Bridge of Clay(46)

The town was Settignano.

Or, “Read what it says about the Prisoners again.”

Page 265:

“They were wild and twisted—unfashioned, incomplete—but they were colossal, monumental anyway, and would fight, it seemed, for forever.”

“For forever?” She’d roll onto him and kiss his stomach; she’d always loved his stomach. “Is that a misprint, do you think?”

“No, I think he meant it. He’s gambling on us thinking it’s a mistake…imperfect, like the Slaves.”

“Huh.” She’d kiss and kiss again, across and over, up toward his ribcage. “I love it when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Fight for what you love.”



* * *



—

    But he couldn’t fight for her.

Or at least, not how she wanted.

To be fair, there was nothing malicious in Abbey Dunbar, but as time widened and the good moments shortened, it became clearer, each day, that their lives were going separate ways. More to the point, she was changing, he stayed the same. Abbey never took aim or attacked him. It just got slippery, the hanging on.

Looking back, Michael remembered movies. He remembered times when the entire Friday-night cinema laughed, when he laughed, and Abbey sat watching, unfazed. Then, when the whole brigade of moviegoers was dead silent, Abbey would smile at something private, just her and the screen. If only he could have laughed when she did, maybe they’d have been okay— But he stopped himself.

That was ridiculous.

Movies and plastic popcorn don’t increase the chances of decimation, do they? No, it was more a compilation: a greatest hits of two people who’d traveled as far as they could together, to fade away.



* * *



—

Sometimes she had friends over from work.

They had clean fingernails.

Both women and men.

It was a long way from construction zones.

Michael was painting a lot in the garage, too, so his hands were either powdery or stubbed with color. He drank coffee from the kettle, they drank it from machines.

As for Abbey, her hair was increasingly cropped, her smile business-like, and in the end, she was brave enough to leave. She could touch his arm like years gone by, with a comment or a quip. Or joke and wink and smile at him—but each time was less convincing. He knew very well that later on, they’d be in separate states of the bed.

“Good night.”

“I love you.”

    “Love you, too.”

Often, he’d get up.

He’d go to the garage and paint, but his hands were so damn heavy, as if caked, cemented in. Often, he took The Quarryman, too, and read pages like a kind of prescription; each word to ease the pain. He would read and work till his eyes burned, and a truth beside, then on him.

There was he and Buonarroti.

One artist in the room.



* * *



—

Maybe if they’d argued.

Maybe that’s what was missing.

Some volatility.

Or maybe just more cleaning up.

No, it was pure and simple fact: Life was pointed elsewhere for Abbey Dunbar now, and a boy she once loved, behind her. Where once he painted her and she loved him for it, now it seemed only a lifeline. He could capture her laughing over the dishes. Or standing by the sea, with surfers at her back, post-wave. They were still lovely and rich, those paintings, but where once there was only love in them, now it was love and neediness. It was nostalgia; love and loss.



* * *



—

Then one day, she stopped, midsentence.

She whispered, “It’s a shame…”

The suburban almost-quiet.

“It’s such a shame, because…”

“What?”

As was becoming more common, he didn’t really want to hear, and he turned his back on the answer. He was at the kitchen sink.

She said, “I think maybe you love the painted version of me more…you paint me better than I really am.”

The sun glittered. “Don’t say that.” He died right then, he was sure of it. The water was grey, sort of overcast. “Don’t ever say that again.”



* * *



—

    When the end came, she told him in the garage.

He stood with paintbrush in hand.

Her bags were packed.

He should keep all the paintings.

Her expression apologetic, as he asked his futile questions. Why? Was there someone else? Did the church, the town, the everything mean nothing?

But even then, when fury should have ruled over sense, it was only threads of sadness that hung from the rafters. They blew and swung like cobwebs, so fragile and, ultimately, weightless.

A gallery of Abbeys stood behind them, watching the whole scene: She laughed, she danced, she absolved him. She ate and drank and spread herself, naked, on the bed; all while the woman in front of him—the unpainted one—explained. There was nothing he could say or do. A minute’s worth of sorries. For all of it.

And his second-last plea was a question.

“Is he waiting out front?”

Abbey closed her eyes.