Need

A story of love, lies. and the aching and insurmountable distance between one heart and another.

    By the time Anna realized where she was going, she was already halfway there. She told herself that this time she would turn the car around and go back home. This time she wouldn't make that turn onto Burgundy, wouldn't park the car behind the old dance hall, wouldn't climb the rickety stairs, wouldn't knock on that door. This time, she swore, she would walk away before it opened. This time she would stay on the landing. This time she would push him away. This time she would tell him it was over. This time.

    She lay in the dim light of the bedroom with his body curled around her, staring at the digital glow of the clock on the nightstand. One hour to get back and wash his smell from her skin before Tom came home. She shifted her legs and he pulled her tighter, nuzzling his cheek against her neck, breath hot on her shoulder. He whispered, “Stay.”

    “I can't”

    “You can.” He laid a soft kiss on the back of her neck. “You won't.” He rolled out of bed and sulked off into the next room. A moment later she heard the shower running. She collected her scattered clothing, slipped her wedding ring back on, and left the apartment in silence.

*

    Laurent turned the hot water all the way up until it was painful against his skin. He wanted to burn her away, the smell of her hair the taste of her tongue, he was desperate to forget. He closed his eyes and saw her floating there in the dark, wearing the little blue sundress she had worn on the day they had first met. Milky legs flashing in the springtime sun. Red curls bouncing. And those eyes.

    He had asked her to stop and let him paint her. No charge. He had to capture some of that beauty, trap it on canvas the way his mother had trapped flowers between panes of glass. Freeze it in time. Make it eternal. The painting still hung on his studio wall. Every time she left he swore he would tear it down. Burn it. Slash the others to ribbons. Destroy every effigy he had ever created of her in ink, in chalk, in clay. Someday, perhaps, he would.

    When the water ran cold he shut it off and went back to the bedroom, knowing that she would be gone. He threw open the windows and turned on the fan. Pointless. Her scent would still mock him from the pillowcases when he finally returned to bed that night. He should go to the laundromat, but instead he went into the studio, picked up the chalk, and tried to sketch her face. Her eyes, as ever, eluded him. Rembrandt or Renoir, perhaps, could have captured the depths of those eyes. Laurent never could.

*

    Tom opened the door into the dark, empty house and he knew. All the creeping suspicions and niggling doubts settled themselves into a tight little ball of crushing certainty in the pit of his stomach. He spoke her name, once, into the stillness to no reply. The standard homecoming rituals were performed mechanically; shoes placed by the front door, coat hung on the hook, keys into the bowl on the kitchen counter, tie tossed over the banister. But there was no singsong greeting, no warm, soft kiss on his cheek, no drink pressed into his hands, not even the sound of the piano from the living room to explain away the absence of the others.

    He could recall the surprised happiness he felt when he came home to find her playing again. The ancient piano had stood silent for months and years, keeping vigil in its corner. It would have started to gather dust under a less meticulous housekeeper than Anna. But there she was, pounding the keys, stopping to scribble a change to the notes on the page before her, pounding away again. Playing, and composing, as she had when the house and the love that they carried into it were bright and new. It had been joyous to see. But he couldn't pretend anymore that the piano was singing for him.  He walked across the strangely sterile room to stare down at the creaking beast. Lifted the lid to idly tap a finger against the ivory. Three notes, discordant and out of place in the silent house. He closed it again.

    The hum of a motor from outside signaled her return and he stepped to the kitchen, standing paralyzed as he watched the door. There would be no token groceries this time, no dry-cleaning or fresh flowers for the table or any one of a number of convenient lies to explain away a too long absence. He was not supposed to be home yet.

   He found himself talking as soon as the door opened, mouth running independent of his brain, babbling his reason for the early homecoming, trivialities about his day, talking and talking to fill the room with sound so that he would not have to hear another lie. And all the while he kept his eyes on her, on her face, on the way her eyes flickered between confusion and relief and even disappointment. But they never rose to meet his. As she moved to fill his glass, as she stepped in to kiss his cheek, her eyes looked past him, around him, through him. She didn't look at him. And it struck him in that moment that he could not recall the last time she had, even before the piano, before the long nights away, before the lies, there were always oceans behind those eyes.

    A sudden savage urge gripped him. He wanted to hit her. To slam his fist into her beautiful face, to twist his fingers in those copper curls and scream at her. Anything, anything to make her look at him, and see him. It was only a flash, and he felt sick afterward, reeling back, words stuttering to a stop. And she did look at him then, for a moment, concern on her face. “You ok?”

    “Fine. Need a cigarette. Be outside.” He fumbled for his coat, digging into pockets for the pack and the lighter. He could hear her footsteps follow him into the hall.

    “When did you start smoking again?” Irritation. Betrayal. Blame. How hypocritical of her. He didn't say that.

    “Few months.” Hand on the doorknob. Air. Air was what he needed.

    And he lost her again, eyes sliding off him, he was invisible as she turned back to the kitchen. “I don't want to be a widow, Tom.”

    His shoulders twinged, hunched, curling on himself as if hit by a cold wind. Every lie she'd ever told him.. that one hurt the most.

Author's Note

I've been debating adding another short bit at the end to tell more of Anna's side of things, but I'm torn. Part of me wants to give her more of a voice in the story and part of me feels that the piece works better with her voice muted and only really sensed through her interactions with the two men. What do you think?

Reviews

[Eloha]

I'd really like to read more of you.

[Marie]

The last line carries home the point of the story. You don't need to go beyond that.
I've been desperately trying to find someone who could write good stories. And I have.

[Southern Cross]

I like the interaction of the two men. It exposes her hold on each of them and explores her character deeper than she could reveal herself. Just my thoughts here..I thoroughly enjoyed.