by Paul Hina
tired.
"But, wait. Let's go back."
"Must we?"
"When you called my parents, after I left for Europe, can I ask if you were going to—?"
"Say yes to your proposal?"
"Were you?"
"I was thinking about it."
"And I—"
"You were too prideful. In that way, you are like your brother. But, one thing I can say about him, he would never have bailed on me the way you did."
"But he had no reason to bail. You said yes to him."
"Max, I was shocked. You proposing to me was the last thing I expected. And you just assumed I would jump at the chance to surrender my future to you. Then you took off before I even had a chance to consider it. With Eric, I was a little bit older, my life was beginning to take on a shape of its own. And, ironically, this personal growth was because of you. You leaving Boston really pushed me to ponder what I wanted from the future. So, after your brother and I were together awhile, I was more prepared to answer those kinds of questions—the big questions. With you, at that time, the future seemed scarier, like every decision had an irrevocable finality attached to it."
"Would it help if I said I was sorry I left?"
She laughs. "Now you're sorry?"
"That's not fair. I've been sorry for a very long time. What do you want me to say?"
"I don't want you to say anything."
"Clearly, I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. But I was just a kid."
"We both were."
"And I was hurt. I didn't think marrying me should've been something you had to consider. I still don't think it was something you should've had to consider. You either knew you loved me or you didn't."
"Of course I loved you, Max," she says, shooting the words at him. And the matter-of-fact nature of her voice, the anger and hurt that it communicated, sent a painful truth into the air that reverberated between them, vibrated the entire room. And, suddenly, this truth felt too close, too dangerous.
"But then I met you're brother," she says, filling the silence.
"You did that to get back at me."
"I did not."
"Come on, Annie. Sure you did."
"Is that what you've thought all these years?"
"Well, it's true, isn't it?"
"I can't believe you. You had absolutely nothing to do with it. He and I met by chance. He saw me, remembered me, we struck up a conversation, and the rest—"
"But I was what connected you."
"Maybe at first. But, then, we fell in love."
"You did?"
"Yes, we did."
"And you're still in love with him?"
"I still love him, yes."
"I didn't asked if you still loved him. I asked if you were still in love with him."
"What's the difference?" she asks, looking away from him and out the window, trying to look as far as she can into the snow, hoping to see Eric materialize from the storm. But, then again, she's afraid he might materialize, afraid she'll have to let this tense, wonderful, pregnant conversation—a conversation she's imagined having many, many times—fade away.
"You know the difference."
"When you've been with someone as long as I've been with your brother, you have good days and bad days, and the emotions fluctuate from time to time. There are days when I look at him, and I am still in love with him—moments where things feel certain and real and full. Then there are days where… I don't know. There are moments of less certainty. But the affection is always there."
"So there are doubts."
"I didn't say that."
"And me?"
"What about you?"
"Are you still in love with me?" he asks, standing up from the chair. He moves closer to her, only inches separate them. He's too close.
"Max," she says, trying to hush her heart, trying to pull the moment softly back to the ground. "I'm not answering that."
"Are you cold?" Michael asks Holly, seeing that her arms are crossed tight around her body.
"A little bit."
"Then let's go inside."
"Not yet," she says. "Let's walk around the house a little. I want to see the back yard in the snow."
She walks by Michael and moves toward the side of the house, treading slowly over the snow. She can hear Michael's footsteps following her.
"Have you ever seen their back yard?" she asks.
"Yeah, we're always back there when I visit in the spring and summer. Eric likes to cook on his grill."
"There's not much that would make me seriously consider living in the country, but their yard always makes me think that it could be nice."
"Considering living out here is about as far as I'd ever go."
"Me too," she says. "So, you come here often?"
Michael laughs.
"What'd I say?"
"Sorry. That just sounded strange. I thought you were trying to ironically break the ice, so to speak."
"What? Do you come here often?" she says out loud again, searching for the humor. "Oh, that. Yeah, I wasn't being intentionally funny."
"I come over as often as they let me, usually once every couple weeks. I ask Eric to fit me in when they can, but they're both pretty busy."
"They are busy."
"Yeah, but they make themselves busy."
"Aren't you busy?"
"No, not really. I'm usually done with my days by the late afternoon. I try to schedule my classes in the morning, and my office hours are always around lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"So, that's why you're never around during lunch on those days."
"That's right," he says. "You miss me?"
Holly just smiles, but he can tell she's happy with his small flirtations. These playful exchanges is how their relationship developed. Maybe it makes her more comfortable to play rather than act.
"I'm glad I wore boots tonight," Holly says, as they walk by the side of the house. She uses her right hand as a guide against the exterior brick of the house. She takes slow, deliberate steps in the ever-accumulating snow—well over three inches now, particularly because it's falling on snow that was already on the ground.
As they get to the edge of the house, Holly takes a bad step and loses her balance for a second. Michael reaches over unconsciously, places his left arm around her lower back and rests his left hand firmly against her hip. His right hand is clutching her right elbow, holding her up.
They're frozen in the moment. She's leaning back into his arms, her head turned toward him. And everything is still. Everything except the snow.
"Michael, I—"
"I don't think those boots were made for snow," he says, looking down at her high heeled knee-high boots.
"No, probably not," she whispers, her mouth only inches from his. They're so close that she can smell the sweetness of his breath, and she so badly wants to taste him. But she stops herself. She stands up straight and eases away from his arms. She bends down and wipes at the snow by her feet, and discovers that she had stumbled over a concrete gutter guide. "See, I knew I wasn't just being clumsy, though maybe I am a little dizzy from the wine."
"Maybe it's not the wine that's making you dizzy."
"Michael."
"I know. I'm being too forward."
"No. Don't apologize for yourself. It's me… But I'm trying," she says. "Really, I like that you say what's on your mind."
"You didn't always like it."
"Well, at first, your honesty, the intensity of your truth was surprising to me. But, now, it's refreshing. I've grown to appreciate it."
"So, I've grown on you."
"You could say that," she says, and she can't hide that smile again, that smile that hides nothing, shows all the evidence Michael needs to see that all her walls are crumbling down.
And, as they move away from the house and can see the full expanse of Eric and Annie's back yard, they stop and watch the snow fall in what seems like slow motion around them.
There is a
large utility light toward the back of the yard, and it gives a dreamy quality to the night's blackness beyond its reach, like they were watching sheets of distant stars skitter across infinity.
Annie moves toward the kitchen table. She grabs her empty wine glass, picks up the bottle of wine, shakes it a little to see what's left, and pours what remains in her glass.
"You sure you want to do that?" Max asks, following her from the living room.
"Oh, I'm sure."
"You've been hitting it pretty hard since I got here."
"Since before you got here."
"Do you do a lot of drinking these days?"
"No, I don't drink very much at all actually. Tonight just happens to be one of those drinking kind of days."
"Because of me?"
"Yes. Because of you."
"Why?"
"Max, I haven't seen you in nearly ten years. Do you have any idea how much pain you've caused me?"
"I do," he says, approaching her. "You don't think I've felt it too?"
"But you brought it on yourself."
"Maybe I did."
"And, honestly, I didn't know how I'd react to seeing you tonight. I mean, I knew you were in town obviously, and knowing that was enough to sit me on edge. But I thought I had successfully avoided you. And when Eric told me you were coming tonight, I was surprised by how the news made me feel."
"And how did it make you feel?"
"I was scared. Terrified, really."
"And excited."
"I won't deny that this has been exhilarating, and, God knows, when you get to be our age, this kind of uncertainty—"
"Our age? We're barely thirty."
"Over thirty."
"Still. Life has just begun."
"You think so?"
"I hope so."
Annie sits on the edge of the table. Max pulls a chair out from the table—one right beside Annie—to make room to sit on the table next to her.
"Do you think we could've been happy?" Max asks.
"If we stayed together, you mean?"
"Yeah."
"Who knows? That's nothing