below her knees. She closes a few buttons and pads into the kitchen.
He has the fridge of a wealthy bachelor: a six-pack of Stella, a bottle of half-empty white wine with a French label, a few hunks of cheese in the crisper, and a white bag holding restaurant leftovers. She wants cold pasta, a handful of rigatoni with gravy. Maybe a sliver of chicken parm and some almost-stale bread. She closes the fridge.
It was pretty damn good. One romp has awakened a hunger almost ten years in the making. Part of her wants to go back to bed, wake Wade, and do it again, but another part wants to be alone for a bit, to enjoy this nothingness, this leap between two lives.
She looks around the apartment. She didn’t get the grand tour earlier. It’s modern, a little austere. Lots of clean lines and sharp edges. She doesn’t want to be nosy, but she has a restless energy that defies the hour. She walks through the living room to the second bedroom. She opens the door and flicks on a light.
The room is a mess; cardboard boxes lie scattered on the floor. A desk sits under a window that looks out onto Jersey. A sliding glass door next to it leads to a terrace. The white wall across from Tina holds three swaths of paint: robin’s egg blue, a deep yellow, and a barely there gray. The room is stuck in a transitive state; it sits heavy with the weight of unfulfilled expectations.
A daybed sits against the wall opposite the window; a solitary box leans precariously, one corner off the edge, frames of pictures jutting above the rim. Tina walks over and sits on the daybed. She lifts the open cardboard box onto her lap. It’s filled with pictures of Wade’s dead wife, Morgan. Tina’s seen Morgan before—she and Wade had shown each other pictures of their deceased spouses on their third date—but these pictures are more intimate.
Here’s Morgan and Wade at a fancy ball of some sort: Wade next to her in a tuxedo, she in a stunning red dress. Here they are in a restaurant: she’s hoisting a glass of red wine in a jokey toast and Wade is rolling his eyes. She’s beautiful, an athletic blond girl from Northern California with a touch of mischief in her eyes. A Stanford grad, an architect.
Tina looks through the pictures and each one summons the same question: How could the same man love this woman and love me?
One particular photo draws Tina in. Morgan is alone in this one, wearing hiking gear: thick socks and clunky boots, an oppressive backpack, a sweat-stained tank top. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and her lips are pursed in a tight smile under sunglasses. She’s sitting on a large stone and behind her, Tina can see the white trunks of trees.
The Morgans in the other pictures are unaware, anchored to the moment of the photo, but this one
knows
somehow. Knows that another woman will be looking at this very picture one day. The look on this Morgan’s face is one of reluctant acceptance. It unsettles Tina, but after she stares at it for a minute, it’s oddly comforting.
Some part of Wade will always belong to Morgan in the way that some part of her will always belong to Bobby. That’s the way it has to be. It’s not even a sadness. It couldn’t be any other way; their losses bind them to each other. Sure, it’s other things as well, but without their losses, there’s little chance they would have found each other in a thousand years. It’s okay to admit that. Their losses were the most important events in their lives. There’s no shame in loving each other for the way they carried them.
Tina thinks back to earlier in the night on the BQE. She was so consumed by her own emotions, it didn’t sink in that they were almost in a car accident. He reached his hand across like he could actually prevent her from going through the windshield. Morgan died in a car accident on the Cross Bronx Expressway, driving up to look at a house for sale in Rye. They wanted a yard and a family to fill it. She was thirty-four, having trouble
He has the fridge of a wealthy bachelor: a six-pack of Stella, a bottle of half-empty white wine with a French label, a few hunks of cheese in the crisper, and a white bag holding restaurant leftovers. She wants cold pasta, a handful of rigatoni with gravy. Maybe a sliver of chicken parm and some almost-stale bread. She closes the fridge.
It was pretty damn good. One romp has awakened a hunger almost ten years in the making. Part of her wants to go back to bed, wake Wade, and do it again, but another part wants to be alone for a bit, to enjoy this nothingness, this leap between two lives.
She looks around the apartment. She didn’t get the grand tour earlier. It’s modern, a little austere. Lots of clean lines and sharp edges. She doesn’t want to be nosy, but she has a restless energy that defies the hour. She walks through the living room to the second bedroom. She opens the door and flicks on a light.
The room is a mess; cardboard boxes lie scattered on the floor. A desk sits under a window that looks out onto Jersey. A sliding glass door next to it leads to a terrace. The white wall across from Tina holds three swaths of paint: robin’s egg blue, a deep yellow, and a barely there gray. The room is stuck in a transitive state; it sits heavy with the weight of unfulfilled expectations.
A daybed sits against the wall opposite the window; a solitary box leans precariously, one corner off the edge, frames of pictures jutting above the rim. Tina walks over and sits on the daybed. She lifts the open cardboard box onto her lap. It’s filled with pictures of Wade’s dead wife, Morgan. Tina’s seen Morgan before—she and Wade had shown each other pictures of their deceased spouses on their third date—but these pictures are more intimate.
Here’s Morgan and Wade at a fancy ball of some sort: Wade next to her in a tuxedo, she in a stunning red dress. Here they are in a restaurant: she’s hoisting a glass of red wine in a jokey toast and Wade is rolling his eyes. She’s beautiful, an athletic blond girl from Northern California with a touch of mischief in her eyes. A Stanford grad, an architect.
Tina looks through the pictures and each one summons the same question: How could the same man love this woman and love me?
One particular photo draws Tina in. Morgan is alone in this one, wearing hiking gear: thick socks and clunky boots, an oppressive backpack, a sweat-stained tank top. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and her lips are pursed in a tight smile under sunglasses. She’s sitting on a large stone and behind her, Tina can see the white trunks of trees.
The Morgans in the other pictures are unaware, anchored to the moment of the photo, but this one
knows
somehow. Knows that another woman will be looking at this very picture one day. The look on this Morgan’s face is one of reluctant acceptance. It unsettles Tina, but after she stares at it for a minute, it’s oddly comforting.
Some part of Wade will always belong to Morgan in the way that some part of her will always belong to Bobby. That’s the way it has to be. It’s not even a sadness. It couldn’t be any other way; their losses bind them to each other. Sure, it’s other things as well, but without their losses, there’s little chance they would have found each other in a thousand years. It’s okay to admit that. Their losses were the most important events in their lives. There’s no shame in loving each other for the way they carried them.
Tina thinks back to earlier in the night on the BQE. She was so consumed by her own emotions, it didn’t sink in that they were almost in a car accident. He reached his hand across like he could actually prevent her from going through the windshield. Morgan died in a car accident on the Cross Bronx Expressway, driving up to look at a house for sale in Rye. They wanted a yard and a family to fill it. She was thirty-four, having trouble
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