Pretend

She knows the routine. She expects the routine.

She’s home from work, hanging up her coat, turning the heat pump on, when she gets his call.

“Hey, look, this work thing…”

‘This work thing’ again: is the worst of this what a cliché it is? That he can’t even be bothered with something more original and convincing. Because what does it matter? We’re all going to dance. We’re all going to play pretend like it’s the only game in town.

“Hey, I’m really sorry, love.”

“It’s all right. I haven’t started dinner.”

“I’ll be home as soon as I can…”

She waits. Just waits.

“… but don’t wait up or anything. It could be a while.”

She thinks about asking him for details. Just to make him work for it a little bit harder. Just to give herself that sliver of satisfaction that she’s not making it easy for him.

But of course, she is.

She sits down on the couch, pulls her legs up to her chest, thinks about turning the light on but doesn’t, not quite yet. She knows she has a choice. This elephant in the room, in their bed, in her life; shoving its way into her soul. She has the choice of confronting it, naming it, shaming it. She can see the door from where she’s huddled and she knows she could use it, or she could make him use it. Yeah, that would be better. He’s the transgressor, so why should she be the one out in the cold? And imagine, if he brought her here, to this house, to their house and moved her in? No. He’d be the one with his bags packed.

But here’s the thing. His bags are on the top shelf in the cupboard in the bedroom. His clothes are all hanging up there, and folded in their drawers. She could propel herself off that couch right now and start packing them. She could have them ready for him when he comes home smelling of her, radiating her, late and a little dishevelled and full of lies.

She could.

Yes, she could…

And always, never, she doesn’t move from her seat.

#

Dinner was beautiful. Dinner was at a fancy restaurant, but a quiet place, a bit out of town. Unspoken: somewhere they’re not likely to be seen and caught out. In the first heady days that’d seemed fun, it’d seemed novel, cloak-and-dagger. It’d made her feel as if this was an adventure she was setting out on.

That had palled over time.

Even in her slinky black dress, with the glass beads and sequins making it shine under the lights, her big hoop earrings, her hair sliding down over her shoulder blades, even in all this costume, in this glittering place, she still felt dirty, dishonest. But the food was amazing; and he talked animatedly, poured her wine, complimented and teased her, and certainly made her feel gratuitously wanted. Her reached over and took her hand and said all the right words, looked into her eyes, worked the old magic.

They ended up again in a hotel room. Fancy and convoluted. The sheets soft and silky. He was all energy in bed; and her doubts evaporated briefly under his touch, with the heating of their skin, with how fierce and real it seemed to get. She could pretend that she was his all and everything, that she held his world in her hands, that her eyes were the only sight he ever wanted to see again.

Pretend… like he really loved her.

She lays on her side, head on two thick pillows, waiting.

He says, his hand sliding over her shoulder, “I really do have to go.”

“I know.”

“I wish I could stay.”

“It’s all right.”

“I would… but how do you explain working late all night? Past dawn? I’d rather stay with you. I would.”

Do you really think…? No, no point in telling him what he already knows. He’d rather keep on dancing. Eating his cake and finding it still there on his plate. It can’t be less work, so is he just a coward? Masquerading to himself as a kind man? Hedging his bets?

She could say it. She could say: choose.

Or she could say: let’s not do this anymore.

She doesn’t. She dances too.

When he’s gone, she looks over at the indentation, the ruffled covers, where he’d lain just minutes ago. She listens to the door click, and the footsteps moving away down the hall. She wraps her arms around herself, armouring her chest. She imagines beside her, not this hole, this empty space, but a warm body that will still be there in the morning, there for breakfast, for wedding bells, for a child or two, school plays, graduations, a little flower-moated unit in a retirement village one day.

She reaches for that image and feels just the air.

picture credit/discredit: author's own work