What's Mine and Yours(80)
He paid in cash, the multicolored fan of euros still clipped inside his wallet. The taxi was climbing back uphill when the door to the brick ranch house clattered open, and there stood Noelle. She was mostly undressed, in a silver camisole and shorts, and a fat flannel robe that didn’t belong to her, or hadn’t the last time he had seen her. It had been nearly eight weeks, the longest they’d gone without each other. It was unnerving to look at her, to see how familiar every inch of her was, even from across the yard: the hair piling on her shoulders, the silhouette of her thighs, even the way she was twisting her lips into a frown, holding her arms close to her chest.
He strode toward her, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He had missed her. He loved her, and she still loved him. That would be enough to see them through.
She didn’t move from the porch, didn’t uncross her arms, not even when he reached her, wrapped himself around her. He kissed her cheeks. She was stiff and still, didn’t say anything as she opened the screen door and led him into the house.
It was warm and bright inside, the windows facing the woods and the lawn, the crop of crimson and orange leaves on the grass. The remains of breakfast were on the table, different items of women’s clothing flung around the house on hooks, the backs of chairs. It was ordinary and disorderly, more inviting than anywhere he’d been in weeks.
“What are you doing here?” she asked finally. She flung herself down at the table, where she lifted a piece of toast to her mouth, bit the edge, took a long time to swallow it down.
Nelson explained that he’d spoken to Hank; he had told him she wasn’t at the hospital this morning and given him the address. Noelle looked at him, bewildered. She’d never known him to be one to contact her family, let alone Hank.
“I thought it better not to involve your sisters. If I told them, they might have warned you, and you’d have left.”
“Don’t I have that right? This is bad timing. My mother is dying, maybe.”
“How are you feeling?”
Noelle laughed. “A feelings question? From the man who never lets himself feel a thing?”
Nelson refused to take the bait and said nothing, although she was wrong about him. He could feel, and feel, and feel, even when it did no good, even when there was no bottom.
Noelle went on. “It was a lot easier enduring my family when I knew you and I had our own. I could tell myself we’d made something different. It was like having a back door.” She poured herself orange juice from the carton. He reached for her trembling hand.
“Nells,” he said.
“I’m surprised you’re here. I know how you feel about North Carolina.”
“I came for us.”
Soon, she was crying, and Nelson wiped her eyes with his fingers. It was a little thing, but the gesture made her cry harder. He caught her fingers and kissed them, and she crawled into his lap. He held her as she wept, and then she was kissing him, and Nelson was kissing her back. She was frantic, quick, and Nelson helped her to slow down. His tongue touched hers, and she tasted of the morning, her sleepiness, the sour juice. Her shampoo, her lotion were different, but they weren’t enough to have changed her smell, the one he knew: the composite of her scalp and her skin, the particular funk of her sweat. She wrapped her legs around his waist, wet his face with her tears. He picked her up, with effort, and carried her down the hall. She shed her robe, her top, and directed him into the bedroom where he could lay her down.
They didn’t discuss it; they didn’t use anything. He was still her husband, she his wife. They moved together for a short time. It was all liquid and soft muscle, a warm mess. He kept his eyes open, and Noelle’s face was somber, focused. He wanted to make her feel better, to offer what pleasure he could. He came with a groan, and Noelle started crying again. He wanted to keep going, and he said so, but she rolled away from him and covered her face with her hands.
He tried to lift her fingers away to kiss her. “I’m sorry,” he said. She stared at the ceiling and shook, and, eventually, he resigned himself to shut up, lie beside her, and let her sob. It wasn’t easy. He could sense her feelings creeping into him. They were indistinct, amorphous, and they seeped like a poison. He closed his eyes and breathed. Eventually, her crying subsided to hiccups, and she turned to him.
“I’ve been trying to find an answer. I won’t let this be one of the things in life that you just never understand. Is it because you never got the chance to be with other women? Were we too young? Did you get tired of our life? What was it?”
Nelson tried to shush her, and Noelle snapped.
“I don’t need to be calmed down. I need you to answer me.”
“It just happened. I let it happen.”
“That’s not good enough. I deserve the truth.”
An old line returned to her, but she couldn’t place it—Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning.
“It felt good to be wanted. There’s nothing more to it.”
“Bullshit. I’ve always wanted you.”
She was right, in a way, but Nelson couldn’t see the good in explaining anymore. Jemima had wanted him in a way he found irresistible. She wanted him because of whom she suspected he might become. She wanted his name, a story for her life about the weeks she’d spent in Paris with the artist, the photographer. She was a mirror to reflect the image he had fashioned for himself. With Noelle, he couldn’t be anyone else. He was always himself, in focus, too clear. It was sweet, but it wasn’t titillating. Is that what she wanted to hear?