Chapter 43
The next day, I packed and tied up loose ends in town.
We were leaving the following morning at dawn.
Glad to be putting some distance between Louise and me, I resolved not to resume our routines after the long break, perhaps let the relationship naturally drift apart.
I’d still have to see her, of course, when we got back.
I’d arranged for her to pick up our mail while we were gone, and it would be awkward now to undo it. But I knew how to end things.
In the late afternoon, though, I became agitated without fully knowing why.
I decided to walk into town, telling Tom I wanted to buy some sunblock, that I was sure they wouldn’t have any where we were going.
The familiarity of the steep walk calmed me.
The men drinking beer on stoops. Outside the market, the blind couple dancing for coins, the legless beggar in the wheelchair.
All the shops were decorated for Christmas.
In the square, a massive tree had been erected, bedecked in a garland of red flowers.
On my way home, I stopped in at the carnicería to tell José Luis I’d be gone for ten days at the beach. We were leaving tomorrow; I was looking forward to being warm again.
“?El futuro subjuntivo, qué bien!” he said, complimenting my use of tenses. “Truly, your Spanish is getting very good. Soon you’ll be able to read one of my novels.”
“You do know they were written in English,” I teased.
“No, Es-sal-lee.” He wagged his finger at me. “Este libro es en ruso. Anna Karenina. Y tiene más de mil páginas,” he added, shaking his head dramatically, saying it might kill him.
I laughed. I had nothing more to add, but I paused on the threshold, not wanting to leave.
An irrational fear had come over me, that as soon as we drove away, everything I’d come to know and love would be irreparably lost. At the beach, I would be forgotten, the town sealing above me like a pond above a tossed stone.