Viaticum

by Natelle Fitzgerald

  He kissed her on the mouth, his lips pressing hard against hers, now harder, as if to crush himself out, to grind that mean and watchful part of himself out. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, he said when she pulled away and looked at him with hurt in her eyes, and he was sorry and wished he hadn’t done it; he wished he hadn’t done many things and the questioning in her eyes made all his regrets tumble into one. Now he kissed her gently trying to take it back, all of it, every least thing in the hope that she would see, that she would understand who he really was and that he didn’t mean it. He kissed her and kissed her and when she softened into him it felt like a kind of forgiveness and he was overwhelmed with gratitude that she didn’t hate him, that she didn’t hold it against him and then his desire swelled again; his initial attraction swelled again and he felt, in that moment, that his desire for her was real. Soon, she led him upstairs to a small room and a hard bed and he kissed her over and over and he wanted to crawl inside her to hide from that cruel and watchful thing in himself and he made love like an apology but still it was there.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Annika lay completely still, listening to the wind while the man slept peacefully beside her. Sometime during the night, the fog had lifted and the wind had come rushing in, whining and moaning at the top of the stovepipe like a hungry dog. A square of moonlight appeared on the floor next to the bed, then faded to darkness, then came again, then faded again and finally it stayed, filling the room with a cool, soft light that outlined the man’s face in silver. He looked beautiful to her in the moonlight, ageless, aglow with a cold fire, like a marble statue. She watched his chest rise up and down. His weight made the small bed sag in the middle and she kept her body rigid, up and out of the trough he created. She didn’t want to wake him and didn’t know, at this point, if it was okay to curl up against him.

  Eventually, the cold got her out of bed. The fire was out. He wasn’t used to the cold, she reminded herself. She’d seen him shivering on the walk home, even with that big coat, and there was a softness to him that made her think he liked his creature comforts. It wasn’t manly or tough, she supposed, yet it intrigued her, for she’d never allowed herself to want those things, never allowed herself to miss the everyday comforts most people lived by now. She imagined he was a regular guy, that he went to ball games and drank beer and watched television. Imagine that, she mused. Going to a ball game? She’d never been to a ball game. With Hamish it had been all about status and dinner parties with his over-mortgaged friends, and the healing crowd here was so intense. Wouldn’t it be great to just go to a movie? she thought. To go to a stupid, Hollywood blockbuster movie and eat popcorn? Maybe he would take her on a date, a real date. Maybe he would want to . . . stop. Stop. What am I doing?

  She tiptoed down the stairs. There were streaks of silver running on the water, a quick streaking brilliance incongruent with the stale wine taste in her mouth.

  She crouched by the grate and crumpled up pieces of newspaper: Nation teeters on fiscal cliff, the headline read before the paper’s ragged edge crumpled inwards then burst into flame. She arranged the kindling on top, put a log on and shut the grate.

  The wine glasses were still half full, abandoned on the small table and, looking at them, a memory of his urgent kisses bubbled up and broke in her mind, hot shame flowering across her face: the way she’d melted into him and the fact that she’d cried afterwards, tears streaming from her eyes in a kind of full body release and him a total stranger . . . She shook her head abruptly. I’ll make coffee, she thought quickly, he looks like he likes coffee, then she busied herself in the kitchen, her thoughts chasing one another like the squalls of wind across the bay.

  The coffee had just started to boil when she heard him upstairs. The boards above her creaked, then she heard him on the stairs, then he was right there, in her living room with his shirt untucked and his hair in disarray, his face still soft with sleep.

  “Good morning,” she said, “I hope you slept well.” She realized she hadn’t turned any lights on and flicked on the lamp.

  He blinked. “I did. Thank-you.” He looked around and rubbed his head. “Wow. Now that you can see, the view here is spectacular. Stunning.”

  He was huge in the tiny room. He went and stood before the fire.

  “Please keep sleeping if you like. Unfortunately, I have to go and open at the café, otherwise I’d . . .” she trailed off.

  He kept looking around and rubbing his head. His hair stood on end like a little boy.

  “Do you like coffee? I made coffee.”

  He stood there a moment longer then came up behind her at the counter, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close. His chin rested on her shoulder as if he were used to such intimacies. “I had a good time last night,” he said. “You were sweet.”

  The sandpaper on his cheek sent shocks through her entire body, yet she felt there was something strange, almost mechanical about his words. You were sweet. What did it mean? She ­shivered.

  He took the coffee and went over to the couch where he flopped down and leaned back and closed his eyes. “My head is killing me,” he moaned.

  She went and got him some aspirin and a glass of water, then stood by the fire, unsure of what to do next. He stayed on the couch with his eyes closed.

  “I’m sorry I have to run out on you. You’re welcome to stay here and relax, if you want. If you want to, you can stop by the café later or . . .” She bit her lip and stopped herself. She put another log on then gently wrapped the blanket round his shoulders. “Good-bye, Michael.”

  “Good-bye, Annika.”

  The light was beginning to pale when she reached the café. She went about her routines, putting the coffee on, getting the cinnamon buns in the oven, feeling distracted and flighty. Conversations replayed themselves in her mind. Looks, gestures. When she’d first brought him back to the cottage, she’d wondered if she’d made a mistake, but then he’d kissed her, he’d kissed her all over with such urgency. She shivered then turned to find the coffee was overflowing.

  At 7:30 she unlocked the till and flipped the sign in the door to open. She bent over and was arranging the muffins in the display case when the bell above the door jingled. She started up quickly but it was only Renee, another middle-aged divorcee who liked to read the paper with a poppy-seed muffin.

  He won’t come, she told herself. He’s not coming, then the bell jingled again and her heart skipped again but it was only Roddy.

  “Twisted Anni! You’re looking lovely as usual,” he said.

  Roddy was a tall, grizzled man somewhere in his fifties who owned one of the fishing boats. Annika suspected he had a bit of a crush on her. One time he’d shown up drunk at jam night and explained to her in great length why one half of his face was more weathered than the other, something about always facing west in the afternoons, and he’d been quite earnest about it as if he were apologizing for not being more handsome. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him that she’d never noticed the difference.

  She handed him his bun in a brown paper sack. “You’re not going out there today are you?”

  “No, dear, no. Work to do on the boat. There’s always something. Boats, you know.” He leaned in and gave her a wink. He was a winker.

  “Behave yourself now,” she scolded and he liked that and tipped his ball cap and was off. She sighed, then sighed again. She looked out at the sunshine and the whitecaps on the water. Here she was, almost forty and only now beginning to understand the wide-eyed excitement of those high school girls she’d once envied. The bell jingled again and she whirled around hopefully.

  Barry. He shuffled in, his eyes trained upon her like laser beams. “So?” he asked as he approached the counter.

  “Hello, sir,” she said formally. “What may I do for you this morning?” She didn’t know if she wanted to tell him. Not yet, anyway.

  “So how was the rest
of your night?” he pressed.

  “This is a café, you know. People eat here. They order things.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be that way, I’ll have two coffees and two buns to go. Helmut’s outside. We’re on our way to the dump for a little salvage mission, but I refuse to leave until you’ve spilled the beans.”

  She shrugged and pursed her lips. “There’s nothing to spill. What you saw was all there was. We chatted a while longer then he went back to his hotel and I went home.”

  Barry narrowed his eyes and studied her face. She handed him the coffees. “Okay, be coy if you must. At the very least, I hope you got his number. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  She shrugged again. “He knows where I am.”

  “Aaaniiikaa!” he said in a long drawn out way, as if he already knew her secret. She handed him the buns but didn’t meet his eyes. “Don’t you worry, girl. He’ll call you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the guy would be absolutely crazy not to.” He smiled his lopsided smile. “And I don’t care what the end result was, you looked like you were having fun.”

  “I drank too much,” she sniffed.

  He cackled merrily and turned to go. She came around to help him with the door.

  Helmut was parked across the street. He gave her a nod but didn’t smile and suddenly another bubble of memory came rising up, this one caustic: ‘You were sweet’ he’d whispered in her ear, his body so warm, his voice so stilted.

  All day she waited and every hour he didn’t show was a disappointment and these piled up until at last she felt angry, although mostly at herself. She was being ridiculous, acting like a child. She did the dishes in the back room, barely able to fight back tears. It was foolish to hope, she told herself, foolish to attach expectations to a drunken hook-up, and that was all it was really: a drunken hook-up. She thought the words bluntly, roughly, over and over as if to grind out any delusion. Sex is just sex, isn’t that what they said? Like crushing out a cigarette. Like ripping a band-aid. Enjoy, Barry had whispered in her ear, as if love were a glass of wine.

  Suddenly, the bell jingled again, and she felt annoyed at the way her heart quickened. “It’s not him, she told herself, stop being such a stupid . . .”

  But it was him. He was standing in the doorway with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, half turned away, unable to meet her eyes. He looked terrible; his face was so haggard and pained, he looked like a man with a war going on inside him. She walked over to where he stood. Without speaking, she put her arms around him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Matt stayed. He didn’t know why.

  At first, he felt more like a convalescent than a lover. He lay on her sofa in front of the fire with a blanket wrapped around him, unable to think, unable to speak, his mind a curious blank. He felt hollow, weak, so worn out by months of anxiety he couldn’t even move, but Annika was gentle. She padded softly around the cottage, preparing dinner, stoking the fire and making sure he was comfortable. She didn’t ask questions and her quiet acceptance of him, lying alcoholic worm that he was, felt so unexpected, so undeserved, he thought he might weep. How long had it been since he’d felt a caring hand across his brow? How long since someone touched him with genuine warmth, free of obligation or resentment? He couldn’t remember how long.

  Later, when they made love, it was quiet, soft. He lay very still and let her explore his body. Her movements were careful; her kisses light; her fingers just grazing his skin, tracing the lines of his body with a feathery wonder, as if there was something amazing about him; as if his chest, his legs, his thighs were a miracle, not just muscle, not a meal ticket, not a mistake, and he felt something in him surrender to her lightness, submit to it, like a horse that comes to bridle with its head bent low.

  Time seemed to pass in a fog. He was aware of it passing, aware of obligations and responsibilities, of debts and resentments that were circling, circling somewhere just beyond the periphery of the tiny cottage, beyond the warm safety of her bed. Yes, his own life was out there, yet each time he started to think about it, his mind rushed away. He held Annika tighter, kissed her longer.

  On the morning of the second day, they went walking on the beach. It was still foggy and the sun, as it rose, turned the haze a dazzling white. The only thing visible was a small stretch of beach and the woman by his side and it was possible to imagine they were the only two people on Earth.

  When they came to the end of the beach, Annika sat down on a log while Matt skipped stones. The action reminded him of being a kid: the focused movement, the coolness of the stones in his hand, the ripples spreading outwards on the glassy surface of the water, circles within circles expanding. He crouched down and scanned the gravel in front of him, looking for the perfect stone, then he found it: smooth, flat, almost square. Finding it gave him a silly amount of pleasure, and it skipped wonderfully, too. Ten, eleven, twelve times before passing out of view. He turned and grinned at Annika. “Did you see it? That’s how it’s done,” he boasted. He could feel the lines of his deep, childish grin even after his face relaxed, as if they’d been creased there, his flesh unused to bending that way.

  He turned and sat down next to Annika, putting his arm around her and pulling her close. She smiled at him, then rested her head on his shoulder in a way that was so natural, so simple and trusting, it reminded him of Jacob. Jacob. Just like that, the magnitude of the lie, of who he was and why he was here, hit him with full force. If he had been standing, it would have staggered him; the weight of it would have driven him to his knees. For a moment, the brightness in the air seemed to dim, as if something large and ominous were passing overhead, searching, circling above the fog, while he sat on the log holding his breath, hoping for it to pass.

  Now, Annika looked up at him. Her searching, grey eyes and clear, fresh skin caused him almost physical pain. What was he even doing here? What did he hope to achieve? She didn’t seem to him like the kind of person who would commit a fraud. In another life, he might have . . .

  “I’m glad you’re here, Michael,” she said with genuine warmth.

  He closed his eyes. “So am I,” he answered, then tensed, holding his breath; but the shadow did not return.

  That afternoon, he helped her split fire wood. They worked silently; there seemed no need to talk. He chopped while she ­collected the pieces, then stacked them in the woodshed. Each time he hefted the maul, he thought about how good it felt: the thwack of the axe ringing out in the quiet afternoon, the whiteness of the new wood as it fell away on either side, the strength in his own hands, like something newly woken.

  And it seemed like this strength, this usefulness, remained awake in his hands when he made love to her afterwards, so he didn’t have to think, his hands just knew what to do, moving over her body with a confidence that allowed her to trust him as they came together on a blanket in front of the fire, their skin alive and prickling, their cheeks still rosy from the cold.

  Later, they cooked supper and listened to the radio. He opened a bottle of wine and they chopped vegetables and talked about politics along with the radio show. It was nice to talk with a woman his own age, he thought. With Jen there was always this gap, despite her natural intelligence; not of knowledge but of something else, some kind of aesthetic understanding, something that had to do with the eerie green glow of the first Gulf War, of being an adult already when the towers fell, of having email cut your life in half. It was hard to explain, but he felt it when he was with Annika, this basic understanding, like he didn’t need to explain himself all the time or weigh each word for how it might oppress her.

  On the radio, the pundits switched from the fiscal crisis to health care. He stood up, then poured them each another glass. The fire in the woodstove cracked. The cat lay purring on the sofa. He sipped his wine, enjoying the warmth, the simplicity, only half listening as the program droned on about na
tionalized health insurance.

  At the counter, Annika paused from chopping an onion. “I don’t know about that,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It seems to me that the health care system fails a lot of people in the middle too, not just the desperately poor. There’s a lot of people that fall through the cracks.” She took a sip of wine, held it in her mouth, then looked at the window. She seemed to be thinking deeply. “It forces people to extremes; it makes them do extreme things.”

  He frowned. Something in her demeanor had changed; there was a tension, a seriousness that wasn’t there before. His heart began to pound. “Is throwing money at a bunch of middle men really going to change things, though?” he argued brashly, taking a position he didn’t really believe. “It’s not going to stop costs from spiraling.”

  She looked at him with a sad, tired expression that he didn’t understand, then she looked away again, at the window. Why did she keep looking there? What did she see? Him? Her? The dark? He sensed that the lie was somewhere close.

  “Hamish used to say the same thing, and I don’t disagree, entirely. It just feels so . . . so unnecessarily brutal. I mean, do the consequences of being sick need to be so . . . so harsh?” Now, she began doing things quickly, sliding the onions into the pan, filling a pot with water. Was it too quick? Did the quickness mean something?

  “Hamish?!” Matt exclaimed, joking to conceal the edge of his own excitement, his own quickening pulse. “Hamish? What kind of name is Hamish anyway? He sounds like an Amish farm-boy.” It was the first time he’d heard her call her ex-husband by name.