I never wanted to be like my father, having the final, unquestionable word on everything. That I couldn’t bring any concerns I had to him without expecting it to result in a lecture and feeling like I was in the wrong no matter what. Growing up with it was bad enough, but I couldn’t imagine having that in a life-long partner. Even my failed marriage seemed better than that. I couldn’t count how many times Elise had pointed out flaws in my thinking, how often I had been relieved that there was someone who I could be wrong out loud to, and not feel shame or guilt about it.
No one ever said it explicitly, but a lot of what I learned from church was that if it felt good it was probably a sin. Guilt as a lifestyle had been inescapable until her.
It had always been safe with her to be incorrect or have weird little shortcomings. I smile, remembering a lazy Saturday she had handed me her phone and I’d passed her my laptop. I called her dentist to make her an appointment because phonecalls still flustered her, and she went through my email draft to a client to word it a little more professionally.
And then we got up to make dinner together. She hated touching raw chicken, so I always did that part, carefully trimming the lines of fat off the edges. In that little apartment, we had a gas stove that I absolutely hated. Perhaps I had been spoiled by growing up with a sleek glass electric range in my mom’s house, that didn’t seem quite as dangerous as sparks, gas, and open flames. I’d hand Elise the ingredients as she asked for them and scratch her back while she stirred them around in the pan; at least until she started piling up dirty dishes for me to wash.
I miss the home I used to have with her, the evenings with my hands becoming pruney under endless dish soap and hot water while we planned out our week. Perhaps a mate wasn’t grand or romantic or even mystical at all.
No sacraments, no rites or rituals. Just someone who made the mundanity of life feel wondrous.
Of course, it took me a couple minutes before I even realized I started filling in the idea of a mate with just her. I need to stop doing that. I sigh as I take another wandering turn down another street.
There’re a few leftover summer fireflies floating out of the grass, especially the taller, wilder areas that bleed into the woods. The meandering jog is just starting to make me feel better. The winding hills are steep and more difficult than I was used to in the Boston suburbs, I’m halfway to town when a sound stops me.
There’s no mistaking it. The sniffles are coming from a nearby house, all too familiar.
I stop and sigh when I can see her from the street. Elise.
I don’t know what instincts led me here, since I wasn’t really paying attention where I headed on the jog, but from the front of the house I can smell Laura’s car freshener still faintly hanging in the air. I can assume my cousin dropped Elise off after that train wreck of an evening.
More than that, I can smell her. I feel like I could find it and follow it from across the country.
I scrub a hand across my face. Don’t go in there. Don’t make things worse than they already are. Especially after the incident at the bar. Especially not now, when the moon is rising.
But it’s Elise. I can’t ignore her when she’s crying.
The door is wide open to the cool autumn air, and I tug open the screen door to stand on the threshold, giving a quick knock.
Elise looks up from where she’s sitting at the little dinette, immediately inside the front door. The place has the same charm as her old apartment. I recognize a lot of her things from when we used to live together, plants and quilts and endless goofy oven mitts stacked everywhere.
She spares a glance to me, before her face crumples further and she buries it in her hands.
I pad my way into the room on bare feet, just loud enough that she can hear me. I pull out the chair next to her and sit down, facing her.
“Hey. Hey, shh. Tell me what it is,” I murmur, the words as quiet as I can manage. The sound of her crying is maddening, like I need to run out and claw through something to makethings right for her. I can’t tell how much of that is how I feel and how much of that is the moon.
I scoot closer, and thread my arms around her waist, wherever it is in that big sweater, and rest my chin on her shoulder. She doesn’t pull away, but slumps against me.
“I hate it here,” she mumbles.
I nod. That’s fair. I kinda do too.
She doesn’t ask what I’m doing here, or how I found her address.
Her phone is still open on the table to her most recent calls, and there’s at least ten calls to her mother; it doesn’t look like any of them have been answered. My heart pinches at that, my hand curling into a fistful of her sweater. I have to force myself to release it.
I start drawing shapes across her back over the top of her sweater. She always enjoyed that. “I’m sorry about tonight. I don’t know what they said to you but...”
She shakes her head. “Not me.”
I wait for her to explain, as she wipes at her eyes with her wrists, more tears coming regardless. Eventually her breathing moves from sobs to shudders. She leans into me the slightest bit more.
“I guess it should be obvious. I’ve been here a few years; you haven’t been here. And when you chose me, you chose...”
Her lip quivers. She can’t bring herself to say it.
“Wrong?” I finish quietly for her, and she nods.
