I ignoredher.
Anotherone.
The sun doesn’t shine out of your assanymore.
Andanother.
Vacancy: Favoritewanted.
She came back from the bathroomgrinning.
“Are you done?” I askedher.
“Almost. I just have to call you a man-whore, and then I’ll be finished.” She laughed at her ownjoke.
After dinner I told them I had to get up early tomorrow. It’s mostly true. I’ll set my alarm for six and go for a run, just to make ittrue.
Home sweet home, I think as I climb from mycar.
Once my key is in the lock, I realize there’s no need for it. My door isunlocked.
Unless I’m being burglarized, there’s only one person who has a key to my place. I’m so sure I know who it is that I don’t even turn around to look for hercar.
“Hello,” I say to her back when I find her. She’s in my closet, pulling clothes fromhangers.
Jenna startles, clutching her chest. “God, Isaac, you should wear a bell around yourneck.”
“And alert the cat burglar that the owner ishome?”
She snakes a hand through her hair and grabs one of the shirts draped across her forearm. She folds it clumsily, which I know pisses her off. Shirts with crisp lines and sweaters with soft folds bring Jennapeace.
I grab the shirt from her and fold it. The guilt makes me want to help her. It’s not her fault we’re in thissituation.
Her thank-you is reluctant. She’spissed.
When the other shirts have been placed in the duffle bag at her feet, I back out of the smallspace.
“Check the bathroom,” I say. “There may be some things under thesink.”
She goes in one direction and I go in another. When she emerges a few minutes later, I’m seated on thecouch.
Jenna’s eyes are red, and I find this more shocking than I did my unlocked door. In all the time I’ve known her, I’ve seen her cry three times. When her dog died, when her grandma Maggie passed, and at a homeless person who fell in thestreet.
“Did you get everything?” Iask.
She nods. “Let me know if you come acrossanything.”
And that’s it. She sets her key on the entry table and walksout.
It’squiet.
It’sdark.
I sit for a longtime.
Thinking of the cracks in my relationship with Jenna is pointless now, but hindsight is twenty/twenty and I’m seeing thingsclearly.
We were apart more than we weretogether.
