgrimage to Disneyland—but we had not been away on our own since the children were born. I had been to the Far East for business, but she had been unable to accompany me then because the children had been too young.
She had always complained about March, a cruel month with false springs and bitter winds that were like a payback for hope, so after she took her eyes from the ceiling I caught them, and pressed on. “We need it. Somewhere warm. What about Turkey?” For some reason I still needed her to want to return there, to want our children to know where she had come from.
And she did it again, just as she had for almost twenty years, since that first time in Fran’s: the eyebrows twitching together and then that smile. I could
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