House to House
by Nathan Leslie

1.

I want to immerse myself.  At this point in my life this is all I want—my body surrounded by water.  I bathe.  I swim in the pool for hours.  I surround myself with refreshment.  I am exhausted, drained.  Little is left but immersion.  No dust to dust—we are the stuff of the sea.  Only without it would we be firmament.

I spent my time on the hard ground, on concrete, asphalt, tile, marble.  Each night my feet ached.  I’ve always had flat feet, so it was worse for me than Ketta.  I wore supports, special corrective shoes with built-in arches.  Each night I would ice down my feet.  One o’clock in the morning I’d collapse in the Barcalounger, feet dunked in buckets of ice.  It was my only relief.

Ketta and I owned a local franchise of seafood restaurants.  Three locations.  Ketta ran the catering end.  I was in and out of each every day.  No vacations.  No breaks.  Every day I’d supervise, oversee, assess, make sure the smooth operation remained so.  Every day but Christmas.  On Christmas I slept.  We worked ourselves ragged—no time for children.

I’m on my back in the pool.  No flotation device.  No raft.  No noodle.  I’m a big man.  Six seven, three fifteen.  It’s easy to put the weight on surrounded by prime Angus every night.  Cream sauces.  Chocolate mousse.  It’s hot and humid.  Typical Virginia.  Perfect day for the pool.

The phone rings.  It’s my wife.  She wants to know what I want for dinner. 

“I was thinking tenderloin and asparagus.  Maybe some of that cracked wheat bread.  Some sorbet maybe?”

“That’s fine,” I say.  “Fine.”

“Your house or mine?”

“Yours is fine,” I say.

“7:00?”

“7:30.”

She hangs up.  When we bought into Meadow Haven we initially thought one house would be enough.  Made sense.  But the more we thought about it, the more we liked the concept of adjoining homes.  We could each have our own space.  Our own yard.  Our own rooms, beds, kitchens, bathrooms.  After twenty-five years together we don’t need attached toilets.  Don’t need to watch each other take a shit in twin toilets.  Don’t need to listen to each other snore.  We eat dinner together, talk everyday.  What else is there?

For dinner I bring the zinfandel.  My wife is a marvelous cook, all things considering, and she still somehow finds enjoyment in it.  After the restaurant years the smell of shrimp scampi is seared into my nostrils.  Can’t stand the sight or smell of food.  If I didn’t have to eat to survive I wouldn’t.  Personally I wish I could just pop a few nutrient pills, be done with it already.

We sit at the large mahogany dinner table Ketta inherited from her grandmother.  It seats twelve.  Ketta hasn’t expressed any regrets.  We have nephews and nieces for her maternal instincts, and much less in the way of obligations—fiscal or emotional or otherwise.

“This is excellent tenderloin,” I say.  A thin trickle of blood leaks from it onto the white porcelain.  I dab up the blood with the bread.  Eat it.  With my knife I slice the asparagus into small cylinders.  The tarragon sweetens everything.

“Thank you,” Ketta says.  “I try.”

“You do more than try,” I say.  She is still a graceful woman.  Ketta knows this to be true.  Her posture gives her away.

“There is something,” she says.  Ketta crisscrosses her utensils on the china. 

“Yeah,” I say.  I skewer asparagus.

“Why don’t we try again out here.”  I know already where this will lead.  We’ve talked about this in the abstract—a creperie, maybe a frozen yogurt stand.  Something relatively small, manageable.  She wants to pursue it, stay active.  I’m done.  I’ve told her I’m done, and I’m not willing to be undone.

“Forget it,” I say.  “You can, but you’d have to fly solo.  I’d honestly rather adopt a Chinese baby than work again.”  We have the money to live our lives in comfort, but Ketta is a go-getter, always has been.  She’s restless.  She can’t leave well enough alone.  She is unable to relax.

“I wouldn’t,” Ketta says.  She lifts her utensils, slices into her tenderloin.  Beneath her calm façade the lines in Ketta’s brow are heavy.  How many of these am I responsible for, I wonder.  Otherwise her features are fine.  High cheekbones, tender skin, slight cluster of freckles on the bridge of her nose.  Ketta’s grayish blue eyes are piercing.  Always have been.  Always will be.

2.

Rather than pursue my wants, we leave it be.  We always have.  In catering I knew I was, in some respects, second fiddle, if not third.  Still, what could I do?  Adam seemed content; who was I to ruin it for him?  My petty individual wants and needs have, to me, always remained of less importance.

We kissed, embraced, and Adam walked down the front walk and through the yard toward his home.  We agreed this would be a way in which we could relieve our fondest memories—our courtship, when all was potential, when the entirety of our time together stretched before us, a clean and wide plain.  Before we shared the space of common domesticity.  We were excitable then.  We attacked each other with ferocity.  Sneaking around our parents’ basements, we were passionate, ripe with mutual enthusiasm.  In my home I spend much of my time in memory recalling the past glories.  The present seems so utterly desiccated in comparison.

My greatest regret is that we cut off our lineage.  The fact that we failed to have children isn’t a moral tragedy.  We have found ourselves to be relatively content despite them.  Nevertheless, this is a case where I stunted my own interests to the extent that I couldn’t see my own way out of the trap.  Initially I told Adam I didn’t want children either—to please him, to give him what he wanted or what I thought he wanted—a life devoted to accomplishment, to business, to success.  Then I believed my own statements; I found it difficult to tell the difference between my own actual wants and my interpretation of his. 

I watched my husband disappear beyond the edge of siding, and my heart dissolved.  I knew I was only a year or two from menopause, but it seemed as if it were twenty years past.  I could imagine him over there slumped in the sectional, flickering images on the screen bleeding into the walls.  When the loneliness gets to me I pour myself a Long Island Iced Tea or two.  It cuts the pain.  That night I drank three.  I don’t recall losing consciousness, but when I awoke I held a pillow to my chest, clutching the upholstery.

We all cultivate hidden causes.  In this I am no different from the rest.  In my catering years I had to find some solace.  Otherwise it was simply too much.  Each weekend we would cater a wedding, sometimes two.  The work for each one would really begin the day after the previous event.  Though I enjoyed the creation itself, I wasn’t as adept at the actual event.  Each weekend I found myself surrounded by merriment; each weekend I found myself smiling, serving up stuffed mushrooms, stuffed peppers, stuffed lobster, stuffed shrimp.

Brian was a savior.  At the time we met he was just out of college, an actor working on the side.  He was lithe, goofy, energetic.  When the acting gigs dried up, catering became his life.  It was simply what he enjoyed doing.  As an actor he had the ability to find himself in the role he played—the happy caterer.  This made each weekend that much more pleasant. 

Though I never once touched Brian intimately, I could have.  It would have been easy.  I simply made a rule forbidding sex.  My affairs were of the heart only.  This was enough for me:  my heart would race at the mere thought of him.  I would grow disconsolate if Brian couldn’t work a weekend with us.  This was simply between us.  Adam never knew (if there was anything to know), and only met Brian once or twice.  I took care of the hiring and firing on the catering side.

There were others, of course, but none quite like Brian; none possessed Brian’s grace or liveliness.  As I hear myself propose the creperie once again I know what my real need is.  Adam does too, most likely.  I don’t ask him a thing about the dark cars parked in his driveway, the strange bras, the perfumed scarves.

When Brian left I considered divorcing Adam, following Brian to Miami.  It was an absurd thought.  Instead, I took Brian out to a Punjabi restaurant before he departed, treating him to a lavish meal: Chaamp Masala, Murgh Makhan, Mattar Panner.  We stared at each other for hours, our knees pressed together.  We listened to the night ragas.

“You are the love of my life,” I told him.

He kissed me on the forehead, sending shivers through me.  He carved out a hole in me and I have yet to fill it.

The next morning I wake up at seven to take my morning walk through Meadow Haven.  I frequently find myself with an urge to travel—to circle the globe.  Adam never cared for it.  For now I walk up Placid Pond to the end, then up to Boysenberry, and back down Meadow Haven toward Moonlight Road.

There are only so many models—not that I possess any knowledge of architecture.  I pass the yards and the shrubs and the basketball hoops and the driveways and the roofs.  I see the fence looming behind it all.  Some might feel protected by it, I’m not sure.  A fine line lies between protection and imprisonment. 

This morning is especially quiet.  Newspapers rest in driveways.  Cars are still parked in lots.  Aside from the few chirping birds, it is all-but-silent.  It’s then I realize today is Labor Day.  National holiday.  It’s easy for me to miss these things.  I am easily distracted.

When I loop back onto Moonlight I walk right past Adam’s home.  I notice his grass is a bit patchy and dry.  A cloud of gnats hovers over his azaleas.  This is the life we lead.  For better or worse, our paths run parallel.  Always have, always will.

Nathan Leslie’s six books of fiction include Madre, Reverse Negative, and Drivers.  Nathan’s stories, essays, and poems have appeared in many literary magazines including Boulevard, Shenandoah, North American Review, and Cimarron Review. He is fiction editor for The Pedestal Magazine and series editor for the forthcoming Dzanc Books’ The Best of the Web 2008 anthology. His website is www.nathanleslie.com. He lives in Northern Virginia.

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