A Forty Year Kiss

14

One night he invited Vivian over to his house for dinner. Lasagna. He was so proud of himself. Even though she’d made lasagna from scratch perhaps hundreds of times in her life, he walked her through the recipe—just as a man who never cooks would—all the various ingredients, all the frenzied shopping, the manic chopping, all the sautéing, all the layering. She nodded her head approvingly while sipping a glass of very nice red wine; already she felt the faintest bit tipsy. Not drunk, no. Just one of those days when she hadn’t eaten enough, hadn’t drunk enough water. The wine was moving through her bloodstream, slowing everything down. She couldn’t wait to crawl into his bed and simply fall deeply, deeply into sleep.

I’ll just make some garlic bread real quick, he said, and then we’ll be ready to eat. Give me twenty minutes, tops. Hey, make yourself at home. Look around. Maybe you can help me decorate this place.

He poured another inch of wine into her glass and went about his preparations and cooking. She had to hand it to him. The kitchen was clean. No pile of dirty dishes. No untidy surfaces. Even his clothing was immaculate. Forty years of living alone had in fact informed his housekeeping. She shook her head for a moment in disbelief, in stunned wonder.

She moved from room to room, like the first guest at a party, before any of the other attendees had arrived. The house was fairly stark. Some tastefully framed prints she recognized as Ansel Adams. But mostly, the walls and surfaces were bare. She realized, in a swell of sadness, that after all these decades, he still had no family. No children. No spouse. What photographs could he hang on his walls but those taken by other people?

He wasn’t a bad decorator; she had to admit, though, for her tastes, the house felt a bit antiseptic, like an executive rental. The rooms were well appointed in a way. Thick rugs. Elegant lamps offering indirect warm lighting. Bold dark paint. The furniture looked to be Ethan Allen or some equivalent, and all so new, she wondered if some of the chairs had ever been sat in. At Thanksgiving, she’d been too busy with her granddaughters, or washing dishes to take too much stock of the house, but she found herself scrutinizing everything tonight, while he whistled in the kitchen.

Ten more minutes, she heard him call from the kitchen.

In the small room he called his study, where there was a desk, some bookshelves, and a wide computer screen, she peered out the window at the barn, looming in the dark. She took a sip of wine and then examined the shelves. An autographed baseball resting on a display case, the signature tidy enough that she recognized the name—Nolan Ryan. A few dozen books. Not titles she had read. Mostly histories. A few novels. But near those books were two framed photographs that stood out in this house, precisely because they were personal. She set her glass of wine down on his desk and reached for the first photograph.

The picture was old, it seemed. Definitely from the eighties, judging by the young woman’s voluminous black blow-dried hair, and the bold rainbow colors of her top. She was beautiful, like Cher. Slender suntanned arms, gold bangles stacked on her wrists, gleamingly white teeth. She was leaning against an ancient tree. A tree so wide it nearly obscured all of the photo’s background. But if she might have guessed, Vivian would have said the photo was taken in a park, or a college campus. There was a path winding behind the tree, and a few figures walking, out of focus. She set the photograph back, took up the next frame.

The woman was in this photo as well, but so was Charlie. She was unprepared for the hurt, the jealousy, the feeling of being punched right in her belly, but they were holding hands on a beach, a sunset melting behind them. There was a flower in the woman’s hair, and though her right hand was intertwined in his, her left hand rested on her thigh, and Vivian could see a ring there, set off by the white of her dress, and the darkness of her skin, the darkness of her hair. They had the shine of new love. The shine of promise.

Dinner’s ready, she heard him call.

She walked back to the kitchen, dazed.

Hey, he said, quietly, you forgot your wineglass.

She didn’t want the photo to bother her, but it did. This empty house. No evidence of his life at all. Not a single photograph of her that she had noticed. And yet. Two photographs of a woman he had never mentioned, not once. The jealousy and confusion coursed through her body, like cold venom. She couldn’t stop herself.

Who is this? she said, holding the photograph in her hand.

Oh, that’s my friend, he replied. Yeah. That’s Mona.

Your friend? This looks like a wedding photo.

Well, yeah. It is. Yeah. That’s our wedding photo. Um. After you—sorry. After we were, after you and I were divorced, I got married to Mona. It was a mistake. Getting married. But… Should we sit down for dinner? I’m not dodging your question; it’s just that, maybe we could sit down and talk about it.

Vivian really could not respond, but she moved into the dining room, the photograph almost dangling from her hand. She sat down, stunned, while he brought their plates to the table, while he poured her a glass of ice water. Steam rose off the lasagna into the room.

It’s probably too hot to eat right away, he said, but there’s salad. Do you want some salad?

Charlie, she said abruptly, two photographs in your whole house. And both are your ex-wife. A woman you’ve never talked about. She felt something breaking in her chest, something falling, her heart, her happiness. A palisade, collapsing into a gorge. You don’t have any photos of me, she said, though her voice was trembling.

He reached for her hand. I’m so sorry, Viv, he said. That’s—look, this is my fault, and I can explain. I should have explained. He took a deep breath, paused, examined the ceiling, as if the words he sought to retrieve were projected there.

Mona is my friend, he said at last, which really did nothing to soothe her. The photograph was still in her hand, and now it felt toxic, felt like something she wanted to throw or tear into pieces. She found herself handing him the picture and standing up. She was suddenly exhausted. Exhausted by the long drive to his house, exhausted by the day’s routine, exhausted by the glass of wine and the ever-darkening days. She just wanted to go home.

Stop, he said. Please.

Mona and I were married for a matter of months, he said. Two years after our divorce, sorry. About four years after she and I divorced, she married a friend of mine. I didn’t know him back then, but he’s become my friend. They’ve been married ever since. Mona is twelve years older than me, and he’s, god, he’s almost twenty years older than me. They live down in Iowa. She was my professor, which, I know, is…I don’t know how to say it. Fucked up. But it was what it was. They’ve been like my mentors, okay? They’ve been my steadiest friends. I hope that maybe someday we can drive down there and visit them.

She could only look down at her feet. The jealousy undissipated. The sense of being wounded still acute.

I don’t have any photographs of you and me, he said at last. I wish I did. But I—when we separated, I just left. I didn’t take anything. And I regret that. All these years, don’t you think I wanted something of ours? Some reminders? Of course, I did, Viv. Look, I understand. And I can put those photos of her away, I can. I get it.

I’m so tired, Vivian said. I’m tired, and I’m sad.

Please, why don’t you, look—sleep in my bed, okay? I’ll sleep in the guest room. Or, whatever. You can have the guest room. But don’t drive back tonight, okay? Please. Let’s just get some rest, and we can talk about this tomorrow morning.

I don’t know about all this, she said, slumping in her chair, staring out the window into the night. What we’re doing. It’s like we’ve lived all these different lives, and I don’t know how I’ll ever understand, how I’ll ever be sure that you’re giving it to me straight. That you’re telling me the full truth. I mean, how do I know you’re not still in love with her? How do I know that some old spark in you isn’t going to flare up again, and then what? What was all this?

I don’t know, he said, glancing at the table, at the meal he knew would now go uneaten. But I’m telling you the truth, Viv.

I’m being stupid, she said, taking a deep sip of the wine, and laughing darkly. I mean, what do I have to be jealous about? That you remarried?

And like I said, he began again, it didn’t last. It was a mistake.

I’ll tell you why it bothers me, she said, feeling the wine take hold, even as her tongue loosened. It’s because you went off and you lived in all these different places. And you met all these fancy people. You went to college. You’re smiling in those photos. You know how many photos of me I have where I’m smiling? How many photos of me there are on vacation somewhere?

He hung his head in defeat while Blueberry entered the room and stood beside him, resting his head on the table and staring at the lasagna.

Do you ever think of what you left me with? The mess you left me with? Isn’t that just like a man though? No, no, no—you go on. Go on and have your adventures. And I’ll stay back here, picking up the pieces. God, she sighed.

What?

I acted like your wife even when you were gone. Even after the divorce.

What do you mean? he asked. I don’t understand.

They left the table, all of that food still steaming. She took the stairs like a somnambulist and barely felt part of her body, but rather a ghost inhabiting a shell. Her feet moved up the staircase, and on the second-floor landing, she turned into a guest room, shut the door, and collapsed onto the bed.

Sometime before dawn, she woke, and sat up on the bed. Outside the window, the northern lights were flickering in pale greens and faint pinks. The night felt like a hallucination.

She was startled when she opened the guest room door and Blueberry was standing right there, wagging his tail, pressing his head against her thigh. But then her heartbeat slowed, and she ran her fingers through his coat, closed her eyes, breathed deeply. In the bathroom, she splashed icy water on her face, cupped her hands and drank. She did not want to see her reflection in the mirror.

She arrived home just as dawn surged over her neighborhood. The house was still quiet, and she slipped into her bed, and pleaded for sleep to find her, if only for a handful of minutes before life resumed, undaunted.