The woman on the screen is not me, not exactly. She is braver. But I borrow her feelings, the way an insomniac borrows hours from tomorrow, and I make her risk what I cannot.
I type:
She could not name the feeling at first. It arrived like a slow leak, a drip of want that pooled and grew until it warped the floorboards of her heart. The man who made her feel it was not her late husband, not the ghost she had been faithful to for years. He was alive, infuriatingly so, and his hands could bruise a pear with tenderness.
I stare at the sentence for a long time. The man in my book is named Calder. He wears flannel even in summer, and when he laughs it sounds like a challenge. The real man who leaks into every paragraph is Nathan, though I refuse to type his name. Maybe it would be bad luck, like saying Macbeth in a theater.
My fingers hesitate over the keys, hovering like bees over a field of clover. I know what the next scene must be. I have been avoiding it for weeks.
I write it anyway.
Calder sits at the kitchen table, peeling an orange in long, unbroken ribbons. He tells her that love is a thing that survives on attention, like a plant or a sullen child. He says it with his head down, the orange spray catching the light on the back of his hand. She wants to reach out and touch that hand, but she is afraid of what it might mean.
She is more afraid of not knowing.
The orange scent is so vivid I can almost taste it. The room fills with it, and the air in Sara’s library sweetens.
I exhale, rolling my neck until it pops, and take a breath so deep it rattles in my chest.
I am still in my pajamas, my feet bare on the cool wood floor. The mug in my hand is chipped along the rim, but I run my tongue along it anyway, savoring the bitterness that lingers there. The salt in the air is everywhere, corroding, clarifying.
The words are coming easier now, so I let them.
I write:
She told herself she was content, but the lie was a garment that fit only in the dark. In daylight, it scratched and itched until she could not breathe. She wanted, she needed, she could not deny it any longer. She was in love with him, and it was a kind of hunger.
I stop, hands trembling. I am not sure if I mean her or me.
Somewhere in the house, the air kicks on with a hydraulic sigh, but I am sweating. I stand and open the window wider, even though the wind is like dragon’s fire. The gulls have scattered, leaving only the distant pulse of the surf. I want to walk to the water and wade out until the cold unravels every last thought, but I have learned not to trust these impulses. Instead,I pace the small rectangle of floor between the desk and the window, counting each step.
On the third circuit, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. My hair is askew, eyes rimmed with sleepless blue, the shape of a woman who has not yet learned how to stop missing people. I laugh out loud at myself, a cracked little sound.
I go back to the desk and read over what I have written. Each sentence is a step closer to something I have been afraid to say. I delete nothing.
I write:
She typed and typed, afraid that if she stopped, the spell would break, and she would have to reckon with what she had written. But it was too late for that now. She had confessed herself to the page, and there was no taking it back.
My face is hot, and my hands are cold. I am not crying, but the urge is there, lurking just under my ribs. I think of Nathan, the way he stands with his shoulders tensed, like he is bracing for an invisible blow. I think of his laugh, the rare and reckless version, the one that surfaces only when he forgets to be cautious.
I do not know what he wants from me. But I know what I want from him.
The thought is terrifying, and also—at last—clean.
I save the document, the little disk icon spinning with its false sense of security and close the laptop. I peer out the window at the water, which is the same as it ever was, but I am not. I am still afraid, but the words have made a kind of space inside me, a new room I did not know I could inhabit.
39
Nathan
I drive with the radio off, the wipers sluicing rain in a slow pulse. Every rut in the road transmits up the column of my spine and rattles my thoughts. By the time I reach the Ocean Side Inn, my teeth ache from grinding, and my hands are welded to the steering wheel. I cut the engine and sit in the quiet, the only sound the tsk-tsk of water tapping the roof.
I stare at the faded green awning of the motel. It’s the kind of place that exists in every coastal town, a little too bright, a little too eager. Sand-logged rugs, plastic Adirondack chairs, a patch of hydrangeas clinging to the front walk. I could be anywhere, but I’m not. I am here. I am twenty-five and thirty-three and every age in between.
I reach for the door handle. Pull back. I roll my head against the headrest, then twist the rearview so it catches my eyes. They look like someone else’s. I drag a hand through my hair, try to remember the last time I shaved, and wonder if I should turn around and drive back to the studio. Pretend I never left. Pretend I am someone who listens to his own advice.
Instead, my mind wanders to Sara. The thought of her comes so sharp it steals the breath from my lungs. She’d tell me to go in, face the thing, name the ghost.