“Do you want some coffee, Ruth?” Sarah asked.
Ruth shook her head, not opening her eyes. “It would just keep me awake. I haven’t been sleeping much this last week. I’m so tired. .”
“Dinner? Saul made pot roast for lunch — there’s plenty left.”
“No, I’m OK. Just bed, if that’s all right?”
“That’s fine, dear. Come on — I’ll get you settled.”
Ruth hugged Saul once more, and then got up from the sofa. Sarah led her into the guest bedroom, turned down the sheets, closed the drapes while Ruth pulled off her clothes and slid into bed. She had always slept nude, Sarah remembered. Sarah came back to the bed, and stood over it, hesitating. Ruth looked exhausted, with a tinge of grey to her skin.
“Do you want me to sit with you a bit? Just until you fall asleep?”
“No, no — I’ll be OK.” Ruth reached out, took Sarah’s hand in hers and squeezed, gently. “Thank you.”
Sarah leaned over and kissed her gently twice — once on the cheek, once, briefly, on her lips. “It’s nothing, love. Sleep. Sleep well.” She stood up then, turned out the light, and slipped out the door, closing it behind her.
They sat at the kitchen table, cups of coffee nestled in their hands, not talking. Just being together. Sarah remembered the day when she realized that she would rather be silent with Saul, than be talking with anyone else. They hadn’t met Ruth yet, or Daniel; they’d only known each other a few weeks. They’d just finished making love on a hot July night and were lying side by side on the bed, not touching. It was really too hot to cuddle, too hot for sex. They had both ended up exhausted, lying on the bed with waves of heat rolling off their bodies. Saul was quiet, just breathing, and Sarah lay there listening to his breaths, counting them, trying to synchronize them with her own. She couldn’t quite manage it, not for long. Her heart beat faster, her breath puffed in and out of her. But being there with him, breathing was a little slower and sweeter than it would normally be. Being with him, not even touching, she was happier than she’d ever been.
Sarah finished her coffee. “I’m going to go to bed,” she said. “Coming?”
“I’ll be there in a minute. I’ll just finish the dishes.”
Sarah nodded and rose from the table, leaving her coffee cup for him to clear. She straightened a few books in the living room as she walked through it, gathered his sketches from the little tables and from the floor, piling them in a neat stack. She walked into the hall, and then paused. To her right was the hall leading to their bedroom. Straight ahead was the hall leading to the library, to the studio, and then to the guest room. She almost turned right, almost went straight to bed. But then she walked forwards down the long hall and, at the end of it, heard her. Ruth was crying again. Sarah stood there a while, listening.
When she came back to the bedroom, Saul was already in bed, waiting for her. Sarah stood in the doorway, looking at him. He lay half covered by the sheet, his head turned, looking at her. She knew what would happen if she came to bed. She could tell by looking at him, by the way he looked at her. He would pull her close, and kiss her forehead and eyes and cheeks. He would run his hands over her soft body; he would touch her until she came, shuddering in his arms.
“Ruth’s crying.” It was harder than she’d expected, to say it. It had been a long time.
His eyes widened, the way they only did when he was very surprised, or sometimes during sex, when she startled him with pleasure.
“You should go to her.” That was easier to say. Once the problem was set, the conclusion was obvious. Obvious to her, at any rate.
Saul swung himself slowly out of bed, pulled on a pair of pants. He didn’t bother with a shirt. “You’ll be all right?” It was a question, but also a statement. He knew her that well, knew that she wouldn’t have raised the issue if she weren’t sure. He trusted her for that. Still, it was good of him to check, one last time. It was one of the reasons she loved him so. She nodded, and collected a kiss as he went by.
Sarah let herself out of the house, walking barefoot. It was a little cold, but not too much. The rain had stopped some time ago, and the garden was dark and green in the moonlight. She wandered through the garden — its neat paths, its carefully tended borders. Saul took care of the vegetables; she nurtured the flowers and herbs. At this time of year, little was blooming, but the foliage was deep and rich and green. Winter was a good time for plants in Oakland; it was the summer’s heat that parched them dry, left them sere and barren. She carefully did not approach the east end of the house; even through closed windows and shades, she might have heard something. She also refrained from imagination, from certain memories. If she had tried, Sarah could have reconstructed what was likely happening in that bedroom; she could have remembered Ruth’s small sounds, her open mouth, her small breasts and arching body. Saul’s face, over hers. She could have remembered, and the memory might have been sweet, or bitter, or both. But she was too old to torment herself that way. There was no need.
Instead, she put those thoughts aside, and walked to the far west end of the garden, where the roses grew. It was the one wild patch in the garden, a garden filled with patterns, where foxglove and golden poppy and iris and daffodil, each in their season, would walk in neat rows and curves, in designs she and Saul had outlined. But the roses had been there when they bought the house, the summer after Ruth had left. Crimson and yellow, white and peach, orange and burgundy — the roses grew now in profusion against the western wall, trimmed back only when they threatened the rest of the garden. Wild and lovely. She had built a bench to face them, and Saul often sat on it, sketching the roses. Sarah liked to sit underneath them, surrounded by them, drowning in their sweet scent. She went there now, sitting down in the muddy ground, under the vines and thorns.
There were no roses in January, but they’d come again, soon enough. She’d be waiting for them. In the meantime, it was enough to close her eyes, feel the mud under her toes, and remember Daniel. The way he laughed, bright and full. The way he would return to a comment from a conversation hours past. The way he had touched her sometimes, so lightly, as if she were a bird. The scent of him, dark and rich, like coffee in a garden, after rain.
The Gift
Lewis DeSimone
Jesse would have burned the dinner if I hadn’t been there to save it.
“What are you doing?!” I cried, opening the oven door and pulling out the rack. He had set the temperature to 450?F; I quickly turned it down and left the door open for a while to cool it off. Fortunately, the lasagne had been inside for only a few minutes, but already it was bubbling around the edges and some of the cheese on top had started to brown, long before the rest of the dish was even warm.
“You have to handle these things delicately,” I said. “The lasagne will be done when it’s done.” The oven thermometer now read 375?F, so I slid the rack gently back in and closed the door.
“You’re just anxious,” Jesse said. He was pulling silverware out of the drawer — the good stuff, the set he’d inherited from his mother. Clutching yellow linen napkins in his other hand, he stepped around the counter and began to set the table.
“I am not anxious,” I told him. I was still fingering the potholder, looking for a safe place to put it among the clutter.
It was the kitchen, with its Mary Tyler Moore window, that had sold me on the apartment. Jesse had been more partial to the view of the Charles River from the living room. When I was a kid, I’d fantasized about living in Minneapolis, imagining that all its apartments had those shutters over the kitchen counter, shutters I would throw open to converse with my guests as I whipped up dinner. But this was not Minneapolis, and reality was not a sitcom. Since moving in, we’d had surprisingly few dinner parties. Kim was our first guest in months.