Speaker 1: At this hours turns the glass of our studio windows
Speaker 1: into a blurry mirror. On clear evenings, I can see
Speaker 1: down to the sidewalk, count the CAB's nose, to bumper,
Speaker 1: a long bed foot track, the pulsing red of break lights.
Speaker 1: It's soothing mostly, but to night it's darker than usual, fogy,
Speaker 1: maybe a little rainy. The streets painted in those slick
Speaker 1: blue and yellow streaks. You can only get into city
Speaker 1: this old. Our living room smells like old coffee, and
Speaker 1: the lasagna are reheated and touched two hours ago. The
Speaker 1: light in the hallway of our brandstone is weak in orange,
Speaker 1: the kind that makes you see your own expression, nervous
Speaker 1: and a little older than I want to admit. Never Winder,
Speaker 1: I'm in our front studio, which is basically the living room.
Speaker 1: Become endeared for work when we realize neither of us
Speaker 1: could be productive with the desk by the bed. I've
Speaker 1: got the big eye mac Hamming my favorite bat at
Speaker 1: molskine open to half sketched floor or pattern for a
Speaker 1: wedding invitation at stew Monday, I keep looking up, not
Speaker 1: at the screen but out My pencil's been in my
Speaker 1: hand for twenty minutes, but the page hasn't changed. I
Speaker 1: catch myself judling the same cover over and over without
Speaker 1: noticing Eavans's chair is empty. Of course he's late again.
Speaker 1: Pottery night stretches long when you're the only one waiting
Speaker 1: for it to end. Our neighborhood is one of those old,
Speaker 1: broken unclives that still pretends its gentrification can by accident.
Speaker 1: Mules everywhere, vegan bickery squeezed up against old polish dellas,
Speaker 1: garden sprouting from fire escapes. I love it in the
Speaker 1: early evening, everyone in motion, musical leaking through open windows.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be calming, safe, luminous, But sitting here,
Speaker 1: listening to the creeks overhead, I feel the ache of
Speaker 1: something missing him, maybe poor just us. When I finally
Speaker 1: do spot him, he's not alone. I don't see another person,
Speaker 1: but he's talking to someone. He's outside on the stoop,
Speaker 1: his phone pressed to his face, head tipped forward like
Speaker 1: he's sharing a seeker joke. He laughs, then types something,
Speaker 1: laughing again, oblivious to me watching through the reflection blurred glass.
Speaker 1: His backpack slumps at his feet, and something bright purple
Speaker 1: another mug peaks from the top I wait. I try,
Speaker 1: I really try not to jump at the sound of
Speaker 1: the front door, but I do. He comes in, smelling
Speaker 1: like clay and rain, hair flattened under his cap. His
Speaker 1: cheeks are red, maybe from the cold, made from running,
Speaker 1: but he is a breeding heavily. Our eyes meet. He
Speaker 1: moves to hang his jacket as I close my laptop.
Speaker 1: Without a word, he starts before I can say anything.
Speaker 1: Dinner roun late again. Sorry we lost track of time.
Speaker 1: Everyone was there and afterward occummants does to help with
Speaker 1: clean up. She's got nu glaizes it's a mess. His
Speaker 1: tone tries to stay light, but skims past my glance.
Speaker 1: He holds out the mug like a surprise. Look, glazes
Speaker 1: didn't crack for once. I think this one's actually usable.
Speaker 1: I take it. The cup is beautiful, lopsided, but with
Speaker 1: the kind of intentional awkwardness arising bly spiral a thumb
Speaker 1: print someone's careful attention in the handle. He rattles on
Speaker 1: about how the instructor tease him for trimming too little
Speaker 1: off the foot. It's his seventh mug in three weeks.
Speaker 1: No set, all different, some delicate as eggshell, some are off,
Speaker 1: all marked with random initials. I smile a little, or
Speaker 1: at least try. It's really nice. This is for me
Speaker 1: or the communal shelf. He shrugs for us, for whoever
Speaker 1: needs it. He sits his bag by the coat rack,
Speaker 1: avoids my eyes. Sorry I missed dinner. Was it okay
Speaker 1: that I wasn't here? The question is designed to make
Speaker 1: me say yes. I nod. He drops his wallet and
Speaker 1: keys on the stand, like he does every night, only
Speaker 1: now I watch his hands just a beat too closely. Later,
Speaker 1: in our bedroom, he gets in the shower, humming something unfamiliar.
Speaker 1: I lie back and trace the lip of that new mug,
Speaker 1: feeling for a chip or flaw. It's still warm from
Speaker 1: his hands, smooth where the glaze hangs, thick and glossy,
Speaker 1: rough Were it thins? There's a small and even ridge
Speaker 1: by the handle, almost a signature, no, almost a fingerprint.
Speaker 1: Not his. Someone else is thum pressed there, guiding a
Speaker 1: ship that is now here in our home. He falls asleep,
Speaker 1: almost instantly, curled away from me. I lie awake, listening
Speaker 1: to the radiator hiss. The city alive beyond the glass,
Speaker 1: and the mug on the windows are catching the blow
Speaker 1: of the street lamp. Ordinary and unfamiliar, all at once.
Speaker 1: Most mornings, our apartment wakes in gentle overlap. We use
Speaker 1: the same coffee pot, the same jokes about deadlines and
Speaker 1: caffeine jitters. Evan was always up first, loping into the
Speaker 1: kitchen in whatever band tea showed. He's slept in, making
Speaker 1: too much noise, grinding beans. He likes to say he
Speaker 1: lives for the process of the smell, the word, the routine.
Speaker 1: I just need the caffeine. Some days we spill into
Speaker 1: work right at the kitchen table, but mostly we keep
Speaker 1: our temples sanctified, funds off jazz or ambient playlists. The
Speaker 1: west facing windows craft open for light dinner. There is
Speaker 1: an order we built together. We got married at twenty
Speaker 1: eight after two messy break ups with other people and
Speaker 1: a cross country moved to the city with nothing but
Speaker 1: up at folios and evans unshakable infectious obsession with design.
Speaker 1: We blended our lives like we blended our client lists,
Speaker 1: learned patients through fighting about fonts and foul backups. Calling
Speaker 1: ourselves the only creative agency were two last names and
Speaker 1: one bed one. We entertained people would marvel at how
Speaker 1: we traded design ideas over dinner how our voices would
Speaker 1: rise in playful argument about cunning or whether vintage kick
Speaker 1: pose to color palette was too obvious. They balance each
Speaker 1: other so well. Our friends said, you are that couple.
Speaker 1: I believed it now. I sometimes wonder if we used
Speaker 1: to lie about never lying. Our contract was always total honesty.
Speaker 1: Dog Ear advised all the udly truce before breakfast, and
Speaker 1: tangling the day's bad news before any one could sto
Speaker 1: If I noticed feedback on a draft, he'd miss. I'd
Speaker 1: nudge him. If he caught me falling behind on billing,
Speaker 1: he'd take over the spreadsheet for a month. Even our
Speaker 1: inside jokes about our old landlord or clients who couldn't
Speaker 1: choose between teal or blue, heave safety in them, a
Speaker 1: layer of knowing. But last summer was hard. Our business
Speaker 1: sload gigstaggered, and suddenly our temple felt more like a seal.
Speaker 1: Evan got prickly, folding inwards, procrastinating on even simple banners.
Speaker 1: I did what I always due, midliss, color coded Google candas,
Speaker 1: crunch numbers, recent inverses. I'm the steady one, he's the dreamer.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we thought he used to call his own mood slumps. Said,
Speaker 1: it was like being stuck on a carousel with all
Speaker 1: the lights out. I tried not to push, told myself,
Speaker 1: every one gets lost. I told him over and over
Speaker 1: to try something new, not to let fear culs fy
Speaker 1: his hands. When a flier through the pottery workship arrived
Speaker 1: in our mail books, a glossy print out advertising centering
Speaker 1: Play Creative re Birth, I clipped at his creen. Why not,
Speaker 1: I told him, do something with your hands. No deadlines,
Speaker 1: no screens make messes. You don't have to clean for
Speaker 1: a living. You always said you wanted to throw something
Speaker 1: on a wheel. Right. He grinned, Kiss me, let me
Speaker 1: pay the registration fee. Two weeks later he had Tuesday
Speaker 1: nights marked out for claith Airby. It was supposed to help,
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be for him, for us. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be the wife who cheered him on, who
Speaker 1: didn't bridle at the idea of independent hobbies and outside friends.
Speaker 1: I didn't expect to find myself months later, tracking the time,
Speaker 1: measuring in silence and mugs how far he was drifting.
Speaker 1: I never thought I'd be the insecure wine the first
Speaker 1: time I catch myself doubting. It's so small, barely a breath.
Speaker 1: It's a Thursday, not pottery night. Work's been slow for
Speaker 1: both of us. The calender mostly empty, except for a
Speaker 1: video call with a client who needs a low go
Speaker 1: tweak by the weekend. After the call, Evan checks his phone. Oh,
Speaker 1: the group is meeting for dinner. I might go. They
Speaker 1: want to try the new Mediterranean place near the center.
Speaker 1: I nod which one, I ask fingers on my laptop.
Speaker 1: He looks um. I think it's the place with the
Speaker 1: big mural, or it could beat up bistro on Fulton.
Speaker 1: We talked about both. He shrugs too quickly, slides his
Speaker 1: phone in his pocket. I can't remember him being so vague,
Speaker 1: but chalk it up to distraction. He's out until nearly midnight.
Speaker 1: The perfume on his shirt when he comes home is
Speaker 1: for or spicy, and definitely not mine. I don't say anything.
Speaker 1: I don't interrogate the facts. Ikovwarf is someone's cloud of scent.
Speaker 1: The restaurant could have been crowded, the air everywhere thence
Speaker 1: with overlapping colognes. But from that night I start watching
Speaker 1: tiny details the way. He's more distracted in our studio,
Speaker 1: thumb flicking over his phone under the desk, lips culling
Speaker 1: up a text I never see. He gets up fast
Speaker 1: when I walk in, guards his screen with the casual,
Speaker 1: which just cap means from Leo. He's more talkative about pottery,
Speaker 1: volunteering details, maybe too many sometimes, but never introduces me
Speaker 1: to any one at first. It's almost touching how determined
Speaker 1: he is to keep a part of his world peaceful
Speaker 1: in private. Sometimes I scold myself, almost cruelly, for the
Speaker 1: ugly thoughts. Wasn't I the one who pushed him to
Speaker 1: get out? All artists need community, don't they? He was
Speaker 1: soffocating in our daily loop, our deadlines and shrinking business,
Speaker 1: my relentless lists. I promised him freedom. I try to
Speaker 1: hold on to some pride. I tell myself to let
Speaker 1: him have secrets that aren't threats, joys that aunt betrayals,
Speaker 1: but the sense of something widening between us, or may
Speaker 1: be stretching, thinning until it threatens to break, will not
Speaker 1: leave me, no matter how I try. One afternoon and
Speaker 1: reorganizing the kitchen shelves a distraction from the empty inbus
Speaker 1: really and Evan walks in, dangling a set of keys
Speaker 1: on a hand made Linard Alva gave us these to
Speaker 1: use the center after hours. She says, real art happens
Speaker 1: after midnight, when you're too tired to be careful. He
Speaker 1: chuckles but doesn't say more. Who else is one? I ask?
Speaker 1: Opening a cabinet. He names three people I don't recognize,
Speaker 1: soft names, none of which have ever come up before.
Speaker 1: He brings home or pottery in the next few weeks
Speaker 1: of bowl glazed deep green, another mug studded with leaf shapes,
Speaker 1: played painted with delicate brennax. Each item is tagged for
Speaker 1: studio use, but sits on our shelves. I turn them
Speaker 1: in my hands late at night, noticing brush strokes he
Speaker 1: never seen in trass stood in before. Some pieces are heavier,
Speaker 1: almost professional, others light and oddly shaped, morelike test ballons
Speaker 1: than finished work. I try to learn the group's names, Ava,
Speaker 1: who leads, Mark who is hilariously uncoordinated, Sonia who talks
Speaker 1: about energy, floils a lot. He mentions them in passing,
Speaker 1: but never suggests I come along. Never even offers to
Speaker 1: host the group for dinner, the way we've done with
Speaker 1: other friends. When I joke maybe I'll join and see
Speaker 1: what all the fuss is about, Evan only laughs. He'd
Speaker 1: hate it. There's so much small talk, studio gossip. He'd
Speaker 1: be bored out of yer mind to trust me. His
Speaker 1: tone is light, but his eyes flick away as he
Speaker 1: says it. I tell myself not to take it personally. Still,
Speaker 1: when he's not looking, I took a card with the
Speaker 1: community centers and foe into my planner. One Friday, undep
Speaker 1: in edits on a client's website. When he comes in,
Speaker 1: dropping his bag with a tired sigh, I wave him over.
Speaker 1: Did ye get dinner with the crew? He nods, but
Speaker 1: again his answers are vague, circling the same words. We
Speaker 1: kept it simple, just some pizza hung out in the
Speaker 1: side room. Ava wants us to work on a big
Speaker 1: collaborative piece for the spring show. I catch a scent.
Speaker 1: I don't know, something laid over the clay wheat floral. Later,
Speaker 1: while sorting laundry, a slip of paper lines on my foot.
Speaker 1: A restaurant or seat the logo all and Boss Gold
Speaker 1: two entrees, whine for over a hundred dollars on a Thursday,
Speaker 1: claimed to be out with the whole group. The name
Speaker 1: is new to me. Miss Juliet across Town a place
Speaker 1: we've only walked past, always assuming it was too untouchable
Speaker 1: for date night. The time stamp is nearly nine of 'em.
Speaker 1: That night, he'd come home raving about cheap pete and
Speaker 1: the loudest, silliest crew ever. This time, I don't mention
Speaker 1: the discrepancy. I talk their receipt in my jacket pocket,
Speaker 1: unsure what the right move is. Is it possible he's lying?
Speaker 1: Is it possible I've created a story in my head
Speaker 1: that isn't there. The more I dwell, the more my
Speaker 1: own explanations start to sound feeble. Maybe some one else paid,
Speaker 1: Maybe there was a mix up. Maybe maybe things escalate
Speaker 1: not with a bang, but with the steady, direct drip
Speaker 1: trip of details that don't fit. He stopped sketching late
Speaker 1: at night, always alone in the studio of the door
Speaker 1: half closed, head funds on. Once, when I nudged the
Speaker 1: door open to ask about an invice, I glimpse a
Speaker 1: page full of f wominine faces, eyes closed, long lines
Speaker 1: curving into cheek and jaw. The pencil marks are soften new.
Speaker 1: I ask, who's your model? He startles alas, says it's
Speaker 1: from a dream, and turns the page. A few days
Speaker 1: later the pat gallery show. An acquaintance of Osnea, who
Speaker 1: freelances Victor art for a gaming company, pulls me aside
Speaker 1: by the punch bowl. So Evna been and rose The
Speaker 1: other morning he was with one of the community center instructors.
Speaker 1: I think tall Bob's hare. Never seen her smile so wide.
Speaker 1: She shrugs. Cute couple, you should join us sometime. I smile,
Speaker 1: manage a laugh inside my chest. Titans. That night I
Speaker 1: search for the pottery group online. Not then, not even
Speaker 1: a blurry Instagram grid of facebookalbum, just a generic community
Speaker 1: center page with a list of weekly workshops and a
Speaker 1: sign up form. No group photos, no testimonials, no trace
Speaker 1: of the projects Evan brings home. Is this normal? The
Speaker 1: studio is popular, there should be something anything. I ask
Speaker 1: him if I can stop by after work, bring some
Speaker 1: coffee to the group. Evan smiles but shakes his head.
Speaker 1: We're in the drawing room most of the night to night, dusty, crowded,
Speaker 1: not much room for guests. Maybe after the big shown me.
Speaker 1: The next day, I spot an open sketch be in
Speaker 1: the studio while tidying. He's left it on the drafting table,
Speaker 1: as if by accident. More faces, some familiar, some knot,
Speaker 1: all with full lips and a particular slant to the brows.
Speaker 1: I compare the faces to the muks stacked on our
Speaker 1: studio shelf. One bowl is etched with the tiny vy
Speaker 1: near the foot. I turn it over in my palm,
Speaker 1: the glaze catching the light in soft honeyed colors I've
Speaker 1: never seen ever use before. He's usually drawn to cobalt
Speaker 1: blue or bleeding red. These colors feel burrowed. We have
Speaker 1: a dinner scheduled with potential clients on a Tuesday, but
Speaker 1: the afternoon before, Evan says, I really can't miss pottery.
Speaker 1: This week off as demo in a new firing method,
Speaker 1: and I'll never get another chance. He suggests I handle
Speaker 1: the meeting Sola. I joke that he's choosing pots over clients,
Speaker 1: But my words aund brittle, defensive. He bristles, you are
Speaker 1: the one always telling me to prioritize my growth, not
Speaker 1: just hassle. Why are you making me feel guilty for this?
Speaker 1: It's like he want me stuck. His face hardens, and
Speaker 1: for a second I see not my partner but a stranger.
Speaker 1: We barely speak for the rest of the day. After
Speaker 1: I close the deal with the clients myself a small victory.
Speaker 1: I come home with Taiko, only to find Evan already
Speaker 1: in bed, half asleep, his phone lighting up with notifications.
Speaker 1: He silences with an impatient swipe. That night, our conversation
Speaker 1: derails into a tide looping fight about whether he's present enough,
Speaker 1: whether I'm too controlling, whether we're both chasing something we
Speaker 1: can't quite define any more. He apologizes in the morning,
Speaker 1: leaves a nerd on the table. Love, you promise I'm
Speaker 1: not running away, just trying to find a spark. Let
Speaker 1: me have this. I want to believe him. But when
Speaker 1: I'm cleaning up after our failed dinner, I find a
Speaker 1: note stuffed carelessly in the pocket of his jenes. The
Speaker 1: handwriting is careful, looping letters in deep blue ere A
Speaker 1: sense of form is so compelling. Next week just us, eh,
Speaker 1: I stare at until my vision blur is unable to
Speaker 1: process the meaning. Is it flotation? Is it a critique?
Speaker 1: Is it both? Our intimacy starts to falter. There are
Speaker 1: more failed attempt at connection. Sex fizzles, replaced by lawn
Speaker 1: cold silences. He's tired, always sculpting until his bones ache.
Speaker 1: I ask him gently one night. If he's happy, he
Speaker 1: kisses my forehead in silence. The reassurance doesn't reach my heart.
Speaker 1: Three days after the note discovery, I finally raise the subject.
Speaker 1: We're cleaning the studio, sweeping up a raiser's shavings and
Speaker 1: empty coffee cups, trying to reclaim some order. I reach
Speaker 1: across the table and put the note between us. Who
Speaker 1: is eh? I ask? Evans's face goes slack for a second,
Speaker 1: but quickly reshapes itself. Oh right, that's from Ava. She
Speaker 1: writes those kinds of notes to everyone. She's obsessed with feedback.
Speaker 1: Cart' schoolhab trust me totally harmless. She leaves has stucker
Speaker 1: to the gum for half the group. He goes on
Speaker 1: painting av as Kirki a joker, someone who teases all
Speaker 1: her students, especially those struggling. I weighed his explanation. It
Speaker 1: could be true, maybe I'm projecting maybe the evidence hearts
Speaker 1: up only because I want it to. He senses my
Speaker 1: hesitation and says, with a mixture of exasperation and winded pry,
Speaker 1: ye know what. Come to the next show and tell
Speaker 1: meet every one I want you to see. I'm not
Speaker 1: hiding anything. Please. His openness so sudden and certain deflate
Speaker 1: to me. I apologize, it's us. Things have felt off,
Speaker 1: and I he stops me genuinely gentle for the first
Speaker 1: time in weeks. Hey, I get it. Bart brain takes
Speaker 1: over and I forget everything else. I'm sorry if I
Speaker 1: made you feel left out. The Show and Tell is
Speaker 1: three nights later. I put on my favorite green dress,
Speaker 1: determined to leave all my suspicions at the door. The
Speaker 1: community center is bright and humming with people. Av is
Speaker 1: real tall in overalls, her hair in a neat bob,
Speaker 1: laughing too loudly at almost everything. There is no awkwardness,
Speaker 1: at least not between her and Evan. She's equally affectionate
Speaker 1: with all the students, touching shoulders as she circles the
Speaker 1: dis ebled group. People demonstrate the mags and bowls. Everyone
Speaker 1: roops each other about failed glazes. Some one drops a
Speaker 1: plate and the whole group groans in unison. Tis why
Speaker 1: in store bought cookies? The unmistakable whiff of burnt clay
Speaker 1: in the air. No signals passed between Evan and Ovida.
Speaker 1: I can detect nothing over it, nothing that says affair
Speaker 1: or evening rendezvous. At one point, Ava waves me over.
Speaker 1: You must be the infamous studio half. She's cheerful. I
Speaker 1: keep saying, Evan should bring photos of your work. The
Speaker 1: two of you must make an unstoppable team. Her attention
Speaker 1: veers away, just as quickly, replaced by organizing a group
Speaker 1: photo and recounting the story of evans first failed call pot.
Speaker 1: By the end of the night, I'm unsteady with a
Speaker 1: strange relief. May be all I needed was transparency. Maybe
Speaker 1: I made something from nothing. Evan is attentive, handed the
Speaker 1: small of my back as we leave, whispering see no intrigue,
Speaker 1: just a bunch of weird adults making lumpy things. I
Speaker 1: try to believe it. For a few days, I mostly do.
Speaker 1: I work in the studios, shoulder to shoulder with Evan.
Speaker 1: He's lighter, more openly affectionate. I decide to ignore the
Speaker 1: last few weeks, chalk it up to paranoia at the
Speaker 1: stress of working and living so tightly woven together. Then
Speaker 1: at one thirteen a m. The following Friday, I receive
Speaker 1: an anonymous text sawyer husband with avat to. I ask
Speaker 1: about closing time. The words haunt me, echoing in my
Speaker 1: veins as I stare at the ceiling that night, the
Speaker 1: blue glow of my frown burning into my eyes. Who
Speaker 1: would say that? What does closing time mean? The relief
Speaker 1: had felt collapses into a cold chop not of dread.
Speaker 1: Sleep is impossible. I reap every recent conversation, not just
Speaker 1: with O, but with Ava, with the group, with Nea
Speaker 1: at the gallery. What had I missed? Is someone jealous only?
Speaker 1: Was it just a cruel prank? Or is ill warning?
Speaker 1: I tried to scroll the feeling away, flicking through posts
Speaker 1: on the center's page, but nothing new appears. I search
Speaker 1: every permutation of pottery Group Brooklyn nov Studio and find
Speaker 1: only the same flat list of weaker schedules and vague
Speaker 1: testimonials that could have been written by an in ten
Speaker 1: years ago. I open my file with the receipts and
Speaker 1: cross reference each date and location. One matches the night
Speaker 1: Evan Cane back late, saying he'd stay too help scrub
Speaker 1: the wheels. That same date, Mason Julet's receipt stares up
Speaker 1: at me time stumped just after a dinner rush, two
Speaker 1: entrees and two glasses of wine the night I work
Speaker 1: late at the studio on my own. He'd claimed to
Speaker 1: be out with the whole crew again the not in
Speaker 1: my stomach titans. I tried gently probing. The next day,
Speaker 1: over breakfast, I ask a careful question, are you an
Speaker 1: over working on anything special lately? He reaches for the
Speaker 1: sugar composure intact well. She asks everyone to show her
Speaker 1: the progress at the end of class. She's a hands
Speaker 1: on teacher, you know. He doesn't elaborate. Day later, after
Speaker 1: another restless night, I call off Friendly to talk about
Speaker 1: an unrelated freelance gig. Before I hang up, I ask
Speaker 1: about the pottery class. He'd done a couple of one
Speaker 1: off workshops there years ago. Leo goes quiet Ovaha, she's passionate.
Speaker 1: I heard she sometimes gets really close with the people
Speaker 1: she sees promising. A couple of guys in my group
Speaker 1: actually joked about it. Not sure if it meant anything.
Speaker 1: You know how odd people can be. This a hesitation
Speaker 1: await behind his words, but he doesn't elaborate. I hang
Speaker 1: up more questions than answers. I now even our clients
Speaker 1: are noticing the distance. Evan forgets meetings, sends off half
Speaker 1: finished drafts, blames the creative process or needing more inspiration time.
Speaker 1: I pick up the slack, but underneath rage and fear
Speaker 1: spiral together, impossible to separate. One evening, I decide to
Speaker 1: do the unthinkable. I pat my tup bag with a
Speaker 1: half redesigned annual and wander down to the community center
Speaker 1: at a fifty p m. Half an hour before the
Speaker 1: last pottery class should end. I wait on the steps,
Speaker 1: close enough to blend in as a passerby, far enough
Speaker 1: to avoid being spotted through the glass. Students filter out
Speaker 1: in twos and threes at a ricksheg off the brick
Speaker 1: minutes drag on My heart pounds lotder than the traffic. Finally,
Speaker 1: only the dim pottery room light remains. I see Evan
Speaker 1: and Ov outside by side of the wheel, hands smeared
Speaker 1: with clay, faces close under the shadowed fluorescent clow. Their
Speaker 1: voices are low and urgent. Can't make out the words,
Speaker 1: but the intimacy hums like a current. I see OVA's
Speaker 1: hand rest for a moment on Evans's wrist. Her laugh
Speaker 1: is softer, not for great consumption. They clean up, side
Speaker 1: by side, moving in synchronized ease, a few feet from
Speaker 1: the window. I hear of his voice snake out. No
Speaker 1: one needs to know. Let's just keep it easy, our secret, right,
Speaker 1: Evan doesn't answer, or if he does, it's lost to
Speaker 1: the memour of the ventilation fans in the rattle of
Speaker 1: closing doors. I step slowly away, pulse rowing in my throat.
Speaker 1: Every story I told myself, the jerks, the invitations, the
Speaker 1: group energy dealt suddenly out of focus. Later, when I
Speaker 1: get home, I go through Evans things, not for proof exactly,
Speaker 1: but for confirmation. His sketch Brik bears more than just
Speaker 1: anonymous faces. Now A series of quick bowlder lends them
Speaker 1: mistakably resemble Alva, her chin, her bobbed hair cut. A
Speaker 1: row of glaze bowls, each labeled A's favorite in his phone,
Speaker 1: lodged under a string of dates. I see text saved
Speaker 1: under a nothing overly incriminating fragments about a kiln, time,
Speaker 1: a private critique, midnight glazes are but nothing to explain
Speaker 1: away a either. I can't sleep after that. I cycle
Speaker 1: through old emphasis, clant calendars, every detail of the past month.
Speaker 1: The accumulation of evidence, once scattered and ambiguous, now seems
Speaker 1: to crash together into a single glaring shape. Even away.
Speaker 1: Evan glances at me during meals. Guilty couchus confirms my doubts.
Speaker 1: Yet doubt is still not proof, not exactly. I think
Speaker 1: about confronting him, but the words feel leaden in my mouth,
Speaker 1: too blunt, too dangerous. I find myself imagining all the
Speaker 1: possible stories he could tell, that Alva is just lonely,
Speaker 1: that it isn't what it looks like, that he just
Speaker 1: needed someone to inspire him, that nothing ever really happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to ask any of it without
Speaker 1: losing something vital, unretrievable. So I wait, the most miserable
Speaker 1: feeling of all, while the city blazes night and day
Speaker 1: outside these windows, hoping for a sign, a slip away,
Speaker 1: to make the truth clear. Maybe deep down, part of
Speaker 1: me still wants to be wrong. The next day is
Speaker 1: a sadder day, and the sense of a nice pllutes everything.
Speaker 1: The city outside glows bright with promised street fair banners,
Speaker 1: straw up kids on scooters, gigs again to end the block,
Speaker 1: I try to force a cash or rhythm moatmeal, coffee,
Speaker 1: crakes his chicks for new gigs, but I keep scanning
Speaker 1: for any sign from Evan that things could return even
Speaker 1: a little to normal. He's all the chipper whistling while
Speaker 1: he checks emails in the studio. He starts a playlist
Speaker 1: without asking, fills the room with the loping beat of
Speaker 1: sun band we used to see live, and offers me
Speaker 1: the first poor from the chemics big plans to day.
Speaker 1: He scratches his chin purposely calm. I shake my head,
Speaker 1: curling my legs under me on the coach, just work.
Speaker 1: I might walk through the fair later, see what's on sale.
Speaker 1: I slammed him a look, aiming for casual overdoing anything
Speaker 1: special at pottery this week. His eyebrows flicker barely, but
Speaker 1: it's there. Maybe she mentioned a Rocke firing, but it's
Speaker 1: still up in the air. Why just curious, I say,
Speaker 1: turning the mug in my Hand's the latest pale gray
Speaker 1: subtle finger dimples all along the side. As I stare
Speaker 1: at its crooked elegance. I wonder when did I start
Speaker 1: viewing every piece he made as a coded message. He
Speaker 1: leaves after lunch, claiming he needs a walk to clear
Speaker 1: his head before walking on a new branding project for
Speaker 1: Tucker Truck client. I watch him go with an ache
Speaker 1: gathering under my ribs, frustration with myself nearly as sharp
Speaker 1: as my steadily hardening suspicion. For a while, I actually
Speaker 1: managed to get lost in my own design work, tweaking
Speaker 1: front spacing, obsessing over vector shapes, racing and redrawing the
Speaker 1: same trailing vine until my wrist hurts. Still, I keep
Speaker 1: catching myself glancing toward the window, as if waiting for
Speaker 1: the door to swing open and reveal Evan as some
Speaker 1: version of himself I can trust. By late afternoon, our
Speaker 1: share calendar pings pottery show submissions due in two weeks.
Speaker 1: It's a reminder of and set up. There's a little
Speaker 1: jeudle of a clay vase in a corner. I stare
Speaker 1: at his enthusiasm and feel unsteady, unsure. When his excitement
Speaker 1: turned from something I treasure to trigger for dread, I
Speaker 1: decide against reason to walk to the community center myself.
Speaker 1: It's busy, filled with families, juggling children, and arms full
Speaker 1: of art supplies the potteries do use over A bright
Speaker 1: light spill into the lobby and above the hum of
Speaker 1: a crowd. I hear this blatter of wet clay, laughter,
Speaker 1: snippets of music. I peer inside, trying to appear casual.
Speaker 1: Some other faces are familiar from the show, and tell
Speaker 1: most are not. A spot of a shouting encouragement her
Speaker 1: cheeksmeared with slip. Evan isn't there. My stomach knots his pottery.
Speaker 1: Family really is a family to someone, just not to me.
Speaker 1: On the way home, I buy a small bouquet at
Speaker 1: the flowerst All, lilies and daisies, the kind Evan always
Speaker 1: said made him think of old wedding photos and corner boatgas.
Speaker 1: I tell myself it's just to brighten the table. I
Speaker 1: do not say out loud that I wish the day
Speaker 1: would brighten to you. That night, we work in the studio,
Speaker 1: have our usual energy gone. Evan is quiet, absorbed, scratching
Speaker 1: cook pencil lines in his sketchbooks sometimes flip into a
Speaker 1: fresh page before I can see. Eventually, while I'm making
Speaker 1: tea in the kitchen, I hear him slip out of
Speaker 1: the neighborhood deli for air and snacks. Ten minutes turn
Speaker 1: into half an hour. When he returns, his hair is
Speaker 1: damp from drizzle, hands stuffed in his jacket. He deflects
Speaker 1: my questions about where he's been, announcing there was this
Speaker 1: weird busker outside the Delhi doing like love, ceramic fleet music,
Speaker 1: wild stuff. I nod, unwilling to test the lie and
Speaker 1: let it drop. I check his phone when ease in
Speaker 1: the shower. I hate myself for it, but the pull
Speaker 1: is of whelming. There's nothing obvious. Most the emails, some
Speaker 1: group chats, the occasional mean from Leo, except for a
Speaker 1: notification for me on signal a lock deck on next
Speaker 1: to the message, the snippet is innocuous. Late night ideas
Speaker 1: call me, but my pulse quickens paranoia or proof. That night,
Speaker 1: while Evan snores, I go online and search for more
Speaker 1: about Aarva. Eventually I find her old Instagram. It's full
Speaker 1: of monochrome portraits, snapshots of her studio shells, the same
Speaker 1: bowls and vases I've seen on our kitchin table, and
Speaker 1: a handful of coundied group shots. The captions are vague, florid,
Speaker 1: full of inside jokes I can't occur, closing time, crew
Speaker 1: shapes that reveal their makers, kim confidences, comments overflow with
Speaker 1: hearts and puns. There are a few photos of student's
Speaker 1: arms draped over each other, farry with dust and wet clay,
Speaker 1: Evan among them, beaming into the lens with the same
Speaker 1: openness I remember from the start of our own relationship.
Speaker 1: But one image catches me off guard. A shot of
Speaker 1: two hands laid atop one another birth st bead with
Speaker 1: blue glets, fingers into woven The tags are just initial
Speaker 1: Zenna and Ane my initials too, But I know these hands,
Speaker 1: they are not mine. For the rest of the weekend,
Speaker 1: I can't stop examining the seams and our routines. Each
Speaker 1: time he act a spoon left on the sink, A
Speaker 1: call that goes to voicemail for the first time magnifies
Speaker 1: in my memory. I remind myself that we've always had busy,
Speaker 1: scattered weeks, that we've always come back together eventually. But
Speaker 1: no matter how many times I try to top myself down,
Speaker 1: distress prickles in my lungs. I watch Evon startle when
Speaker 1: I ask about his plans, how he hedges details, how
Speaker 1: he glances at the clockman conversation. Monday comes with more rain,
Speaker 1: dense and heavy. Evan cancels our usual walk session, claiming
Speaker 1: he needs to hit the wheel before the next group critique.
Speaker 1: He leaves early. I refuse to let myself trail after him,
Speaker 1: preferring instead to clean the studio for the fourth time
Speaker 1: that week, toss and dried pens and craft rulers into
Speaker 1: the recycling ephron Nea. Hoping for a distraction, she launches
Speaker 1: into a story about her own partner's job search, but
Speaker 1: pauses when I don't laugh at the punch line. You
Speaker 1: are right, hahn Ye sound faded. I nearly build everything,
Speaker 1: but the words catch. All I can say is do
Speaker 1: you ever have the feeling something slipping away? And you
Speaker 1: can't tell if it's because you let it go, because
Speaker 1: it was taken. She sighs, not pressing further. It happens.
Speaker 1: People get tired, people get weird. Sometimes it's nothing, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's something. Throughout the rest of the day, I keep
Speaker 1: an eye on the group, calend at, watching Evans new pottery.
Speaker 1: Commitments multiply. Suddenly every other evening is spoken for group's
Speaker 1: studio hours, critique, night's dinner at someone's law in Bushrick,
Speaker 1: I ask want me to come sometime. He smiles, But
Speaker 1: it fixed his patient's thinning. It's just late night messing around.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't get it. It's wordly technical. You let me
Speaker 1: in on new word font lectures, I say, teasing, trying
Speaker 1: to reach him. He shrugs, walking at a glaze. Chemistry's
Speaker 1: a whole other beast. I call you again. The next day,
Speaker 1: pretending it's about a web plug in, but slip in
Speaker 1: a question about that center that all a woman is
Speaker 1: all art? Or does she do like team building stuff too?
Speaker 1: He hesitates. She has a reputation for being close. I
Speaker 1: don't know, in a boundary pushing kind of way, but
Speaker 1: all those our types do. Would you say she ever
Speaker 1: got really personal with anyone? My voice trembles on the
Speaker 1: edge of real fear, long pause, I heard stories. Leo
Speaker 1: finally concedes, but it could be rumors, you know. Creative
Speaker 1: people get messy, lines blur. The call ends with less
Speaker 1: comfort than I'd hoped. Choose to brings new evidence. Two
Speaker 1: bowls appear in our kitchen, trimmed with a level of
Speaker 1: skill I've never seen ever manage e gished with the
Speaker 1: same small swell near the rum emotive identical to one
Speaker 1: of uses on her Instagram. I ask, off hand, did
Speaker 1: you make these? He takes a beat too long before
Speaker 1: answering sort of of a help with the shaping, but
Speaker 1: glazing's on me. I nod, swallowing the urge to say more.
Speaker 1: That night, while he's at pottery, I check his back
Speaker 1: attack for a charger I can claim to need instead
Speaker 1: I find a small, folded slip of paper. This time
Speaker 1: it's a poem. The lines in off is recognizably crisp handwriting.
Speaker 1: He sent to the chaoslash claim, melts in your hands,
Speaker 1: slush still a spilling from the wheel slot. When Jew
Speaker 1: we call it done, there's ellipsick smudge on the back,
Speaker 1: just a ghost, but unmistakable in its message. I clenched
Speaker 1: the note in my hand, fighting the urge to scream.
Speaker 1: Each note, each receipt, each new ritual is a stone
Speaker 1: on the scale. But still, when I try to piece
Speaker 1: the story together, my mind rebels, flinching from certainty, grasping
Speaker 1: for innocent explanations. Maybe she writes every one poems. Maybe
Speaker 1: the touch, the laughter, the after hours drinks are just
Speaker 1: the bonding of artists, not lovers. When Evan comes home
Speaker 1: that night, he's giddy, chatty, tossing stories about some one's
Speaker 1: bowl exploding in the kiln, about group plans to tend
Speaker 1: and experimental music night. He offers the new bowls for
Speaker 1: my inspection with childish excitement. These feel different, I murmur,
Speaker 1: running a hand over the shallow lip, cool and perfectly shaped.
Speaker 1: Getting good at this, he shrugs. Bashel it's a team thing.
Speaker 1: I be useless without a guide. He doesn't look at
Speaker 1: me when he says it. At three in the morning,
Speaker 1: I wake from a restless dream, clay spinning wheels, my
Speaker 1: hands slipping in muddy water. Evan is curled away, hand
Speaker 1: clamped on his phone, the final blue glow fading as
Speaker 1: the screen dies. I resist the urge to wake him,
Speaker 1: to demand the true to collapse. The fragile piece we
Speaker 1: maintained on the surface dis pass in a fog of
Speaker 1: tension and misdirection. Allery season is in full swing, which
Speaker 1: means invitations every other night to see new collections Netwick
Speaker 1: with old clients, catch up with people we used to
Speaker 1: see weekly in brighter times. I dress up twice in
Speaker 1: one week, convincing myself that Ifeven joins me in our
Speaker 1: old social world, something of our rhythm or return. When
Speaker 1: I suggest we both go to Vetta's opening, he hesitates, apologetic.
Speaker 1: I promise to all ride you. The demonstration thing for
Speaker 1: this after our session is that trout for the center.
Speaker 1: Couple board members are coming. I really can't skip. I
Speaker 1: laugh too loud. Maybe she's angling for a board seek herself.
Speaker 1: Evan grins. Thus, priddare or is it admiration. She could
Speaker 1: run the whole thing if she wanted. She gets people
Speaker 1: to show up, get messy by and reminds me of well,
Speaker 1: sometimes of you. It's meant to soothe, but the comparison stings.
Speaker 1: I don't reply, just not in focus on sliding my
Speaker 1: earrings into place, hands trembling so badly, I drop one
Speaker 1: behind the dresser. Later, a Vetta's party near spots me
Speaker 1: and immediately senses the mood. He couldn't make it. I
Speaker 1: offer a sketchy excuse about obligations, and she gives a
Speaker 1: tight come panionable squeeze. After the event, walking home in
Speaker 1: the city dock, I find myself detering toward the community center.
Speaker 1: The windows blaze with light, the sounds of laughter and
Speaker 1: thumping music leaking onto the street. I linger outside, watching
Speaker 1: silhouettes pass behind the drawn blinds. This evan has walk
Speaker 1: so familiar I'd know it. Blindfolded, carrying a tray of cups,
Speaker 1: settling next to ava, her posture, leaning in the forms
Speaker 1: haloed by the steamy air inside. I duck away before
Speaker 1: I can talk myself into doing something reckless. As I
Speaker 1: walk home, anger baooons fresh and raw at myself, at him,
Speaker 1: at this endlessly and certain zone I'm forced to occupy.
Speaker 1: That night, I barely speak. Evans stays up late, working
Speaker 1: or pretending to work, headphones in. At one point he
Speaker 1: comes to bed smelling of wine, and that down for
Speaker 1: or perfume. We lie back to back, nothing but the
Speaker 1: hess of the radiator filling the distance. Morning brings no relief.
Speaker 1: In fact, the world seems more resolutely uninterested in my problems.
Speaker 1: Dead lions slip past, clients grow irritated at our mispitch meeting.
Speaker 1: I find myself spending whole hours rereading all texts from Evan,
Speaker 1: from before Pottery, back when his every thought was shaped
Speaker 1: round us, when he'd say things like you my favorite
Speaker 1: brainstorm and mean it in a dozen ways. One evening,
Speaker 1: when we're both home, there's a knock at our door.
Speaker 1: I jump a rashly, hopeful for any distraction. It's a
Speaker 1: courier delivering a small box addressed to even care of
Speaker 1: our studio. He opens it on the kitchen island. Inside
Speaker 1: a six or eight tiles, each with a unique glazed
Speaker 1: pattern initial Vain embedded in the corner, a note reads
Speaker 1: for future inspiration, EH Evan flushes quickly, stashing the tiles
Speaker 1: part of a group swap for the studio. Don't really
Speaker 1: know what I'll do with them yet. I want to
Speaker 1: believe this, I do, but the pattern is too familiar
Speaker 1: to each gift, Each keeps it wrapped up in a
Speaker 1: language that excludes me and cemments my status outside a
Speaker 1: partnership I didn't realize was unraveling. I try, in desperation
Speaker 1: to explain my knees toneel one night over wine. She listens,
Speaker 1: her face, open her eyes careful. Do you want to know?
Speaker 1: She asks, quietly, swirling the dregs in her glass. The
Speaker 1: question stops me. Know what if something's really happening? Or
Speaker 1: do you just wanted to stop feeling this way? Silent stretches,
Speaker 1: heavy and instructive. I shake my head, unable to answer.
Speaker 1: Read away. She hugs me fiercely before she leaves. A
Speaker 1: day later, another anonymous text arrives. Some things can't be
Speaker 1: fired away. Try being there a closing next Thursday. That's all.
Speaker 1: I can't tell if it's a threat, a kindness, a
Speaker 1: random out of cruelty. I do what I always do.
Speaker 1: I write it down, cataloget I try to work crossing
Speaker 1: off tasks and a haze, living in the suspended bubble
Speaker 1: between formal accusation and solemn betrayal. Finally, Thursday comes. Every
Speaker 1: sound is sharper, every movement waited with anticipation. Evan makes
Speaker 1: no move to change his routine. He's upbeat in the morning,
Speaker 1: humming a moon river as he searches for a clean shirt.
Speaker 1: He kisses my cheek lightly before leaving, saying, don't wade
Speaker 1: up late firing with the crew. I watch him walk
Speaker 1: out the door, my hands pressed to the mark he
Speaker 1: mid last week, this one trend in deep blue, the
Speaker 1: swell of the glaze almost etnotic. I picture his hands
Speaker 1: guiding the wet clay of his hands over, his laughter
Speaker 1: echoing off the walls. I bundle into a heavy jacket
Speaker 1: and leave the house a half hour after Evan. The
Speaker 1: night is clear, freezing. The city feels hollow, echoing as
Speaker 1: if it knows what I'm about to see. Outside the
Speaker 1: community center, I wait, One by one, students file out, pairs, trios,
Speaker 1: sola struggles, carrying boxes, chattering in low tones. I check
Speaker 1: my watch. Closing time for the public was twenty minutes ago.
Speaker 1: The pottery room's lights still shine I circle to the
Speaker 1: alley along the side of the building, where ne'er our
Speaker 1: windows offer a view into the rear studio. There's Evan
Speaker 1: an Ava close at the wheel, hands muddy, laughter, too
Speaker 1: close for just a lesson. Their postures are soft, melted
Speaker 1: into each other's prisons in a way I no longer recognize.
Speaker 1: At one point, Ova pulls her hair up and leans
Speaker 1: over bowl, murmuring something that makes even laugh, not loudly,
Speaker 1: but with an intimate ease that lands in my stomach
Speaker 1: like a stone. Then, as they rinse their hands, their
Speaker 1: shoulders brush, hands lingering as they reach for the same rack.
Speaker 1: No one else is around. My throat goes tight. I
Speaker 1: hear avasay careful, or we'll have to make up another story.
Speaker 1: Evan says nothing, but doesn't move away. There's more. He
Speaker 1: pulls out a phone, shows her something, and her face
Speaker 1: lights up. She tugs at the collar of his overshirt playfully.
Speaker 1: He lets her, smiling, before glancing nervously at the door.
Speaker 1: I can't look away for a long minute. The room
Speaker 1: is silent except for the sound of their hands in
Speaker 1: the water. Then Ova says her voice pitch slow back entrance,
Speaker 1: just in case due learning Eva mumbles a response, his
Speaker 1: voice tight, but from the angle, I can't make out
Speaker 1: the words. As she slips away, he lingers, face hidden
Speaker 1: in his arms, breathing hard. It's enough, more than enough.
Speaker 1: My feet carry me away from the building, out to
Speaker 1: the avenue. My pulse a racing thunder in my ears.
Speaker 1: I wonder, numb through the city's colt blinded by head lights,
Speaker 1: the world moving past, the speed I can't comprehend. Home
Speaker 1: is a blur, Evans's absence, the buzzing silence of our studio,
Speaker 1: the city's endless, indifferent ca cophony. There's no comfort in
Speaker 1: my usual rituals, not in tea, not in the clean
Speaker 1: lines of the apartment, not in the shop percise language
Speaker 1: of vector shapes, or invoices. I finally open his sketch book.
Speaker 1: The last few pages, A brutally clear portrait of Ava,
Speaker 1: the curve of her neck, her hands, all repeating motifs. Freilis, raised, glazes, vase, fire,
Speaker 1: and schedule A's favor wine in the margins, a sharp,
Speaker 1: longing script, not quite poetry, not fit for public display,
Speaker 1: thorough texts. It's easy to guess his phone password, and
Speaker 1: I almost wish I hadn't. Late night exchanges, veiled references,
Speaker 1: no outfright admissions, but enough to fill in the contours
Speaker 1: of what's missing in our own life. Around four in
Speaker 1: the morning, after hours spent cawled in the window seat,
Speaker 1: staring at the city going quietly gray with dawn. I
Speaker 1: press my forehead to the cool glass and accept what
Speaker 1: I've known in fragments for weeks. I wait for Evan
Speaker 1: to come home, my resolve boiling quietly under the surface.
Speaker 1: He returns just after sunrise, face baale hair. While he
Speaker 1: looks startled to see me awake, couldn't sleep. His voice
Speaker 1: is martialed, cautious. We need to talk. I say the
Speaker 1: words dry's dust. He sets down his bag, as darting
Speaker 1: from me to the closed door, hands flexing us though
Speaker 1: weighing whether to run or face the storm. I watch him,
Speaker 1: cataloging every twitch, every tremor. I know about all that.
Speaker 1: I begin. He freezes, panic flickering across his face before
Speaker 1: his smithy away. Don't. He begins, but I cut him off,
Speaker 1: stacking the notes, the receipts, the sketch book between us.
Speaker 1: I know, I repeat quieter. I know about the dinners,
Speaker 1: the notes, the closing time, meetings of the tiles, the
Speaker 1: late nights, the hidden texts for me, I saw you
Speaker 1: together after hours alone. He opens his mouth several times,
Speaker 1: searching for a lie that will hold. Finally, the facad collapses.
Speaker 1: He sinks on to the stewel, hands covering his face.
Speaker 1: She said it was nothing, he says, softly, Just not talk.
Speaker 1: Just god, I didn't think, didn't think what that I'd
Speaker 1: find out that your life here wouldn't un revel. He
Speaker 1: shakes his head miserbly. I was lonely. I felt invisible,
Speaker 1: like nothing I made mat at any more. She saw
Speaker 1: something in me, and I let it happen. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't stop. I want to shout, to throw every mug,
Speaker 1: every proof of his deception at the wall. Instead, my
Speaker 1: voice is steel. He broke everything, he lied, He kept lying.
Speaker 1: You let me believe I was paranoid. Ye let me
Speaker 1: fight myself to trust you. He looks at me, then,
Speaker 1: pleading shame, fighting with self pity. I never wanted to
Speaker 1: hurt you. It was stupid. It's over. I laugh, sound
Speaker 1: no joy in it. No, it isn't. It should have
Speaker 1: never started. You didn't just cheat, you abandoned us. He
Speaker 1: turned our trust into something you could reship and hide behind.
Speaker 1: He breaks finally that tears spilling over. But all I
Speaker 1: feel is the exhaustion, the weight of wading through the
Speaker 1: marquis left behind. Go, I say, voice, thin and sharp,
Speaker 1: pack a bag leaf. I need space. I can't. My
Speaker 1: throat closes, but I force myself not to cry. He
Speaker 1: stands shickily moving through the bedroom in the dull routine
Speaker 1: of some one suddenly umoured. I hear drawers opening a
Speaker 1: zipper of his butter duffel. The rustle shows thrown in
Speaker 1: at random. He pauses at the studio door, meeting my
Speaker 1: eyes for the last time that morning. I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: all of it. If if you ever I close my eyes.
Speaker 1: The slam of the door is the first real ending.
Speaker 1: The morning sun sharpens the world to a point. I'm
Speaker 1: alone at last, and the city's noise is suddenly nothing
Speaker 1: more than the ordinary roar of a life shifting shape,
Speaker 1: leaving room at last for something honest to return. He's
Speaker 1: gone less than three minutes when the empties shift's from
Speaker 1: furious needle sharp relief to blooming pressure behind my sternham.
Speaker 1: I stand and barely breathing in the studio, zamber light
Speaker 1: the door, echoing his absence into every square foot. The mugs,
Speaker 1: the balls, and tiles, every one with its secrets, cover
Speaker 1: our shelves and counters, witness to both thou lives and
Speaker 1: to whatever private well to grow them without me. I
Speaker 1: pay slap my pump to the cool marble work table,
Speaker 1: my hands ache dismass something to throw every single offect
Speaker 1: of his double life out into the street. Instead, I
Speaker 1: crumple onto the little green stool by the windownes, pull
Speaker 1: to my chest, staring out as the new morning eats
Speaker 1: the last of the city's night inside, the normal begins
Speaker 1: to fracture. I fold both arms tight round myself and
Speaker 1: listen to the faint hum of pipes warming. My phone
Speaker 1: buzzes a delivery notification for a package of an ordered
Speaker 1: last week pottery tools, addressed here to him, as if
Speaker 1: nothing has changed. I swipe it away. An email from
Speaker 1: our share client, Drea at Ping's request from mock Ups.
Speaker 1: The world doesn't wait for private heart break, not even
Speaker 1: for the sort that rearranges the shape of every room
Speaker 1: every hour. I return to our bedroom, breathe in a faint,
Speaker 1: comfortable clutter, the spot where evans bag used sit is
Speaker 1: empty on the comforter an indentation where he sat minute before.
Speaker 1: I avert my eyes, feeling suddenly invaded by every single object,
Speaker 1: his books, his half dead sequence in the window, his
Speaker 1: old polaroid camera. Nothing has value in everything aches. By noon,
Speaker 1: the six shock begins, receding into something less sharp, replaced
Speaker 1: by a marching exhaustion. The apartment feels like enemy to territory.
Speaker 1: Even our work studio, once the soft core of our relationship,
Speaker 1: now bristles with tensions made visible duelling pairs of headphones.
Speaker 1: His favorite mud beside mine, a half done project file
Speaker 1: with his lazy looping notes to me embedded in the martians.
Speaker 1: My brain wants to restore order, but the muscle memory
Speaker 1: of tidying is all fret and no comfort. Neakols. I
Speaker 1: let it rain a text for all Low's I heard,
Speaker 1: I'm here. If you want, I stare at the message
Speaker 1: thum hovering, then set the phone down and walk the
Speaker 1: perimeter of the apartment, cataloging again what we'll have to
Speaker 1: change pots and pans, the framed postcard of the green
Speaker 1: Irish coast we bought on our honeymoon, even the dams
Speaker 1: by syracus favorites mixed with mine. Impossible now to separate
Speaker 1: without shattering something. Every time I sit, the world seems
Speaker 1: to off its axis. The fridge motor ticks, the traffic shushes,
Speaker 1: the radiator clank, soul precurious, all slightly off. I catch
Speaker 1: myself checking the hallways, of expecting him to return. Admit
Speaker 1: it was all a testerros stunt, with some experiment in miscommunication.
Speaker 1: But the clock keeps ticking forward, and the mail carrier
Speaker 1: slides letters addressed to both of us under the door. Unwittingly,
Speaker 1: I open my laptop, try to focus on work, on
Speaker 1: anything ordinary. My eyes blur. All the fonts look wrong.
Speaker 1: I keep picturing Evans's face on the studious jewel. How
Speaker 1: quickly shame overtook his provader, how easily the tears fell
Speaker 1: once the truth was exposed. It's almost laughable, how much
Speaker 1: smaller he seemed in that moment, how little he tried
Speaker 1: to fight, as if he'd known he'd be caught for weeks,
Speaker 1: maybe longer. By late afternoon, my head pounds. I compromise.
Speaker 1: I will not throw anything out, not yet. I gather
Speaker 1: every unfamiliar mug, every misshapen ball, every odd tile and
Speaker 1: stack them in a cardboard box at the end of
Speaker 1: our hall. When I find the tiles of Ascent, my
Speaker 1: stump churns their beautiful bull colors sure hands, as if
Speaker 1: daring me to match her artistry. I bear verrydam end
Speaker 1: of the mugs. My email things again. This time a
Speaker 1: client is confused. Evan missed our call? Is everything okay?
Speaker 1: Should we reschedule? A clumsily type back, Please direct project
Speaker 1: Queerest to me. Evan is unavailable for the foreseable future.
Speaker 1: My hands tremble. I hit send before I can soften it.
Speaker 1: Hunger creeps into something resembling evening approaches. The apartment settles
Speaker 1: around me, impossibly silent, untouched by the city's churn outside.
Speaker 1: When I walk through the rooms now, I glanced down
Speaker 1: at the streak of clay on the floor by the
Speaker 1: coat rack, at a fingerprints mudges on the blue mug.
Speaker 1: In the kitchen, I poured myself cereal, then dump it
Speaker 1: out and touched. When I passed the studio, I make
Speaker 1: myself pause and stand in the door. We just breathe,
Speaker 1: just exist. Our temple of work and trust has become
Speaker 1: a reliquary of doubt. The first night is long. I
Speaker 1: text mea back. He's gone. I can't talk yet. She
Speaker 1: sends only a heart, no words. I wrap myself in
Speaker 1: a blanket, sit in the window and look out into
Speaker 1: the city. The taxis crall, horns blare, and people thread
Speaker 1: their way home, unaware that the shape of my own
Speaker 1: life has been hammered out of all recognition. By midnight,
Speaker 1: I realize I haven't set foot in our bedroom. I
Speaker 1: sleep sitting up on the couch, half watching the shifting
Speaker 1: glare of street lights, the flicker of a neighbor's TV,
Speaker 1: the sticky blue of morning, arriving again to reveal nothing healed,
Speaker 1: nothing fixed. It's only in the morning, when the first
Speaker 1: emails and calls begin again, when the male slot coughs
Speaker 1: up more reminders of our shared life, that the consequences
Speaker 1: fully arrive. My phone lights up a message from one
Speaker 1: of our clients, voice clipped and formal. We're concerned about
Speaker 1: the timeline. Another from Evan short Please tell me if
Speaker 1: you need anything from my side for the client's I'm
Speaker 1: just a text away. I'm so sorry. I can see
Speaker 1: the finger prints of habit even in his apology. I
Speaker 1: need to be involved, a hope to stay relevant, maybe
Speaker 1: even forgiven. I leave him and read mid Day near
Speaker 1: buzzes up. She's brought groceries, her version of a peace offering.
Speaker 1: I let her in because the alternative is me sitting
Speaker 1: in this void alone, eating nothing and hearing echoes. We
Speaker 1: say a little. She puts food in the fridge, looks
Speaker 1: around the studio, and finally says, you want me to stay.
Speaker 1: I shake my head, grateful and mortified and equal measure.
Speaker 1: I'm ok, I just need a minute. She hugs me
Speaker 1: roughly mutters he doesn't get to take your life, just
Speaker 1: the part that was his. Then she slips out as
Speaker 1: gently as she arrived. Work becomes impossible, Emails stuck up,
Speaker 1: some clients oblivious, others nosey or tiptoing around the obvious
Speaker 1: our joint giggle, calendar pangs with reminders, a licensing call,
Speaker 1: a shared task list, pottery, sure deadlines. I start manually
Speaker 1: erasing things, removing his name, deleting the word joint from
Speaker 1: old titles, combing through fold us they so much did
Speaker 1: us a tangle. Our passwords are invising systems, even the
Speaker 1: business registry he's listed as co owner. I realize, stupidly late,
Speaker 1: how comprehensively tangled. We are not just in love or trust,
Speaker 1: but in every transaction, every calend of block, every form.
Speaker 1: I call our bound to start the process of dividing
Speaker 1: up accounts. I know my own answers, but when the
Speaker 1: clerk asks, will mister Holland be on the line as well?
Speaker 1: I freeze. He will not. I snap, then soften my
Speaker 1: turn and ask for the next steps. Everything feels punishing,
Speaker 1: this slow, each step in admission that our partnership send
Speaker 1: is not just emotional but functional, legal, public. My parents
Speaker 1: call somehow word is traveled near, probably or another friend
Speaker 1: I can barely blame. They remind me I have a
Speaker 1: home in Vermont if I want it, or at least
Speaker 1: a place to breathe unclean air. The idea is both
Speaker 1: appealing and ludicrous. I tell them I'm fine, work will
Speaker 1: keep me here and change the subject of the weather.
Speaker 1: The phone is a minefield. Now our mutual friends begin shifting,
Speaker 1: some checking in, some silent, a few awkwardly liking my
Speaker 1: post but never asking questions. I'm acutely aware that Evan
Speaker 1: is out there somewhere, perhaps in a sublet, may be
Speaker 1: with Ova. Though the thought sharpens my chest every time.
Speaker 1: I chase it, but not here, not with me, no
Speaker 1: longer my first a final point of contact. When I
Speaker 1: step into the studio late Thursday, I find another piece
Speaker 1: of evidence. Evan left his favorite hoody on the desk chair.
Speaker 1: I pluck it by the hood hold it at arm's length,
Speaker 1: waiting for anger or sorrow, but all I feel is
Speaker 1: a dull fatigue. I toss it into the same box
Speaker 1: as the pottery. Nightfall brings the first real urge to run,
Speaker 1: to escape the fux walls that seem to close and
Speaker 1: tie to every hour. I grab my jacket and step outside.
Speaker 1: The cities, rack above a brace of end for the
Speaker 1: first time since all this started, faintly liberating, I wonder aimlessly,
Speaker 1: letting anonymous crowds carry me along, all haunts by fronts, galleries,
Speaker 1: pizza shot pass in a blair, each tinged with some
Speaker 1: ghost of our former routine. It isn't until I'm halfway
Speaker 1: through the lip that I realize I haven't checked my
Speaker 1: phone and ours. Ac home, I hesitate the foot of
Speaker 1: the stairs, keys balanced in my palm. There are voices
Speaker 1: on the landing. Our neighbors, Miss Stearns, says Popoff, arguing
Speaker 1: softly behind their door. Their normalcy almost makes me laugh.
Speaker 1: For them, life is just dinner and tvy and slippers.
Speaker 1: For me, nothing is certain any more but this ache
Speaker 1: and these endless administrative drudgeries. Inside the answering machines, light blinks.
Speaker 1: I listened, stomach nodded Evan's voice. I'm certain and lo.
Speaker 1: I just want to know if you're eating, if you're okue.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking for forgiveness. I know you need space.
Speaker 1: Just call if you want to talk about what comes next.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. He sounds older, wounded. I delete the
Speaker 1: message without replaying it. The next morning, I email every
Speaker 1: joint client explaining that Evan is none indefinite hiatus. Some
Speaker 1: demand details. Most simply adjust, perhaps less surprised than I expect.
Speaker 1: Only ly your respond personally. An apology hidden between lions
Speaker 1: of sympathy is real loyalty. Never explicitly offered. A few
Speaker 1: emails from off his name autopopinjar shared in books with
Speaker 1: generic center wide announcements. I flag them as spam. The
Speaker 1: week degenerates into blunt necessary action. I draft a contract
Speaker 1: to formalize our business plit, schedule meetings with city officers
Speaker 1: to discuss to solve in our partnership, gathered documents, logins,
Speaker 1: product keys. Each click on a spreadsheet of calendar is
Speaker 1: both a surgical strike and a slide further away from
Speaker 1: our old life scaffolding. My sleep shatter is into burst
Speaker 1: two hours here, three there. When I do dream, it's
Speaker 1: mostly color and noise, not faces. There are no apologies,
Speaker 1: no neat resolutions. Sometimes Clay spins on a wheel centrifugal force,
Speaker 1: threatening to rip everything loose, and I am powerless to
Speaker 1: shape it. On Sunday, I receive a group text from
Speaker 1: the sentiment invite to opening night off as Spring Clay's show.
Speaker 1: Evans's name is not on the list of contributors. The
Speaker 1: invitation stares up at me from the screen, all bright
Speaker 1: colors and exclamation points. I delete it without replying. By Tuesday,
Speaker 1: the business account is nearly emptied, each payment marked for
Speaker 1: split transfer. Our accountant, clinical as always, asks if she
Speaker 1: should expect Holland at the annual reconciliation. For a moment,
Speaker 1: the absurdity of how every aspect of our merged lives
Speaker 1: must now be come through and pass makes me want scream.
Speaker 1: I simply say no, it's over. There are practical problems too.
Speaker 1: Our next rent check bounces because half the payment vanished
Speaker 1: with a joint withdrawal, I scramble to cover it, furious
Speaker 1: at myself for not and tis paitting even this mundane fallap,
Speaker 1: for letting habits become vulnerabilities. Outside the city carries on,
Speaker 1: and different trucks rumble down the avenue. Gallery banners fly,
Speaker 1: Pigeons pick their way through scattered bread along the stoop.
Speaker 1: Inside every object whispers a different history. Our first kipe
Speaker 1: payment stashed in a jar on the shelf, the dried
Speaker 1: wedding bouquet still pressed under a glass tray, the ancient
Speaker 1: teasemate evan rescued from a flea market, even some of
Speaker 1: the mugs incidentally in his style, totally innocent, fel contaminated,
Speaker 1: blurred by implication, impossible to use without flinching, And he
Speaker 1: keeps checking in. She drops off snacks, leaves a funny
Speaker 1: meme about creative break ups for don't let anyone tell
Speaker 1: you this isn't a real loss, she texts one night.
Speaker 1: He builds life out of sight lines and open tabs.
Speaker 1: You get to grieve it, but grief keeps deetering into work.
Speaker 1: Clients though my life lie now become a constant reminder
Speaker 1: of our entwined histriies. Half of them want that whole
Speaker 1: and magic. I deflect, promise I can deliver. I do.
Speaker 1: Mostly the files get revised, dead lines met, But every
Speaker 1: decision it's weighed, done with the knowledge that it's not
Speaker 1: just me, just my name at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: invis a. Week passes maybe ten days. It's hard to
Speaker 1: tell from Evan only silence, except for one final banclert
Speaker 1: when he removes his details from our business profile and
Speaker 1: a forwarding address sent in a single clipped email. It's
Speaker 1: in Bushwick, near the train. He doesn't say if he's
Speaker 1: with Alva, if he's starting fresh, or if he's just
Speaker 1: as lost as I am. In a borrowed room surrounded
Speaker 1: by unpack boxes one late evening, as I'm unboxing new
Speaker 1: business cards, just my name, just my logo, I hear
Speaker 1: rustling from the hallway. I open the door to find
Speaker 1: the box of his things gone, the mugs, the hoodie,
Speaker 1: the tiles, no note relief, angerer and the sharpest kind
Speaker 1: of learning's cross hatch in my chest. He's ticking up
Speaker 1: less and less space here. That's good, I tell myself.
Speaker 1: But the amptiness feels no less heavy for the subtraction.
Speaker 1: I keep waiting for some final, impossible to ignore communicate,
Speaker 1: some plea for forgiveness, some defined admission, or even an
Speaker 1: apology grand enough to heal anything. Instead, practicalities become my
Speaker 1: new routine. Spreadsheet, meal, prep, opening windows, switching up playlists.
Speaker 1: Whatever out lived at the center of us now bleed away,
Speaker 1: not in fire or drama, but in incremental steps. The
Speaker 1: city moves on, and so stubbornly, painfully do I. The
Speaker 1: only thing left to do is claim the space for myself.
Speaker 1: I sweet the studio, move my desk to the brightest window,
Speaker 1: I cover the shells and butcher paper, clearing off anything
Speaker 1: that isn't either useful, clearly unequivocally mine. And then, finally,
Speaker 1: after a lost, silent review, I gather the evidence, every
Speaker 1: remaining mug with its borrowing motif, every slip cuss bowl,
Speaker 1: every tile that wants shimmered only for his hands, and
Speaker 1: carried them to the trush room down stairs. The door
Speaker 1: to the hull click shut behind me. There is no ceremony,
Speaker 1: only the rough clutter of pottery against plastic and the
Speaker 1: steady beat of my own pulse in my ears. I
Speaker 1: don't pause to second guess it, don't linger for a
Speaker 1: last look. I climb the stairs back to our my apartment,
Speaker 1: the city's nose below still busy, still unbothered, as if
Speaker 1: nothing at all has happened. Alone in the studio, I
Speaker 1: open the windows, why letting Claire scentered with coal, rain
Speaker 1: and disinexhaust. I look at the clean stretch of tabletop,
Speaker 1: at the morning's light moving through the air is sharp, new,
Speaker 1: a little raw. There is nothing left on the shelves
Speaker 1: but my own work, stacks of clean paper, a single
Speaker 1: green plant. All the rest is gone. For a few breasts,
Speaker 1: I just stand there, feeling the place where absence used
Speaker 1: to be a wound begin to open into a kind
Speaker 1: of preciless silence. I don't know what comes next, but
Speaker 1: the mug has gone, the one that started at all.
Speaker 1: The doorway to something else, whatever I decide, is finally clear.
Speaker 1: The air outside is electric, something close to renewal, but
Speaker 1: not nearly so clean. I stand there, just breathing, feeling
Speaker 1: a strange hush in my robe, the hint of a
Speaker 1: w re aligning around my new single gravity. The apartment
Speaker 1: is quieter than quiet. My phone remains silent. Even the street,
Speaker 1: with its endless churne listens differently now, like the air's
Speaker 1: been conditioned by all I've let out and all that's
Speaker 1: been forced away. But the emptiness doesn't behave. It won't
Speaker 1: stay still obedient, boxed up with the pottery. Instead, it
Speaker 1: ripples through my limbs, so that I circle the rooms, compulsively,
Speaker 1: checking cabinets for anything I've missed, for anything that still
Speaker 1: carries the scent of Evans hands in someone else's secret.
Speaker 1: I feel hungry, then not. I reach for my phone,
Speaker 1: then think better of it. I open email and immediately
Speaker 1: shut it down. The shapes of routina warped and balanced.
Speaker 1: Sleep escapes me, but so does the weird reels of
Speaker 1: panic and devastation I imagined would swallow me whole. There
Speaker 1: is agitation, as if I'm expecting something, a phone call,
Speaker 1: a knock, a message, a collapsey, apology that would reverse
Speaker 1: time or make everything legible. After Noon paints golden strips
Speaker 1: across the hardware. The catch on the edges of remaining
Speaker 1: glass throw little mocking rainbows. The outside world shifts forward,
Speaker 1: mail drops, the radiator knocks, the bells of the church
Speaker 1: across the avenue announced three o'clock. I make tea and
Speaker 1: stare out the window, pass my warp reflection, waiting for
Speaker 1: Evan to appear on the stoop, hitching his bag, nervously
Speaker 1: rehearsing forgiveness. But the street holds only children racing by
Speaker 1: delivery bikes, weaving through the slow parade of idling caps.
Speaker 1: I've drifted into the evening muscle memory, leading me to
Speaker 1: our old silent patterns. Dinner for one half, hard scrolls
Speaker 1: through job postings, grading reply all emails by the effort
Speaker 1: they require the humiliation's lips and sideways. A DM from
Speaker 1: a mutual client arrives, blunt, are you taking on everything now?
Speaker 1: Should we expect? Evan back? I type and delete five responses,
Speaker 1: finally settling on just me for now. I'll be in
Speaker 1: touch if that changes. Even my own brevity sounds bertle.
Speaker 1: Some time after dusk, the doorbell rings. I freeze every
Speaker 1: muscled height for an instant. It's easy to imagine Evan
Speaker 1: s thinsel went out there, defeated, clutching some final peace
Speaker 1: offering or demand one lost confrontation, or perhaps an appeal
Speaker 1: to nostalgia, to the old versions of us that can't
Speaker 1: be conjured anymore. It isn't him. Mister pop up from
Speaker 1: upstairs needs a signature for a package. I presses my
Speaker 1: mile into place, score my name on the dotted line,
Speaker 1: fill the ache in my jaws. The door click shut
Speaker 1: behind him, just the ordinary still thretted through everything. Afterward,
Speaker 1: I let myself laff racket, breathless. My nerves are trained
Speaker 1: to expect disaster, disappointment. Ordinary life feels almost absurd. But
Speaker 1: then the phone buzzes again, and this time it is Evan.
Speaker 1: Not a call, not so bold, but attacks can you talk?
Speaker 1: A minute passes another vibration. I left a letter at
Speaker 1: the door. Didn't want to make things harder in person.
Speaker 1: I just please read it. I'll be out of ten
Speaker 1: a while. I needed to say good bye. My chest tightens,
Speaker 1: not with expectation, not with hope, exactly, but with a
Speaker 1: securiosity to see how he'll dresses. Leaving with words. I look,
Speaker 1: and there it is a fat, white envelope bearing my name,
Speaker 1: wedged in the door for him, his handwriting, precise pretense.
Speaker 1: For a long minute, I just stand with the envelope
Speaker 1: in my palm, weighing it as if as physical mass
Speaker 1: will give me a verdict heavier, lighter than the truth.
Speaker 1: I don't open it right away. Instead, I walk through
Speaker 1: the still chill rooms. The envelope graze in my skin,
Speaker 1: my knuckles wide around its edge. Part of me wants
Speaker 1: to hurl it into the trash, unopened, to reject any narrative.
Speaker 1: He might want to control any final emotional claim he
Speaker 1: dares make. But I know myself too well. I want
Speaker 1: to see how he frames his own absence, whether he
Speaker 1: asks forgiveness or simply documents his own pain, his own hunger.
Speaker 1: I sit at the studio table, the leaf I never
Speaker 1: remembered to dust, glinting in the lamp light. I break
Speaker 1: the envelope's seal. Is handwriting, deliberate, no scratch out slides
Speaker 1: across three pages. The letter opens with regret. There aren't words,
Speaker 1: but I'd be a coward not to try. He describes,
Speaker 1: however made me feel visible, how he lost sight of
Speaker 1: our real work together, how he wishes he could reap
Speaker 1: it every moment and make the right choice. There are apologies,
Speaker 1: the kind that circle without landing. I'm sorry, I lied,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I was weak. I hope some day you
Speaker 1: can see the whole Seven years was not just this mistake,
Speaker 1: he claims, he will carry the way forever, that you
Speaker 1: gave me every chance, more than I ever deserved. It
Speaker 1: ends without asking for another shot, without a plead to return,
Speaker 1: but with one last impossible blessing. Please live a boulder,
Speaker 1: brighter life than I knew how to follow you into. Please,
Speaker 1: please be happy. I fold the Page's shut, the words inside,
Speaker 1: already losing me, worn out by trying to rescue what's spent.
Speaker 1: My chest is sore, not just from anger but from exhaustion.
Speaker 1: There's relief here, somewhere, curled up underneath the relentless ache.
Speaker 1: I realize there will be no public spectacle, no final
Speaker 1: volley of blame out in the open, only the ordinary dissolution,
Speaker 1: the slow entangling from small things into smaller ones, until
Speaker 1: the only decisions left the mine alone. I put the
Speaker 1: letter in a drawer, the one ev and never use
Speaker 1: the one I stopped opening years ago. Now it is
Speaker 1: only for things I want out of sight, but not
Speaker 1: a race, reminders that the counter of my life is shifting,
Speaker 1: that her does not mean permanence. The next morning, I shower,
Speaker 1: put on real clothes, move my desk closer to the
Speaker 1: lie I email the last remaining client with a clean,
Speaker 1: blunt summary of the business split, ending with you may
Speaker 1: reach me directly for all future work. This the temptation
Speaker 1: to soft pedal. He's great, we're still friends, but I
Speaker 1: don't some things should be ambiguous any more. Mid Day
Speaker 1: is a soft knock at the door at tense, but
Speaker 1: it's near, holding a tin of cookies, grinning in her sad,
Speaker 1: uprageous way. We share coffee at my table in the
Speaker 1: nearly empty studio, conversation winding through everything but the thing
Speaker 1: pressing to each other. How rare in odd it is
Speaker 1: to discover the rules you thought you live, but can
Speaker 1: be so easily broken. She tells me about a new job,
Speaker 1: her partner's terrible, as on youa the neighbor's failed compassing project.
Speaker 1: We make plans to walk through the gallery circuit to
Speaker 1: try the new roum and borrow down on Metropolitan. She
Speaker 1: doesn't say oh, I told you so, or it'll get better.
Speaker 1: She talks about everything else, which is the only real kindness.
Speaker 1: After she leaves, as if for a long while, sifting
Speaker 1: through the fragments left behind, the scattered pens, the stack
Speaker 1: of solar plates now are the planners, the patterns half
Speaker 1: borne on, sketched. It's the place is quiet, yet the
Speaker 1: absence at last feels almost airy. I take out a
Speaker 1: clean sheet of paper and begin to sketch, not out
Speaker 1: of need or anger or compulsion, but because, for the
Speaker 1: first tiny months the idea belongs to no one but me.
Speaker 1: In the evening, as the sun goes down and the
Speaker 1: lights of the city built halos in the studio glass,
Speaker 1: I make myself dinner plated on one of my own pieces.
Speaker 1: There's music different from our old soundtrack mine. Now I'd
Speaker 1: be quietly, not happy, not fine, not any finished state,
Speaker 1: only here, only ongo. The clutter of the fork against
Speaker 1: aeramic rings out in the empty flat, strange, sure and
Speaker 1: mistakable as the first note of new routine. The last
Speaker 1: thing I do before bed is what the length of
Speaker 1: the studio fingers tracing the air where shelves once overflowed
Speaker 1: with the left of us of a partnership that no
Speaker 1: longer fits. At the foreignd, I pause and with a
Speaker 1: steady hand lift a final cup, a left over of
Speaker 1: my own, a glaze raff one I made long ago before,
Speaker 1: even before us. I said it on the shelf alone,
Speaker 1: but not unfinished as pure im perfect form, finally in
Speaker 1: its right place, and that is the end. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, and I will see you in the next one.