When she gives me a tight nod, I carry my burger to the counter closest to the freezer. It seems best to strike while the iron’s hot.
“Leave my dad’s ice cream,” she whispers, her shoulders rigid.
It might be slower going than I’d thought, but that’s okay. “How about the grease can?” I ask. “I don’t see you using a grease can much.”
“I might start,” she replies. “You never know.”
“Bex.”
That wins me a quiet laugh. “Fine. You can throw out the grease can.”
“How about the frozen pot pies?”
She pushes a fry into her mouth. “What if donut holes are outlawed? I might be forced to eat real food.”
“I’m not sure I’d consider them real food, but I will buy you more.”
She sighs and rises, setting what remains of her burger on the counter next to mine.
“Tell me about Fiona,” she demands, elbowing me to move over to the refrigerator side.
I scowl, checking the expiration date on a bottle of salad dressing before I toss it into the bin between us. “Fiona?Why?”
She rolls her eyes. “Good grief, Theo. I’m not asking for your banking password. I just wondered what it was you saw in her.”
This is nothing I want to discuss, though I suppose I’ve brought it on myself by yammering on about Brian, that prick. “She was smart, she was attractive. What’s not to like?”
I hold up a bottle of soy sauce and she shrugs. I assume this means I can tossit.
“So you’re saying,” Bex persists, “that Fiona was the first smart, attractive female you’deverchanced upon so you knew you had to just snatch her out of the dating pool ASAP?”
I pull the trash bag out and replace it while I put my words together, hoping to make the truth sound less insane. “I liked her…predictability. She always ordered the exact same meal when we ate out; she wanted to rewatch an old movie instead of trying a new one. I thought it meant she could be relied upon. Clearly, I was wrong.”
Bex frowns, her normally laughing eyes sad forme.
Itispretty insane, I suppose, but I was simply trying to avoid all the upheaval of my childhood. Drunken rants from my father, my mother locking herself in her room to weep, Kieran’s infatuations. So I chose a woman who always said and did the appropriate thing, a woman who, in truth, I did not especially look forward to coming hometo.
“You’re incredibly lucky you got to marry me instead,” says Bex. “She sounds awful.”
I wholeheartedly agree with both statements, though I’ll never admitit.
An hour later, the refrigerator is eighty percent empty. She let the condiments go, but not Bronwyn’s favorite jelly or her father’s maraschino cherries.
“How does it feel?” I ask, as we stare at the vacant shelves.
“Not great,” she whispers. “I didn’t want to erase them and now it feels like I have. But really, it’s just about admitting that they’ve already been erased.”
I understand that better than she thinks. It took me a full year to delete my brother’s phone number from my contacts. Instead of taking over his office, I still use a smaller one down the hall. I wish I could wrap my arms around her right now, but we are already too close. I’m already crossing lines I shouldn’t cross, and I don’t dare cross any more.
Her smile is forced as we start turning out the lights. “So what are we cleaning tomorrow?” she asks.
I wince. “I’ve got a five-thirty flight home. The new manager seems to have a handle on stuff.”
“Oh. Cool.” It’s her normal insouciance, but this time I hear the bleak note behindit.
“I’ll come back with you after Norway,” I find myself saying, though I really have no reason to return to New Jersey before the marathon in September. “We’ll tackle the living room next.”
I’m making this sound like altruism when the truth is that I just don’t want to be away from her. It’s fine as long as I never say it aloud.
