I lifted up my chin and shook my head, but I was trembling, which ruined the effect. Alex sank to the ground and bowed his head. I sat down beside him, miserable that I had ruined what had been a perfect afternoon. I realized that it was up to me to bring us back to center, so I took a deep breath. I stood up and waded into the stream again, bending at the waist and reaching my fingers into the water. “Rumor has it,” I said, “there are trout in this stream.”
Alex’s head lifted, and he smiled at me gratefully, running his eyes appreciatively from my hair to my bottom to my bare feet. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve heard that.”
“And rumor has it,” I continued, “that you can catch a fish with your bare hands.” As I spoke, a skinny spotted trout slipped between my palms, making me gasp and splash backward.
Alex came to his feet, stepping into the water behind me. “Assuming you wanted to learn,” he said, fitting his thighs to the backs of mine, “the first thing you’d do is stop moving around so damn much.” He bent over me, so close that his lips brushed my ear. His arms pressed the length of mine, down into the water, where my hands rested in his.
“The next thing you’d do is stay perfectly still. Don’t even breathe—a trout’ll run away if it eventhinksthat you’re here. And now you close your eyes.”
I turned in his arms. “You do?”
“That way you can just feel the fish.”
I obediently closed my eyes, letting the cool air fill my lungs, enjoying the sensation of Alex’s body cradling mine at so many different points.
When the trout slid over the palm of my hand, a quick silver tickle, Alex’s fingers tightened. He jerked back our arms and the fish slapped against my chest, thrashing in the hollow between my breasts. Together we fell backward onto the banks of the stream, laughing.
We stared at each other, inches apart, Alex’s hands still holding mine. Where his wrists pressed against me I could feel his pulse, a simple steady match to my own. We did not try to extricate ourselves from the knot made by our bodies, not even when Alex reached over to set the trout into the stream again. Together we watched it navigate a rocky shore, disappearing as quickly as a doubt.
WHAT I REMEMBER ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR FIGHT WAS NOT WHAT had caused it or even how Alex came after me. I just know that it happened in the big bedroom at the house, and that one of us hit the dresser during the struggle. So the image that stayed with me was not the heat of Alex’s words or the sting of his palm across my shoulder; it was the moment that the jar of snow Alex had brought me in Tanzania rolled from the dresser and shattered on the smooth wooden floor.
It was an accident that could have happened long before if a maid had been clumsy or if I had turned around too fast when getting dressed.
But it hadn’t. For two and a half years, the little glass jar had stood, tightly capped, between my hairbrush and Alex’s, as if it were the link that held them together.
Alex stood over me, breathing heavily, watching the water spread across the floor. I sluggishly wondered if it would leave a stain, and I found myself hoping it would, just so there would be something left.
Instead of apologizing or gathering me to him, Alex knelt down and began to pick up the larger fragments of glass. One of them cut his thumb, and I watched with fascination as his blood swirled in the puddle of water.
I think that was the thing that put me over the edge. “If you touch me like that again,” I said softly, staring at the water, “I’ll leave.”
Alex did not stop what he was doing. He picked up those pieces as if he truly thought he’d be able to put them back together. “That,” he said quietly, “would kill me.”
I took my purse and a jacket and walked down the stairs, shaking my head when John asked if I needed a ride. I wandered down the streets of the neighborhood, gulping in the stale, processed air.
When I came to St. Sebastian’s—yes, our church—the first thought I had was that I could seek refuge. I could hide inside and never come out again. Maybe if I sat long enough in the cool, dark pews, tracing the shadows cast by stained glass, the world would go back to the way it had been.
I wanted desperately to be a Catholic, or any denomination, really—
but I could not honestly say I believed in anything. I had my doubts about a merciful God. I closed my eyes, and instead of praying to Jesus, I prayed to Connor. “I wish you were here,” I whispered. “You don’t know how much I need you.”
I sat on the pew until the unforgiving wood cut into the backs of my thighs, and by that time the only light in the little church came from the glowing white candles that sat on a table toward the rear. I stood up, dizzy, and understood that I still believed in one other thing.
I believed in Alex and me. In spite of this cycle, I believed in us, together.
I slipped out the heavy door of the church and hailed a taxi to take me home. When I touched the front door, it swung open. The parlor was pitch dark. Alex was sitting on the bottom stair, cradling his head in his hands.
I realized two things that night: that Alex thought I’d left for good, and that no matter what I had said in the heat of the moment, it had only been an empty threat. From the very second I’d walked out that door, I’d simply been making my way back.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
PILEDbeside me was a stack of slush screenplays. It wasn’t my responsibility, but I liked reading through them. I’d close my eyes and try to imagine Alex moving through the written direction, Alex speaking the words on the page. Most screenplays I put aside after the first couple of pages, but the ones that looked more promising I passed on.
I was in Alex’s office on the Warner Brothers lot. On days when I was not teaching or not in the mood to do research, I’d curl up on the overstuffed sofa, waiting for him to finish whatever it was he was doing that day, so that we could go home together. Today Alex was in the sound studio, dubbing his latest film. It would be several hours before he came for me. Sighing, I picked up the script on the top of the pile and started to read.
Two hours later I threw down the screenplay and raced across the main thoroughfare of the Warner Brothers lot. I had a vague idea of where the sound mixing was done, but I barged into three different rooms before I found the one where Alex was working. He was bent over an electronic board with a technician, and when he saw me he pulled the headphones from his ears.
I ignored the tight set of his mouth at the interruption, the look that promised I’d be lectured later. “You have to come with me,” I said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “I have a movie for you.”
