Out of Reach

The sun which forms moving blobs of various sizes behind my eyelids is briefly blocked by a passing shadow. I am stretched out with my legs dangling off the bed’s right side and my arms slung haphazardly to the sides. Without opening my eyes I say, Are you leaving. He doesn’t respond. He smells of cheap soap and something else, muskier. I watch the oblong blobs squirm like organisms under a microscope and hear the hairdryer turn on in the bathroom.

I say, I’m sorry. The skin on my right arm yearns for a warm touch. Just a graze would do, something small that tips the scales back, but of course it never comes; he is too proud for that.

Over yesterday’s morning’s eggs and hash browns I had stupidly asked him about the job search and I saw the muscle in his throat twitch. He bit back with some big sad statistic about graduating in a recession, and I said that big sad statistics are for big populations and don’t always apply in individual cases, besides, you’re qualified and driven unlike most people out there. But as the words tumbled from my lips I could see their sickly color and I knew I didn’t believe them. I felt suddenly very far away from myself and I wondered if he could tell, sitting there with a dime’s worth of aftershave by his right ear, but suddenly he cursed and sent the palm of his hand down on the table, rattling the plates. For a moment I could perceive genuine concern in the veined whites of his eyes, but it vanished. Sorry, he said, just leave me alone.

I brought the plates to the sink. I turned on the water to the hottest it could go. I put some soap on the green side of the sponge and began to make circles on the plates, getting off most of the food waste before placing them in the dishwasher. I set the dishwasher and then went to the living room where my work was waiting for me. He was there still, at the table, and when I stole a glance I could see his head in his hands.

I say, I’m sorry. I say, I love you. The hairdryer turns off and I hear his feet on the carpet. Maybe he spends a moment regarding me spread on the comforter like a pinned butterfly in the sun. Maybe he even mouths a response back to me. I keep my eyes sealed. I hear the door lock behind him and when I approach the table later he’s left a note: I’m at an interview. Be back soon.