“I am here.”
“In the hallway?”
She laughs hysterically. “Not in the hallway.”
Her voice shifts and I know she’s moved. I feel compelled to charge around like a bull, swinging my arms and huffing big sighs everywhere. I would knock down the pictures hung in dark mahogany frames. The vase on the small table next to the kitchen entry would undoubtedly be shattered. I might clip my wrist against the low ceiling fan. These things I can live with. I don’t do it because I might accidentally hit her.
“You’re leading me into a wall. I’ll break through a wall if I have to.” I often think I can punch through things that I probably cannot. It happens when nothing of me has ever been broken.
I can feel that sunlight is streaming in, somehow, through the thicket of still bare branches that hover in air outside of our oversized living room window. My bare knee bumps the quilted arm of our corduroy couch, the one purchased from a couple who advertised on craigslist. We never met him, but she was there when we picked it up and loaded it onto the rented pick-up truck. She was very loud, joking bawdily the way I only know men to do. I imagined her working at a bar but I never did ask. When we dragged the couch out she didn’t mind that we knicked a doorframe with the wooden corner of the couch. We drove away sweaty, as this was in the summer, and took a nap on it together before it was even off the truck. We slept too long and I browned a bit while she tomatoed. I touched her even when she complained.
The couch was the thing we bought together. Everything else, furniture and electronics and even toiletries, belonged to one or the other. Even the bed was mine before it was ours. That kind of thing you just get so used to that you never want to change it.
I don’t walk with my arms out, like an idiot. I keep them low but do not stoop my back. I listen for little signs in the air, like feeling ripples in water. The bookshelf is on my right if the couch has just been on my right and I know that the bedroom is close, but she will not be there. Too obvious. I turn instead toward the garage. When I step inside I hear a shuffle and smile.
“You are predictable.”
“Am I?” It comes from outside. She’s in the yard. She wants to play outdoors.
Old oil and grit seep into the spaces between my toes until I am on the other side of the garage, by the door. I listen again. It is country silent. Bird calls and insect flight, but nothing else. I pause for a moment to consider the neighbors but overcome the nag to take a step onto the concrete. It is warm for a spring day. It feels moist. Still rigid in posture, I step out onto the path and listen again. I could walk straight ahead onto the lawn but feel threatened. It is more unpredictable outside. The lawn and its mushrooms, crab grass, dog and raccoon shit. Our dog might be around but he usually wanders into the field next to our property during the day. She knows this. Otherwise, he would give her away.
For now, I remain on the concrete. I follow the edge, feeling the drop-off into the grass with my toes. A breeze caresses the mane I’ve been threatening to cut for weeks to tease her. She prefers it long. In winter, when I stop shaving and allow my hair to become truly wooly, we pretend we live in Alaska. I step on a sharp rock and yelp out, “tshit!” She laughs again and now I know she’s out near the edge of the lawn, nearest to the field.
“I’m glad my pain amuses you!”
“Do you see me?” she asks, and I turn away from her obvious direction.
“I sense you.”
I hear her soft footsteps, each one further than the last. My arms tense as I step onto the prickly grass.
“Where you are is here. When you jump, I hear.” I say silly shit and walk toward her. The edge of the lawn is marked by a series of pink concrete blocks, and beyond them is rough grass, twigs, rocks, and probably dead things. Though consumed by darkness, I feel everything. She wanders into the field, where I know she will stay and wait. Knowing is the thing we give each other.
Every step is careful. I hope she doesn’t see me stoop a little as I step on some sharp things.