Speaker 1: The package was waiting for me on the court's kitchen
Speaker 1: cantle when I came in with the grocery bag biting
Speaker 1: into my wrist. It was bathed in late afternoons on
Speaker 1: an alburn box with crisp corners, heavy enough that I
Speaker 1: almost fumbled it while moving the ex acide. My first thought,
Speaker 1: unreasonably was that Julia had ordered wireless hairphones, again, her
Speaker 1: frequent reward for finishing a big project. My second thought
Speaker 1: was the handwriting on the label. It wasn't Julia's, but
Speaker 1: some one had taken care to write both our names
Speaker 1: and capital letters, then underneath the name of a gallery
Speaker 1: I only recognized from the sharp blue logo. By the
Speaker 1: time I put the groceries away, I'd already a peeled
Speaker 1: the take back inside a fall to thick with tissue,
Speaker 1: a pale envelope, and what I realized after a beat
Speaker 1: was a number print. The image stopped me. A bride
Speaker 1: oversaturated lynicotta city rooftops sharply shadowed in indigo and andreine.
Speaker 1: The style exactly the kind of thing Julia rolled her
Speaker 1: eyes up, but that I'd always loved. I'd glimpsed this
Speaker 1: artist last month walking home alone through forg after a
Speaker 1: lecture i'd only partly followed. The print was signed in
Speaker 1: lipping gold pen. I let my fingers hover just above
Speaker 1: the paper, framed it would look right on the blank
Speaker 1: wall at the foot of our bed. For a second,
Speaker 1: I was just grateful, And then I noticed the card.
Speaker 1: Sam said, the handwriting fast, a little uncertain. Julia's couldn't
Speaker 1: resist this after our Friday night at Spruce and Pined
Speaker 1: routine your city now too, Lava Jay. I read it twice,
Speaker 1: the words Friday night at Spruce and Pine pined nothing
Speaker 1: in my memory. I tried to picture Julia's dry voice,
Speaker 1: her smirk, some old joke, Spruce and Pine. It sounded
Speaker 1: like a cocktail bar, maybe a bakery. Was it a
Speaker 1: mistake coat? Had I forgotten a joke between us? Or
Speaker 1: upon she'd made at someone else's expense. When Julia came
Speaker 1: through the door forty minutes later, the print was still
Speaker 1: on the table, half cocooned and tissue. She was flushed, wahine,
Speaker 1: chilled at city late. She set her toute back down
Speaker 1: and let her work jacket slide off her shoulder without
Speaker 1: looking up. Her phone bauzed. She ignored it. One day,
Speaker 1: I asked, trying to keep my voice newful, and she nodded,
Speaker 1: not meeting my eyes, already scanning the countertop for a glass.
Speaker 1: When she finally saw the print, she hesitated half a breath,
Speaker 1: her expression settling into something composed and almost bright. I
Speaker 1: pressed a card between my fingers. You really didn't have
Speaker 1: to go all out, I said, this is I summoned
Speaker 1: a watery laugh. The artist I was talking about months ago.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think you were listening. She leaned and
Speaker 1: kissed the top of my head and kept her hands
Speaker 1: folded tight behind her back. Of course I was listening.
Speaker 1: There was something often to smile, more cautious than proud.
Speaker 1: I nudged the cow toward her and the notes Bruce
Speaker 1: and Pine. Did we have a joke about that? Shulia's
Speaker 1: mouth culled in a way I recognized from meeting. She
Speaker 1: couldn't be bothered to win. Oh that she said, lightly,
Speaker 1: Just something I heard from a coaker about a happy hour,
Speaker 1: one of those dumb running jokes in the break room.
Speaker 1: I thought it did Mickey laugh. It didn't sound like her,
Speaker 1: not exactly. Julia wasn't careless with private jokes. She didn't
Speaker 1: sprinkle them into expensive gestures as placeholders. It's a real place,
Speaker 1: I asked, my voice searching, and she shrugged. Fetching the
Speaker 1: wine opener from its drawer, I topped the card under
Speaker 1: the gallery folder, telling myself not to chase the question.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was nothing in New City, old streets, jokes
Speaker 1: that belonged to some one else's map. Julia's hair was
Speaker 1: damp with the city's drizzle. She opened the fridge and
Speaker 1: scanned the leftovers, humming under her breath, a sign that
Speaker 1: she wanted the subject closed. I watched her fingers gripped
Speaker 1: the cockscrew in deliberate circles, I starting from my face
Speaker 1: at the faucet, and I realized just how much she
Speaker 1: wanted this to pass unnoticed. So I thanked her again
Speaker 1: and let the silence gather, the print becoming another piece
Speaker 1: of proof on our kitchen table of all I didn't
Speaker 1: know about my new life. There are two moments when
Speaker 1: you realize a relationship has changed. The first is a flicker,
Speaker 1: a skip beat, barely registered. The second is a physical
Speaker 1: ich from the memory of ignoring the first. I didn't
Speaker 1: move to the city for love, or at least not
Speaker 1: only for love. Julie's promotion was size kai ape, real authority.
Speaker 1: I could work from anywhere as long as I had
Speaker 1: WiFi and my drawing tablet. We'd made spreadsheets, poured wine
Speaker 1: on the floor of our old apartment, circled listings on Zillah.
Speaker 1: The idea was that we'd launch ourselves someone new together.
Speaker 1: At first, I believe it had worked. Our first weeks
Speaker 1: in the high rise apartment, everything shimmered with early promise.
Speaker 1: The city below us was a riot of color markets,
Speaker 1: river side walks, clattering trains, while our friends send as
Speaker 1: photos from the great January slush where we used to live. Julia,
Speaker 1: who'd always hated how tame our old neighborhood, felt, bloomed
Speaker 1: in anticipation. She'd staff meetings and business dinners, then returned
Speaker 1: to me with stories veiled office drama, a snippy board member,
Speaker 1: a restaurant she'd found on her walk home that I'd
Speaker 1: absolutely love. She bought me pastry shaped like fish, vegan TACCOs,
Speaker 1: tickets to lectures by writers i'd only half read. She
Speaker 1: would press her cold nose into my shoulder and offer
Speaker 1: a litany of city trivia. At this place had the
Speaker 1: best espresso. That building used to be a brothel. There
Speaker 1: is a hidden roof garden on sixth. I in turn
Speaker 1: found a rhythm of remote work commissions, quick turn illustrations
Speaker 1: for startups, a self imposed deadline for a picture book.
Speaker 1: I'd been tinkering with. My income sloped and surged. Julia's grew.
Speaker 1: It was never a sore point. She teased me about
Speaker 1: my used books in hand in greeting cards. I tease
Speaker 1: her about her shoe collection. Never quite comfortable in heels,
Speaker 1: She'd always come home barefoot, shoes tapped under her arm our.
Speaker 1: Differences were a game, a texture. I like to listen,
Speaker 1: She liked fix. Julia was ambition in a tailored pantsuit
Speaker 1: or sharp edges. I was a careful observer, though old soul.
Speaker 1: As our friends say, what connected us wasn't a city,
Speaker 1: but a sense of recognition. Julie's drive met my quiet
Speaker 1: willingness to step aside. Her outwardness drew me forward, and
Speaker 1: my patience seemed to make her relax. We used to
Speaker 1: host dinners in the old city camp tables must match silverware,
Speaker 1: too many candles, Pierre. Though the city's scale overwhelmed us,
Speaker 1: Chiulie's work moved at a brutal paste text at midnight.
Speaker 1: We can phone calls. And she warned me early on,
Speaker 1: these next months will be intense. I told myself that
Speaker 1: this was good, a sign of her ambition paying off.
Speaker 1: We could weather a season of distance for what came after.
Speaker 1: Our friends had been the web that kept us tie
Speaker 1: to ourselves, rooting Thursday game nights, hiking trips, loud birthday parties.
Speaker 1: Now I spent most evenings alone. Chiulia would drag herself intense, tired,
Speaker 1: sometimes two hours later than planned, apologizing and then dialing
Speaker 1: into another conference call. Her acts of affection came more
Speaker 1: transactional and expensive. Pastry from a new shop, a frame print,
Speaker 1: playlist curated for your work day. Julia's love language was gifts.
Speaker 1: Always had been. Should surprise me with concert tickets on
Speaker 1: landon Tuesdays, sometimes just as aamic mug with my initials
Speaker 1: arranged in a color she'd once heard me describe. Mine
Speaker 1: had always been time, both of us on the couch,
Speaker 1: her head in my lap, the city humming through the windows.
Speaker 1: She had always been a little allergic to domestic down time.
Speaker 1: I'd settle with tea and try to draw her in
Speaker 1: for a movie. She'd say, let's order take out. And
Speaker 1: work at the table instead. But in the old city
Speaker 1: it had been a negotiation. Here started to feel a
Speaker 1: movable occurrent to swim against. By the end of our
Speaker 1: first season in the new City, I'd learned how to
Speaker 1: film my days without waiting for her to come home,
Speaker 1: gallery strolls, coffee shops, sketching in city parks. But the
Speaker 1: truth was I missed her in a physical, unresolved way,
Speaker 1: the shape of her absence more palpable than her presence.
Speaker 1: Family didn't fill the space. Julie's parents were distant, almost abstract.
Speaker 1: I had met her mother twice, both times at funerals.
Speaker 1: My own were divorced and awkward, but checked and weakly
Speaker 1: peppering me with updates about their cats and garden miss apps.
Speaker 1: They cared, but they were never going to understand this loneliness.
Speaker 1: Not exactly the result. Night spent half watching videos, scrolling
Speaker 1: through news waiting for Julia's key in the lock, not
Speaker 1: because a few but simply because the sound of her
Speaker 1: arriving still meant I'd have summoned to talk to that day,
Speaker 1: which is why when she began bringing home gifts, rare books,
Speaker 1: the glass sculpture of the city skyline delivered take away
Speaker 1: from restaurants. We should try thy tried to feel grateful
Speaker 1: if I told myself the new city needed some ritchell
Speaker 1: of belonging. Julia at least was maintaining an effort. But
Speaker 1: the first crack wasn't a big melodramatic moment. It was
Speaker 1: in the distance. How she seemed to know the city's
Speaker 1: NOx beeted than me while never spending her time here
Speaker 1: with me. Take the first Saturday after the sign print,
Speaker 1: Julia appeared in the doorway, hare windblown, holding two tickets
Speaker 1: to the city at fairvich glossy, the kind local magazines
Speaker 1: promoted with full page breids. The smile she wore nearly
Speaker 1: reached her eyes. She handed me the ticket with a
Speaker 1: flourish saying, we'll get her behind the scenes with the curator.
Speaker 1: My friend hooked it up. I ran my thumb along
Speaker 1: the embossing, which friend I asked, careful not to sound tired.
Speaker 1: The one from your new office. Julia's laugh was a
Speaker 1: second too high. Yeah, one of them. She does Pierre
Speaker 1: staff lots of event contacts. She busied herself on clipping
Speaker 1: a tag from the ticket envelope. You're going to love it, Sam,
Speaker 1: New people new inspirations, You've been so cooped up. She
Speaker 1: was pushing, I realized, to make me say yes, not
Speaker 1: loving the thing for itself, but needing me to enjoy
Speaker 1: it for her own reasons. My mind went to the
Speaker 1: print in our bedroom, the unexplained joke, the unfamiliar gallery.
Speaker 1: Julia was attentive, fultful, even, but the gifts felt as
Speaker 1: if they'd been selected from a darsa on my tastes,
Speaker 1: not from lived experience. My doubts coiled in on them selves.
Speaker 1: Was I expecting her to be psychic when I barely
Speaker 1: left the apartment myself? Maybe I was the problem, the
Speaker 1: one constructing barriers. Maybe Julia's way of showing care had
Speaker 1: changed out of necessity. She couldn't give me time, so
Speaker 1: she gave me things instead. That night, after Julia fell
Speaker 1: asleep mid episode to have face pinched in evening light,
Speaker 1: a half finished glass of wine on the coffee table,
Speaker 1: I watched the city light shimmer through the rain Hayes glass.
Speaker 1: I told my she was just trying, in her own
Speaker 1: way to help me belong. I should be grateful, but
Speaker 1: the cold trace in my skin was the growing sense
Speaker 1: that she was always too stepped ahead. Of me trouting
Speaker 1: streets i'd never seen. The city was old geometry from
Speaker 1: our window, keebis, neon shapes, the speckle of taxi headlights,
Speaker 1: distant cranes to Julia. Each route was mapped to me
Speaker 1: just lines. I started pushing myself outside our routine's tests,
Speaker 1: in the blind corners of this new world. On a
Speaker 1: Wednesday morning, I joined an illustrator's meet up at a
Speaker 1: cafe not far from downtown. The listing had seen promising,
Speaker 1: and I had circled the block twice before going inside.
Speaker 1: The place smelled like fresh pastry and such as peel.
Speaker 1: Seating was mostly mismatched chairs, big hearted windows, all the
Speaker 1: markers of her hidden jam. The owner, a soft foised
Speaker 1: guy with all glasses, grinned at me as soon as
Speaker 1: I gave my name. Hey, you're Julia Sam. She mentioneed
Speaker 1: me by soon. Tell her we'll see your Friday. It
Speaker 1: took me a moment to process a Friday, right, I said,
Speaker 1: forcing a smile, my heart doing some awkward little tap.
Speaker 1: She's been wanting me to see this place. I can't
Speaker 1: believe I never made it before. The owner winked, then
Speaker 1: leaned closer to pass me a flyer for a jazz night.
Speaker 1: He two are regulars together already. Next time, Coffee's on me.
Speaker 1: I took the flier and ducked into the group, hoping
Speaker 1: none of the artists had caught my face. A few
Speaker 1: minutes later, I found a seat away from the main window,
Speaker 1: and for two hours let myself get lost in rote conversation.
Speaker 1: Paper weights, put folio woes, someone's disaster to reason cruft fare.
Speaker 1: But the exchange rankled regulars together. Had Julia been coming
Speaker 1: here with me as some invisible echo or with some
Speaker 1: one else? That night, Julia was hunched over her laptop
Speaker 1: when I got home, typing hard enough that her wedding
Speaker 1: ring clinked against the keys. When she finally looked up,
Speaker 1: I kept my tongue. Bray you ever eat at Wildfinch? Fe,
Speaker 1: I asked, not lifting my eyes from my sketch book.
Speaker 1: She barely paused Wildfinch? Oh yeah. I grabbed lunch though
Speaker 1: last week with a couple people, nice enough, but it
Speaker 1: was crowded. Coffee's okay, only seems to know you, I said,
Speaker 1: She smiled too smoothly. He's just chatty. I think he
Speaker 1: talks to everyone like their regulars. That might have been true,
Speaker 1: still a picture the owner's wink, how sure he'd been
Speaker 1: about the two of us together. Was Julia inventing a
Speaker 1: more going version of me for the city, or was
Speaker 1: some one else playing my part? I let myself sink in,
Speaker 1: told habits, tight questions into my phone, Scanjulius social media
Speaker 1: for check ins that might explain it. Privacy was never
Speaker 1: our issue before part of me traced old worries. Was
Speaker 1: I bored? Paranoid? Had I always been as easily dispirited?
Speaker 1: Still in tiny mundane way? As things built up at
Speaker 1: a tech industry mixer the next week, when I had
Speaker 1: only agreed to because Julia begged me for moral support,
Speaker 1: I felt she was introducing me less as her partner,
Speaker 1: more as her tourist. I have herd near the bar.
Speaker 1: More than once people smiled in recognition, but never with
Speaker 1: my name. A woman in a red shift dress approached
Speaker 1: me midway through the event. She had the bearing of
Speaker 1: some one who made a career out of controlling rooms.
Speaker 1: For a soft but insistent oh erin I was just
Speaker 1: about to say, I laughed a little awkwardly, not errand sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm Sam. She did a tiny double take. Th er
Speaker 1: never mind mistaken identity. Sorry her face, but she kept moving. Later,
Speaker 1: it spotted Julie tense up when she saw Red Dress
Speaker 1: orbiting near us. When I tried to introduce myself, Julie
Speaker 1: put a hand on my arm and murmured, she's a
Speaker 1: train wreck. Let's stay out of her drama. When Red
Speaker 1: Dress finally found Julia, they spoke in low voices, glancing
Speaker 1: at me twice. On the way home, Julia was distracted
Speaker 1: rifling for ticks, her jaw tight. You seemed kind of
Speaker 1: off to night, she said, not looking up from her screen.
Speaker 1: I didn't know any one, I replied, then heard the
Speaker 1: childishadge in my own voice. People kept mixing me up
Speaker 1: with some one else. Julie smiled weakly. You're memorable, I promise,
Speaker 1: she said, laying her hand on my knee for a moment.
Speaker 1: Then she put her headphones in the night's conversation stopped
Speaker 1: just past the car doors. A few days later, late again,
Speaker 1: Julie came home with a new necklace, a kind of
Speaker 1: expensive subtle things She normally showed me, but this time
Speaker 1: she tucked it quickly into her jewelry box. In the bathroom,
Speaker 1: I noticed a credit card love on my phone purchased
Speaker 1: reverer jem seven hundred dollars. Julia shrugged when I mentioned it.
Speaker 1: I work, Thank you well, get reimburse she said, then
Speaker 1: left for a run. I never saw her where the necklace.
Speaker 1: After that, her work badge started my greeting, missing from
Speaker 1: its usual hook, then reappearing in different rooms without remark.
Speaker 1: I found at once in her raincoat, again under a
Speaker 1: stack of wedding invitations we have intended to reply to.
Speaker 1: I asked, isn't there a security risk carrying that back
Speaker 1: and forth? Julius shrugged, company's old school about their badges.
Speaker 1: If I lose it in the building, I'll get scolded,
Speaker 1: not fire. It could have been nothing, but I'd seen
Speaker 1: Julie before, orderly to fault in some things, careless in others.
Speaker 1: The badge was an accessory, not a passport, so why
Speaker 1: was it always somewhere knew? I kept thinking about the
Speaker 1: cafaye owner's face. I found myself back at Wildfinch alone,
Speaker 1: this time drawing in the corner and trying not to
Speaker 1: look like I was casing the joint. I watched the
Speaker 1: staff greet people, hugs, banter not out of place. When
Speaker 1: the owner spoke to a woman with cropped red hair.
Speaker 1: He grinned, you're usual in Julia's right. The woman laughed,
Speaker 1: shaking her head. Was it possible Julia simply blended in
Speaker 1: picking up every routine around her and making it her own.
Speaker 1: Or was there something I was missing, some one slipping
Speaker 1: just out of frame. Our upstairs neighbor, Michael, was a
Speaker 1: kind of accidental confidant, him mid thirties, perpetually jogging hair,
Speaker 1: always win must We only crossed paths when packages got
Speaker 1: swapped or the building grill ran out of propane. One
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, he caught me in the whole way with
Speaker 1: a smile, then friand as if remembering and a complete story.
Speaker 1: You wonder at the park with Julia last Thursday? Were you?
Speaker 1: I swear I saw you guys by the sculpture. He
Speaker 1: glanced at me, waiting for confirmation. No, she had a
Speaker 1: late meeting, I replied, feeling both apologetic and logically accused.
Speaker 1: A must have been some one else. They lived a
Speaker 1: lot like you. From behind, Michael shrugged, but as he
Speaker 1: walked away, stuck in my mind was the certainty of
Speaker 1: his tone. You guys. I started to keep him inntal
Speaker 1: wreck a small and consequential details that would have felt
Speaker 1: like trivia in our old life. Julia's new knowledge of
Speaker 1: city streets, references to parks and galleries, had never heard
Speaker 1: of sudden illusions to work friends whose names changed week
Speaker 1: to week. Her gifts grew more elaborate. A bought all
Speaker 1: of Japanese whiskey i'd once admired online, tickets to a
Speaker 1: local one woman show, always accompanied by little phrases tying
Speaker 1: her gesture to a story I couldn't quite place, just
Speaker 1: like the night near Elm or you always love rift
Speaker 1: up jazz. Sometimes I wondered who you was meant to be.
Speaker 1: Our evenings together became strained, attemts that comfort me, suggesting dinner,
Speaker 1: movie night, the smallest, most familiar pleasures. Julia would commit.
Speaker 1: Then arrived late, apologizing as she washed her face, sitting
Speaker 1: beside me, but glancing at her notifications like she was
Speaker 1: waiting for the next cul to duty. One night, half
Speaker 1: exasperated as spread ingredients for home, I posted on the
Speaker 1: counter help me, or I'll ruin the dough, I call,
Speaker 1: hoping for one of our oldest ritchels. Julie checked her watch,
Speaker 1: then poured herself a gin and tonic. Leaning against the sink,
Speaker 1: she kneaded absent mindedly, but drifted to her phone every
Speaker 1: few minutes, one hand slick with flower. Eventually she ducked
Speaker 1: out to reply to something ogent, leaving me in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: fingers stuck with glue dough, realizing that the only person
Speaker 1: I was performing for was myself. That night, as I
Speaker 1: tried to read in bed, I heard Julia gently shitting
Speaker 1: cupboards in the next room, as if trying not to
Speaker 1: wake me. When she finally slipped under the comforter, she whispered,
Speaker 1: We're okay, right. I didn't, Hans so, not out of malice,
Speaker 1: just from being overtired by the effort of Shrine every
Speaker 1: attempt I made to insert myself into her apparent new life.
Speaker 1: Feltstymide Ye should come see my office, Julia offered once,
Speaker 1: but the tourer was rushed, her coworkers busy, her attention split.
Speaker 1: The walls were ligned with photos of team events. I
Speaker 1: didn't recall being invited to. Julia caught midlaf with the
Speaker 1: flood of unfamiliar faces. Only later, scrolling through the company's Instagram,
Speaker 1: did to see one picture blurred unmistakably Julia in the
Speaker 1: background with a group at what looked like Spruce and Pine,
Speaker 1: the name from her note. The photo was tied from
Speaker 1: five weeks ago on a Friday. By now, I developed
Speaker 1: my own passive investigation habits, watching local event ins to
Speaker 1: grand hosts, scanning for Julia in crowd shots, magnifying faces
Speaker 1: in the back row of gallery events had never been
Speaker 1: told about. Sometimes I could swear it was her, of
Speaker 1: other times just the shape of her cotal hair. What
Speaker 1: worried me more than anything was not who she was with,
Speaker 1: but how easy it had become for her to simply
Speaker 1: divide her life Here, Sam dinner gifts, an hour and
Speaker 1: a half of Netflix, the pretense of normal out there,
Speaker 1: Julia a personality against only in the corners by chance,
Speaker 1: and pixelated photos. The crowning moment, at least I thought
Speaker 1: it was the tipping point, then came after an argument.
Speaker 1: It wasn't much of a fight, hardly worthy of the word.
Speaker 1: I tried to schedule a Saturday hike for the two
Speaker 1: of us. She had, she insisted, already promised to volunteer
Speaker 1: at the park clean up. I pressed, frustrated with who
Speaker 1: the coworkers. When I asked which ones, She wrestled. Does
Speaker 1: it matter they are not really friends, Sam, It's just
Speaker 1: something I said i'd do. The conversation went in pointless
Speaker 1: circles before Julia finally raised her voice. Why are you
Speaker 1: so obsessed with my schedule? You? No work is nuts
Speaker 1: right now? I managed. I just want to feel like
Speaker 1: I know you're here with me, That's all sheerly is softened,
Speaker 1: suddenly tired. Her hand covered mine. Her eyes were blistening,
Speaker 1: but not with anger. I'm sorry, she said, I've messed
Speaker 1: this up. Truth is, I've been trying to set up
Speaker 1: something for your surprise. I didn't want you to then.
Speaker 1: I thought you were flailing or not capable, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't tell you about it. Just I wanted to make
Speaker 1: you feel part of things here. I didn't buy it
Speaker 1: all at once, but something in the way her defense
Speaker 1: is lowered made me want to believe. She went to
Speaker 1: her brief case and returned with a folder, official letterhead
Speaker 1: from the local gallery, the same one that sent the
Speaker 1: original print pre work. I've been quietly setting up a group, Shure.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if the secrecy has made things weird. The tickets,
Speaker 1: the meetings, all of it did was for that I
Speaker 1: let myself feel relief, and then the predictable tide of guilt.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'd been the suspicious one, reading betrayal into gestures
Speaker 1: of love. I apologize for being called lately. Duly promised
Speaker 1: to put her phone away. During dinner, the air between
Speaker 1: us Felbloosa easy in a way that made me ache
Speaker 1: with how rare it become. We made a celebratory meal,
Speaker 1: pasta from scratch, a bottle of chill Chabley's music playing.
Speaker 1: I try to imagine this as the start of a repair,
Speaker 1: a gentle circuit back to ourselves. Surely even suggested we
Speaker 1: spend Sunday wandering the park together, just us for the
Speaker 1: space of an evening. The old rythm felt close enough
Speaker 1: to touch. My parents called during dessert. I let the
Speaker 1: coal ring out so I could linger in the moment.
Speaker 1: But the next morning, an emil hit my junk folder
Speaker 1: from the gallery manager, flagged spam subject line thanks for
Speaker 1: last night. The body began. So wonderful seeing you and
Speaker 1: Julia at the event, how bairn dinner, drink all the
Speaker 1: prosecco again. Ha. It was a treat to finally meet
Speaker 1: artis as passionate as you both are. See you at
Speaker 1: the next party. It closed. Tell Julia we love seeing
Speaker 1: you and Erin together. I stared at the screen long
Speaker 1: enough that my eyes stung. The names danced Julia Sam Erin.
Speaker 1: Who the hell was Erin? Why did the gallery manager
Speaker 1: think I was her? Had Julia accidentally double booked her fictions?
Speaker 1: Or was I just aun acquainted with all the players
Speaker 1: in my own life? The tension that had nearly faded
Speaker 1: came roaring back. I hate reply, heart panning, typing carefully,
Speaker 1: thank you again. I just wanted to double check was
Speaker 1: I introduced as Erin? Or is there another artist in
Speaker 1: the group I haven't met yet. Minutes later, I responds chime,
Speaker 1: oh no, sorry for the confusion. Errin is Julia's close friend, right,
Speaker 1: She's at all the Friday event with you two in
Speaker 1: the cafe crew. I'm sure it'll make sense next time
Speaker 1: we meet. Every word was a confirmation of a life
Speaker 1: I hadn't lived. A giggled Julia plus air, I plus
Speaker 1: city at a my own name alongside Julie's looking for
Speaker 1: some clarifying moment. Should I misread some harm as so
Speaker 1: she'll mix up? But they only hits involving Julia and
Speaker 1: Erin from the last year were a tired charity auction
Speaker 1: and a blurry group shot at Spruce and Pine. The
Speaker 1: woman beside Julia with hair a perfect shade of Mabel,
Speaker 1: their arms linked for the camera. Desperate for clarity, I
Speaker 1: texted Michael Hay random question, when you saw Julie at
Speaker 1: the park? Who was with her? Was it definitely me?
Speaker 1: He took a while to answer, about twenty minutes later.
Speaker 1: I thought it was, But I'm terrible with faces. I
Speaker 1: remember Julie waved, she was laughing about something. Might have
Speaker 1: been another friend. Sorry, not super helpful. I refreshed gallery
Speaker 1: event pages, finally zooming in on an album from last month.
Speaker 1: There was Julia, no mistaking her, one hand on the
Speaker 1: small of a woman's back, the other holding a wineglass,
Speaker 1: flanked by the red haired air, and their faces were
Speaker 1: inches apart. They looked not just clothes, but familiar in
Speaker 1: intimacy that telegraphed thousands of words. In a moment, I
Speaker 1: ransacked myself for explanations. Was Erin her confidante the friend?
Speaker 1: Julie didn't want to discuss because it would make me jealous,
Speaker 1: though of what I wasn't sure was this a new friend,
Speaker 1: someone who'd taken the place I used to occupy in
Speaker 1: Julia's crowded world, always err in the missing puzzle There
Speaker 1: at the cafe, Julia's laughing companion on Friday nights, while
Speaker 1: I scrolled movie trailers alone, I tried to picture how
Speaker 1: to ask, how to keep it calm, rational, But all
Speaker 1: I could see was the two of them, the body
Speaker 1: language so open, so distinct from the polite professional stiffness
Speaker 1: had seen Julie keep with coworkers. If there was nothing
Speaker 1: to hide, why keep the storry sweit By Now, I'd
Speaker 1: stop pretending this could be solved by another gentle conversation.
Speaker 1: Each layer I uncovered suggested not a single omission but
Speaker 1: aweb Julia's city, life and mind carefully separated by design.
Speaker 1: But the concrete evident remain scarce. The print, the note,
Speaker 1: the cafe owner is knowing smile, the mistaken identity at
Speaker 1: the mixer, the wandering badge, the necklace, the photograph, the
Speaker 1: galleries she remix up whole threads, none enough to hand
Speaker 1: an accusation on certainly nothing. Julie couldn't shrig offer another
Speaker 1: clever lie or half truth. Still, I watched her more closely.
Speaker 1: At home, she grew more attentive, almost preempt of suggesting outings,
Speaker 1: pushing for plans, over compensating in a way that made
Speaker 1: me wary rather than loved. She made espresso for me
Speaker 1: in the mornings, tied her messages so they'd hit. Just
Speaker 1: as I left a gallery, she sent me memes I
Speaker 1: had already seen, said y my whole world. Then left
Speaker 1: for the gym with her phone zip tied into her
Speaker 1: in a jacket pocket. Worse, she never used to store it.
Speaker 1: One night, curiosity finally pinched too hard to ignore. After
Speaker 1: Julia fell asleep, I went looking for answers. I told myself,
Speaker 1: I just need of reassurance, a line I'd never crossed
Speaker 1: before in years of trusting her. Her laptop was locked,
Speaker 1: my old password attempt fudle, her form was face down
Speaker 1: screen sleeping, and as much as I wanted to, I
Speaker 1: didn't dare. I returned to the kitchen, compelled instead to
Speaker 1: check the shopping bags. She left. Sat by her briefcase,
Speaker 1: a grocery receipt, a business card for spruce and pine
Speaker 1: in a neque caligraphic hand, a theater ticket's dub. I
Speaker 1: held the ticket in my Palm. Last Friday, at seven
Speaker 1: zero p m. Showed the last room I played. Julia
Speaker 1: had never mentioned on a night I could have sworn
Speaker 1: she'd gotten home late, complaining about after work drinks. I
Speaker 1: found myself inventorying every object, every note, trying to see
Speaker 1: which stories Julia had rehearsed, which hunters came a beat
Speaker 1: too fast, which gifts had clearly been wrapped by some
Speaker 1: one else. Had I always been as suspicious? Or had
Speaker 1: Julia made me into version of myself if I barely
Speaker 1: recognized the city outside. Never slept. I lay in bed,
Speaker 1: listening to distant sirens and the faint thud of club music,
Speaker 1: measuring the gap between us in another old life. Maybe
Speaker 1: this would amount to nothing, O blip, a weird coincidence,
Speaker 1: a story to laugh about years from now. But each
Speaker 1: art of fact proved the same point. Julia's life year
Speaker 1: was bigger, more intricate, and distinctly partitioned. I forced myself
Speaker 1: to sleep, knowing the alternative was a night spent composing
Speaker 1: imaginary confrontations, dialogs that always ended with more questions and answers.
Speaker 1: Morning came. Julia kissed me before leaving her mouth dry,
Speaker 1: her eyes already focused elsewhere. Love you, she said, dinner
Speaker 1: to night, Sure, just the two of us, I replied.
Speaker 1: She smiled a practice demure smile, one perfected from work,
Speaker 1: not intimacy. I watched her leave, then reach for my tablet.
Speaker 1: Instead of drawing, I opened my notes that beginning a
Speaker 1: carefull list of every inconsistency, every name, every unexplained outing
Speaker 1: in a found engine, I listed spruce and pine while
Speaker 1: finch cafe airin rear dress from the mixer, the gallery emails,
Speaker 1: Michael's park, sighting the necklace, the critic card alert, I
Speaker 1: crossed reference dates, tickets, techs, event photos. The web began
Speaker 1: to take shape, not yet complete, but impossible to wholly
Speaker 1: rationalize a way. Eventually, I got up and paced the
Speaker 1: living room. The print from the gallery was still on
Speaker 1: the wall above our bed, its vibrant colors now almost mocking.
Speaker 1: I studied every inch of it, as if turning it
Speaker 1: would knock another clue. Late that afternoon, Julie called me,
Speaker 1: her voice slightly too chirpy. I'm in the area. Should
Speaker 1: I pick up dinner on the way back? Maybe see
Speaker 1: she what about that new place? Spruce and Pine? I
Speaker 1: let the name fall lightly. There was a beat then
Speaker 1: she laughed. The sound virgin on theatrical That place way
Speaker 1: over height. Besides, I don't remember the last time I
Speaker 1: even saw it open. I could oppress, but I let
Speaker 1: it go. Whatever you want, She hung up, leaving me
Speaker 1: with the image of her foam press to her ear
Speaker 1: walking streets. Had never managed to see her walk with me.
Speaker 1: That evening, eating takeout on the balcony, I asked, would
Speaker 1: you ever want to invite anyone over? You've been building
Speaker 1: all these new connections. I feel like I'm always hearing
Speaker 1: about a friend but never meeting them. Julia didn't even flinch.
Speaker 1: Everyone's schedules are nuts. Once things slow down, yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: set up a brunch or something. Her gaze was fixed
Speaker 1: on the skyline, lights pulling and stretching beyond the balcony's
Speaker 1: glass barrier. I tried to picture her with this other group, laughing,
Speaker 1: spilling secrets at ease. I tried too, to see myself
Speaker 1: as she might describe me to them, the introvert at home,
Speaker 1: their creative spouse who gets it too busy to tagle on.
Speaker 1: If only that had been enough to let me settle.
Speaker 1: But as I cleared empty sush trays and stat the
Speaker 1: wineglasses in the sink. I caught Julia pocketing her phone,
Speaker 1: look racing across her face, gild or fatigue hard to say.
Speaker 1: I left her to her emails and went to bed
Speaker 1: early Phinniates aust The next morning, after Julia left for
Speaker 1: breakfast meeting, I scolled mindlessly through tagged photos from city
Speaker 1: arts organizations. My ritual now in a post from the
Speaker 1: theaters opening night, I found Julia four grunded with their
Speaker 1: in their bodies angled toward each other, I sparkling, arms
Speaker 1: linked at the waist, more intimate than colleagues, wells away
Speaker 1: from the self Julia reserved for me. This time. I
Speaker 1: saved the screnger, not because I expected to use it,
Speaker 1: but because, for the first time, I believed what it showed.
Speaker 1: That the pieces of Julia I had loved, the dedication,
Speaker 1: the drive, the bloom of her laughter, were also capable
Speaker 1: of being portioned, translated for other lives. I spent the
Speaker 1: rest of the day with annoying worry that I lost
Speaker 1: something or retrievable, not our marriage, not even Julia, but
Speaker 1: the sense of trust that was our bulwark. When she
Speaker 1: came home that night, she brought flowers the scent shar
Speaker 1: up and oversweet. I thanked her, wishing I could accept
Speaker 1: the gift as it was meant, instead of as an
Speaker 1: apology I hadn't been offered. If loneliness has assent, it
Speaker 1: is lilies on a dining table, on open mail, and
Speaker 1: the faint chemical burn of window cleaner. Something was breaking,
Speaker 1: not with a bang, but with the accumulation of polite gestures,
Speaker 1: missing invitations, stories half told. I just didn't know how
Speaker 1: to catch the falling pieces. A few days passed with
Speaker 1: the silence of nervous truce. I tried to fill the
Speaker 1: time with work, though every drawing I started soured into anxiety.
Speaker 1: I went to the gym, the market, the park, places
Speaker 1: where I could be surrounded by other people's routines, but
Speaker 1: nothing in me quite settled. Julia was careful, even playful,
Speaker 1: on some nights, texting meet little comments throughout her day
Speaker 1: of businessperson's dog in a ridiculous coat, someone's toast catching
Speaker 1: fire in the office break room. But the sense persisted
Speaker 1: that she was narrating, not including me, a filtered experience
Speaker 1: curated for my consumption. The next Thursday, with rain hitting
Speaker 1: the windows hard and the city pulsing, under heavy clouds.
Speaker 1: Julia was supposed to be home early. She'd promised, after
Speaker 1: too many canceled plans, that we'd order in and actually
Speaker 1: watch a film together. Phones off, just us like before.
Speaker 1: I even took a break from work and picked up
Speaker 1: her favorite needles on the walk home, just to try
Speaker 1: to set a tourne a reminder of visy things that
Speaker 1: used to come without effort. It was nearly when she texted,
Speaker 1: trapped at the office. Total nightmare. Don't wait up if
Speaker 1: you are tired, though I waited anyway. Appetite dis salt,
Speaker 1: the city, sodium light mixing with my reflected face on
Speaker 1: the microwave's black window. I let the needles grow cold,
Speaker 1: then pack them away, my fingers trembling with small, lonely anger.
Speaker 1: Julia crept in close to eleven, the scent of a
Speaker 1: familiar perfume, faint but undeniable, masked by her own deodorant,
Speaker 1: as is splashed hastily at the gem. She slipped past
Speaker 1: me in the hall, apologizing again, voice sugary and britle.
Speaker 1: Can we not do this right now? She said, toying
Speaker 1: off her boots, eyes blutch out, pointedly, not hugging me.
Speaker 1: I stepped into the bathroom after she passed, turning the
Speaker 1: fan on and standing in the steam to smell the
Speaker 1: neck of her coat. There was nothing distinctive, just that
Speaker 1: sweet human sense she'd always had, but somehow unfamiliar to
Speaker 1: me now, like the shirt of a stranger. The next
Speaker 1: morning I resolved to do what Julia always did in confusion,
Speaker 1: go to the sores. I returned to Wildfinch, ordered a
Speaker 1: coffee and lingered at the window, sketcheduk ope and pretending
Speaker 1: to draw the rain puddles outside. The red haired woman
Speaker 1: I'd seen before her, and by process of alumination, arrived
Speaker 1: just ahead of noon. She was laughing with a stocky
Speaker 1: woman in glasses. Her voice reached me over the low
Speaker 1: hum when she ordered her phone chirped, and she read
Speaker 1: her texts, nodding, before sitting at a chew top near
Speaker 1: the door. Minutes later, the owner swung by her table.
Speaker 1: Julia working late again, he asked gently. Erin shook her head. No,
Speaker 1: she's got a meeting up by the river. I might
Speaker 1: swing by after it depends, when she's free. There was
Speaker 1: nothing flirtatious, but a rhythm coated easy, the way you
Speaker 1: talk about someone who is both a habit and a joy,
Speaker 1: my pen stilled on the page. After Erin's friend left,
Speaker 1: she scrolled through her photos, stopping now and then fingers
Speaker 1: pausing as if debating whether to send one alarm. I
Speaker 1: tried to imagine what I would say if she glanced
Speaker 1: up Sam, wife of Julia, polite, impostor in the world
Speaker 1: Julia had built. I couldn't summon a version of myself
Speaker 1: that would feel justified. Was safe. I finished my coffee
Speaker 1: and left without being noticed, heart racing on the narrow street.
Speaker 1: I called Julia. She didn't pick up, but texted back
Speaker 1: a minute later in a client meeting. Can I call
Speaker 1: at her back at the apartment. I wandered the rooms,
Speaker 1: picking up after Julia the way I always did, a
Speaker 1: collecting her heels from the entryway, folding her Jim shorts,
Speaker 1: closing a foule drawer. She left cracked. I noticed, this
Speaker 1: time on her deskin envelope slightly ripped, with my name
Speaker 1: written on it in Julia's rushed hand. There was no
Speaker 1: card inside it, just a gallery print receipt. The turtle
Speaker 1: was higher than night of guest, but the name on
Speaker 1: the collected by Lyme was neither mine, nor Julia's just
Speaker 1: ye Madson. I set the envelope carefully back under a
Speaker 1: pile of tax documents, wondering if confrontation was what I wanted.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'd find some innocent reason, a shed drop off,
Speaker 1: a gallery assistant. You'd fetched it for her. Maybe there
Speaker 1: wouldn't even be a lie to catch. It was harder
Speaker 1: to maintain that hope after the week end. Julia came
Speaker 1: home Saturday afternoon, flushed and windblum, carrying two boxes, one
Speaker 1: addressed to me, the other to some one named Eron,
Speaker 1: but with our address crossed out on Natton Julia written
Speaker 1: in black marker. She caught me looking at the labels
Speaker 1: and moved quickly, laughing, sorry, delivery screw up. I'll drop
Speaker 1: the other one at Eron's work this week. I think
Speaker 1: our male guy is new. Another lie, delivered with a giggle,
Speaker 1: as if I were in on the joke. I let
Speaker 1: her walk. These deceptions pass me every time, testing my
Speaker 1: willinness to play down. Sunday, I suggested we host a brunch,
Speaker 1: invite her old city friends or maybe her new coworkers.
Speaker 1: Even Michael. Julia looked suddenly pained. This weekend's will wash
Speaker 1: my teams in push mode, but let's do it soon
Speaker 1: for sure. She started slicing oranges, her hands tight on
Speaker 1: the peels. Michael texted me mid morning that offer still
Speaker 1: good for grilling next weekend. You Julia may be the
Speaker 1: new couple from seventeen B I replied, yes, we'd love
Speaker 1: that Julia Swamp, but I'll try to corral her. It
Speaker 1: was habit now, confirming her schedule through third parties, reverse
Speaker 1: engineering her stories, and hope of pinning down the truth.
Speaker 1: Monday brought another curve of a statement from our joint
Speaker 1: ac count flight. The jewelry purchase again a different store,
Speaker 1: not as expensive, but ought for someone who rarely wore
Speaker 1: anything but her wedding ring and a silver chain. I
Speaker 1: checked Julia's jewelry dish, a new ring sap beside the
Speaker 1: old ones, delicate gold, not her style. That night, after
Speaker 1: she shower, I picked it up quietly. This is pretty new,
Speaker 1: Julie glanced, then shrugged. Borrowed it for outfit Foreto's at work,
Speaker 1: one of the designer's wandered feedback. I turned it over,
Speaker 1: it ran my thumb over a tiny engraving e M
Speaker 1: that didn't fit any design, and Julia had mentioned who's
Speaker 1: e M. I pressed gently. She didn't miss abeat. That's
Speaker 1: Erin's daughter's initials. I think she lent it to me
Speaker 1: after lunch. It's just alone. You don't need to worry,
Speaker 1: just alone, just a friend, just a lunch. I felt
Speaker 1: my shoulder slump, humiliation pressing against my chest. I nodded,
Speaker 1: set the ring back in the dish and changed the
Speaker 1: subject to dinner, barely tasting the food. I made the
Speaker 1: following Wednesday, a delivery arround flowers exploding with white and
Speaker 1: orange blooms. The card and signed reed to the best
Speaker 1: gallery partner. The city needs more SAMs than Jewelia's my
Speaker 1: name leading hers. Hulia intercepted the bouquet as I stood
Speaker 1: staring at the arrangement, her voice AIRI work thing again.
Speaker 1: They'll love a photo. AP tossed the card if it
Speaker 1: creeps you out. The team always teases me for having
Speaker 1: a wife, artist inspiration. You never talk about me at work,
Speaker 1: I said, before I could stop myself. She kissed my temple,
Speaker 1: ignoring my words. It's a funny line for New cities.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you. I flinch, unable to answer. Every
Speaker 1: kindness was a threat. Now every moment of affection a ransom.
Speaker 1: I found myself on social media, poring over local event pages,
Speaker 1: digging deeper through community, grew pastacs. In a set of
Speaker 1: photos from a power couples in the ARCHTS fundraiser, I
Speaker 1: saw Julia and erinign not post together this time, but
Speaker 1: repeatedly caught and shared laughter at hands on each other's forearms,
Speaker 1: close coordinated, almost by accident, always the same Friday night
Speaker 1: watermark on the bottom of the photos, Spruce and Pine.
Speaker 1: I took screen shuts, my handshaking chess for raw. I
Speaker 1: couldn't decide what anger me more that Julia had rereadded
Speaker 1: reality so craftily, or that everyone else seemed to accept
Speaker 1: her explanations as if Sam was always just about to arrive,
Speaker 1: just missed their in spirit, if not in fact, another
Speaker 1: week's script by Julia was more attentive at home, insisted
Speaker 1: on reading drafts of my latest picture book, suggested markets
Speaker 1: to explore new yoga classes. At the same time, she
Speaker 1: grew irritable at questions about her schedule. It's all deadlines,
Speaker 1: she snapped once after I asked whether she'd be home
Speaker 1: for dinner. I can't plan everything, trust me a little.
Speaker 1: I heard it as an indictment. The trust had granted
Speaker 1: freely for years. Now seemed to be a test I
Speaker 1: was always failing. Early Saturday, I went for a walk,
Speaker 1: mind swirling for on to the only place that might
Speaker 1: yield answers. The gallery itself. It was smaller than I imagined,
Speaker 1: all gleaming with the natural light, hung with what by
Speaker 1: artists whose names are half recognized. The manager, a cheerful
Speaker 1: woman in oversized glasses, greeted me by name. So glad
Speaker 1: to see you, Sam. Julia said you might stop by
Speaker 1: to peek at the catalog. Still curious about that group show,
Speaker 1: I blinked, Actually, I wanted to ask to Julia mention
Speaker 1: submitting work from me. I am behind on all the planning.
Speaker 1: The manager grinned, oh, it's informal. We just love your
Speaker 1: dynamic as a couple. You and Eron make a great team,
Speaker 1: so much energy at our Friday salons. She paused. When
Speaker 1: I didn't reply last week's talk, especially Erin's questions were
Speaker 1: so sharp, Julia said, she keeps you both on your toes.
Speaker 1: A hollow opened in my chest. I think I'm missing
Speaker 1: some details, I said, fighting for compoter was I at
Speaker 1: that one she looked uneasy. You weren't. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I just assumed maybe I'm mixed up the dates. Tell
Speaker 1: Julie I'm working on her commission. Will you My legs
Speaker 1: carried me outside before my mind caught up. I sat
Speaker 1: on the curve ere, tasting of car exhaust and wondered
Speaker 1: who to hell Julia was sharing her real self with
Speaker 1: whose shadow I lived in. By the time Julie called,
Speaker 1: I'd rehearse a dozen ways to broach it. She sounded bright,
Speaker 1: nearly giddy, thinking of picking up scuns for tomorrow, cranberry
Speaker 1: or apricot, whatever your pick. I managed the words tasting form.
Speaker 1: She paused, you okay. I studied my yeah, just tired.
Speaker 1: I wondered whether she heard the distance or whether she
Speaker 1: had already accepted it as inevitable. That night, as Julia showered,
Speaker 1: I quietly searched the den her documents needy filed had groan.
Speaker 1: Tucked in the side pocket of her briefcase was a
Speaker 1: folded newsletter for Spruce and Pine, annotated in Julia's handwriting
Speaker 1: little staff beside event dates, ask ye Brie next week.
Speaker 1: In the margin, there was a sticky note written in
Speaker 1: Julia's looping scroll J plus E s and P sevenbum
Speaker 1: the same initials, the same shorthand none of it referenced me.
Speaker 1: I snapped photos of each page, finger slick with sweat. Later,
Speaker 1: searching for an aspern in her night's tend, I found
Speaker 1: a small locked box. The key wasn't in sight, but
Speaker 1: the slot showed clear evidence of frequent use, the paint chipped,
Speaker 1: the grain worn. I remembered Julia's habitacking jewelry, re seats
Speaker 1: and all foreign coins into boxes at our old place.
Speaker 1: Why locke it now? As soon as Julia fell asleep,
Speaker 1: I pulled my laptop onto my lap and turned out
Speaker 1: the screen brightness to drown out my nerves. If I
Speaker 1: was going to keep being treated as an outsider, I
Speaker 1: could at least try to map the truth. I made
Speaker 1: it spread which she dates, times, lies, gallery events, jewelry settings, everything.
Speaker 1: As the columns filled, the patterns were undeniable. Friday nights
Speaker 1: always blocked out, always an excuse, Always a new event,
Speaker 1: a new work friend or obligation, always errin in the
Speaker 1: periphery of center, always pruce and pine. Monday, another flat
Speaker 1: lining morning. I told Julia I might take a day
Speaker 1: trip to scout for sketching spots, and she didn't blink.
Speaker 1: Have fun, Text me when you're safe, O K. I
Speaker 1: slipped out, doubling back after a few blocks to test
Speaker 1: the building's security, found Michael in the lobby talking to
Speaker 1: the dormen. He greeted me friendly and slightly cautious. He
Speaker 1: to survived the rainstorm last week. Yea, Julia mentioned you
Speaker 1: both got soaked heading back from the park. I jerked
Speaker 1: my head up. I was home Thursday. Julia must have
Speaker 1: been with some one else. Michael looked genuinely embarrassed. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. Guess I mixed you up again. There was
Speaker 1: a woman with her. I thought maybe a new Heck,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't assume no worries. I offered what I hoped
Speaker 1: was a plausible smile, but it only confirmed what I
Speaker 1: had begun to. Julia had simply grafted me out of
Speaker 1: her public life, splices me into anecdotes when convenient left
Speaker 1: me behind. The pressure was mounting. Even the apartment felt
Speaker 1: for and as they curated for someone I didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: In cupboards, there were odds and ends, and mug with
Speaker 1: the best gallery night ever jade and any pain stained
Speaker 1: as if from a real event, never once gifted to me.
Speaker 1: A coast of brand of with Spruce and Pine's logo,
Speaker 1: a ticket stop for a jazz night date overlapping with
Speaker 1: supposed work drinks. These things hiding in plain sight TV
Speaker 1: prop like left by accident or worse, deliberate neglect, assuming
Speaker 1: my lack of curiosity. All the while, Julia was careful
Speaker 1: to schedule my distractions yoga, the artist group, a new
Speaker 1: friend brunch at the Wildfinch that never materialized. Each suggestion
Speaker 1: felt like redirection. When I press about making plans with
Speaker 1: her coworkers, she demurred, they are not that sociable. You
Speaker 1: know how it is. I wondered if Ferrine existed in
Speaker 1: the world, or if she too was partitioned into Julia's
Speaker 1: compartments a private prize. I trailed her online, trying not
Speaker 1: to unravel. One more search linked Julia and Erin's names
Speaker 1: on a charitable donation but paid which for the city's
Speaker 1: queer Arts collective. The joint donors Julie, atron Ere and
Speaker 1: m their initials together Acutessy Flourish. The date was two
Speaker 1: weeks ago. The same Friday, Julia insisted she'd be not
Speaker 1: late finalizing reports At home that night, I steeled myself
Speaker 1: to get more concrete evidence. When Julia left us opposed
Speaker 1: jym night, I turned the denizide out. The key to
Speaker 1: the lot box eluded me, but tucked among her scarves
Speaker 1: behind a rarely worn coat, I found her old phone
Speaker 1: and ancient model, likely languishing dead. I plugged it in,
Speaker 1: not expecting results, mostly acting on desperation. It powered on.
Speaker 1: Messages from months ago filled the screen, too many to pass,
Speaker 1: but one Chaine caught my eye. Weekly planned, Always, Friday nights,
Speaker 1: Always can't wait for s and p J. Plus you
Speaker 1: don't forget seven shop band once you are magic, we
Speaker 1: ok for tomorrow. The responses were short hearts, snap shots,
Speaker 1: a photo of two wineglasses clinking together in a bar
Speaker 1: lit purple and gold. The dig unmistakably spruce and pines
Speaker 1: from the photos online. I sat there, phone in hand,
Speaker 1: back pressed to the whole wall, realizing I was trembling.
Speaker 1: I'd always thought of myself as level, even tempered, but
Speaker 1: there was a violence to this revelation. Years of trust,
Speaker 1: methodically repurposed, intimacy, repackaged as plausible deniability. I was living
Speaker 1: in Julia's shadow show permitted only the scenes she wanted
Speaker 1: me to see. I heard Julia's key in the lock
Speaker 1: and snap the phone off, shoving it under the laundry pile.
Speaker 1: She came and flushed, cheeks high with color. Hey, you
Speaker 1: look pale. Are you okay? Just a headache? I lied?
Speaker 1: She kissed my forehead, eyes narrow as if searching my
Speaker 1: story for cracks. Let's take it easy to night, No screams,
Speaker 1: just as yea. I managed a nod inside my screaming
Speaker 1: questions tried to distill themselves into one. Had it all
Speaker 1: truly started since moving? Oh? Was Julia's double life, the
Speaker 1: real engine behind every new city, every job, every opportunity
Speaker 1: lying beside her. That night, stirring at the ceiling, I
Speaker 1: reviewed every moment I'd overlooked, every moment of trust spent
Speaker 1: on someone who calculated their affection in lies, in silent dark.
Speaker 1: I made a decision soon. I insist on the truth,
Speaker 1: one way or another. I woke earlier than usual, sweat
Speaker 1: cooling at my temples, convinced for three blinking hearted seconds
Speaker 1: that I'd only dreamed the shape of Julia's duplicity. But
Speaker 1: the print hanging above our bed registered as sharp as
Speaker 1: ever more outofathan artwork. My list semichoded lay open on
Speaker 1: my night's end, and I caught myself holding my breath,
Speaker 1: listening for her footsteps in the hole, as if how
Speaker 1: mere presence could settle the roiling in my gut. Julia's
Speaker 1: alarm trolled from her phone. She shifted beside me, stretching,
Speaker 1: then curled closer. You are up early, she mumbled, into
Speaker 1: my shoulder, our fingers and consciously tracing my forearm a
Speaker 1: patent so familia, my skin tingled with Jane. The air
Speaker 1: between us felt thinner, taut enough to hum, crowned with
Speaker 1: unspoken things. I wondered if she could feel it. The heaviness,
Speaker 1: new and undeniable, bore it for ability to compartmentalize rendered
Speaker 1: the rest of us invisible. She made breakfast as usual,
Speaker 1: sliding eggs onto her plate, humming a wordless June. I
Speaker 1: slaid into the kitchen, watching her in the blue morning light.
Speaker 1: All I could see were the gaps, the hours, the gifts,
Speaker 1: the notes, the woman named Aaron, whose existence pressed up
Speaker 1: against all life, like a splinter beneath the air. She
Speaker 1: handed me coffee, warmth, brushing my fingers before I could flinch.
Speaker 1: I'd kill for a day off, she sighed. I was
Speaker 1: darting to her scanning notifications. What's your planted here? I
Speaker 1: wanted to say, I planned to burn this down. Instead,
Speaker 1: I heard myself recite a lie, probably sketches, errands, nothing big.
Speaker 1: My own words hung leaden. Rain supposed to pick up later,
Speaker 1: So don't get caught out, she said. In the Bland
Speaker 1: Practical Register of a wife's simming headlines for her spouse's weather,
Speaker 1: every word almost tender, sharpened at the edges by distance.
Speaker 1: She left for work at eight. How perfume trailing goes like?
Speaker 1: In the foyer. I watched her from the window, small
Speaker 1: against the city's palette, then set about gathering the evidence.
Speaker 1: Envelope with the gallery received the mark Dewey Box her
Speaker 1: old phone methodical now I made sure each piece would
Speaker 1: be ready, no matter how The next hours unfolded had
Speaker 1: forced the truth into daylight. Once the apartment was empty,
Speaker 1: I went hunting for the loft box's key. The quiet
Speaker 1: made every creek surge. I found myself moving through rooms
Speaker 1: as cautiously as if Julia might walk in at any moment. Finally,
Speaker 1: behind the stack board games and unused yoga matt In
Speaker 1: the hall closet, I found a little as that but
Speaker 1: patched labels, travel docks nestledon sighed between expired insurance cards
Speaker 1: and a paper clips strangled passport. Was a silver key,
Speaker 1: small enough to lose in your palm. I steadied the
Speaker 1: box on the bed, heartbeat, stumbling. The lock turned with
Speaker 1: a soft click. Inside beneath tissue and velvet pouches, where
Speaker 1: the tokens Julia had hidden, even from herself, several cars,
Speaker 1: a sling old bracelet, receipts for gifts, show tickets, and
Speaker 1: a sheaf of a male card to rescue erin. I
Speaker 1: slip one out, reading the soft script he sometimes Friday
Speaker 1: night really is enough love Jay. Another for all the
Speaker 1: spruce and pine records will break next year, and another
Speaker 1: I'll write you before I ever run. The jewelry matched
Speaker 1: a pair of delicate ear rings I'd never seen her wear.
Speaker 1: I closed the box, each detail, making my hand shake harder.
Speaker 1: The city outside felt hostile. Every person on the side
Speaker 1: will complicit. I dressed with nervous precision, laying out the
Speaker 1: evidence in the ten every card photo stub all the
Speaker 1: proof that the fault lines of our life followed a
Speaker 1: design I never agreed to. I didn't know how long
Speaker 1: that before Julia noticed the lock had been turned. Every
Speaker 1: minute became a comdown. My phone buzzed with the text
Speaker 1: from Michael f Y I grillings reined out some other weakened.
Speaker 1: I answered automatically, hardly reading my own words. When noon
Speaker 1: came and went sick, energy replaced any urge to eat.
Speaker 1: I sat with the box open on my lap, reading
Speaker 1: Julia's notes in the leaping Hasty Prince she once reserved
Speaker 1: only from me. I tried to conjure anger pure enough
Speaker 1: to burn off the pane, but every fresh proof run
Speaker 1: through dis dodge a sieve. This was the handwriting that
Speaker 1: had first said she loved me, that signed our marriage forms,
Speaker 1: that wrote lettle lists for flea market runs. As the
Speaker 1: sky darkened, anxiety ramped into dread. Julia message, were running late,
Speaker 1: don't wait dinner. I stared at those four words, the
Speaker 1: casual script, willing myself not to answer. The clock dragged
Speaker 1: towards six rain, last the windows. I rehearsed every version
Speaker 1: of the coming confrontation, gentle, explosive, bleeding, cold. In none
Speaker 1: of them did I win. In most Julia managed to
Speaker 1: write the story once again, there was no outcome that
Speaker 1: returned the old world. When she arrived, her hair was
Speaker 1: frizzed from the rain. She clattered in, dumped her solemn
Speaker 1: briefcase by the door, called Sam. Her voice sounded worry, fray, bellbigation,
Speaker 1: but reaching, trying maybe to pull it together. I didn't respond.
Speaker 1: I let her handker coat, take off, her shoes, pad
Speaker 1: through the apartment until she appeared in the den as
Speaker 1: catching on the pulling evidence bread over the table, she stopped, frozen,
Speaker 1: caught between reaching for me and fleeing the room. What's
Speaker 1: all this? I took a breath. You know what it is?
Speaker 1: My voice steady than I felt, belonged to some braver
Speaker 1: version of myself. She looked from item to itemic gallery
Speaker 1: emails printed and circled in red cards, the annotated playbles,
Speaker 1: the mug, the jewelry box with its secret stash. That's private,
Speaker 1: she said, voice, thread and brittle. He went through my things.
Speaker 1: I ignored the evasion. Who is erin? I wasn't asking
Speaker 1: for her benefit anymore. Her jowl work. For a split second,
Speaker 1: she looked almost impressed, as if she hadn't thought I'd
Speaker 1: be capable of it. She's she's a friend. You wrote
Speaker 1: her love letters, I interrupted, lifting a card. You spend
Speaker 1: every Friday together. You've introduced us as a couple at
Speaker 1: gallery event. He gave her jewelry, and you have kept
Speaker 1: all of it locked away. Why now, she folded her arms,
Speaker 1: retreating into herself. He wouldn't understand. It's complicated. She sounded
Speaker 1: for a moment like a child caught sneaking, petulant, unable
Speaker 1: to summon an adult justification. Try me, I said, voice shaking.
Speaker 1: She didn't meet my eyes. Her fingers played with the
Speaker 1: hem of her shirt, then bawled into fists. It started
Speaker 1: after we moved. I was lonely to she's Erin's nothing bad, Sam,
Speaker 1: I just I needed some one to talk to. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about you at first. Work was insane. You hated
Speaker 1: the city and I couldn't stand it. You lied to
Speaker 1: me every day. I spat the anger. Finally igniting, I
Speaker 1: pointed at the mug. You bought tea trucks for your
Speaker 1: life with her. You made a whole reality. I wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed in. Her chin trembled. No, it wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: I always chose you. If anything, Erin was she stopped.
Speaker 1: Was what an accident? A substitute wife? My words came
Speaker 1: out sharper than I intended. She sat then, as if
Speaker 1: her legs had buckled. She was someone who understood how
Speaker 1: hard this all is. She made it bearable. It was mean.
Speaker 1: I couldn't be enough, not for you, not for myself.
Speaker 1: The coward is Stunn. It was physical. Julia hesitated, then nodded.
Speaker 1: Her whole posture collapsed with the truth it just happened.
Speaker 1: It' it don't say it just happened, And I said, cold,
Speaker 1: it takes work to hide this much. She let her
Speaker 1: hands fall open. Palmp's played as if in supplication. I
Speaker 1: had to give you something, the gifts the gallery showed,
Speaker 1: the parties. If I didn't, I'd lose you. And I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't pick. I thought, if I just kept the neat,
Speaker 1: you'd both be happy. I stared at her. The only
Speaker 1: sounds the rain against the winder. Does Erin know about me?
Speaker 1: Julia blinked, mouth trembling. Not not At first? She thought
Speaker 1: I was single. Later I tried to tell her, but
Speaker 1: she should guessed. I said we had problems, were maybe separating.
Speaker 1: I never had the guts to come clean, shim caught
Speaker 1: hot up my neck, So you lie to both of us.
Speaker 1: She made me look like an idiot in my own city.
Speaker 1: He gave away my life, she cried, then ugly wrenching,
Speaker 1: not for my benefit. I saw her all the way down, resourceful, ambitious,
Speaker 1: but so deeply panished by the first taste of uncertainty
Speaker 1: that shed build an entire separate infrastructure of love and lies.
Speaker 1: She had every cly, not out of malice, but because
Speaker 1: her hunger for at ten belonging was bottomless. Because as
Speaker 1: soon as I became inconvenient too lonely osido slow to acco,
Speaker 1: which she split me off, coddled to herself with some
Speaker 1: one new I started to stay and knee shaking, she
Speaker 1: called to me, voice rough, Sam, Please, you're the only
Speaker 1: person who's ever really known me. I looked at her,
Speaker 1: crumbling rowan. In that moment, my only answer was the
Speaker 1: truth echoed back at her hollow as an emptied room.
Speaker 1: He made me a stranger in my own marriage. Her
Speaker 1: pleading withered. She searched my face and read at last
Speaker 1: the end. I left her there, shoulders caved, weeping onto
Speaker 1: the pile of ArtFacts that had been our life. The
Speaker 1: proof at last, too bulky to be hidden. She trailed
Speaker 1: after me as I packed back, lessing promises, apologies, the
Speaker 1: ethic with the storm building outside, and the kind of
Speaker 1: silence that only comes after the truth has ruined everscript.
Speaker 1: My phone bosed my mother this time, I tested back,
Speaker 1: spending the night somewhere else. I'm okay, love you. Julius
Speaker 1: stood in the doorway, red eyed, wringing her hands. Let's please,
Speaker 1: let's talk more. Don't just go. I zip my suit case,
Speaker 1: avoiding her gaze. There's nothing else to say, not now.
Speaker 1: She tried to follow as far as the elevator, but
Speaker 1: something stopped her, a final dignity or the collapse of argument.
Speaker 1: When the door slit shut, she was a hollow shape
Speaker 1: behind frosted glass, mouth, moving too late for words to matter.
Speaker 1: Her calls and texts started almost immediately after I left
Speaker 1: the building. I let them pile up and answered before
Speaker 1: turning off my phone. The tension coiling inside me released
Speaker 1: at Las into numbers. I checked into a hotel on
Speaker 1: the other side of the city, room cold and anonymous,
Speaker 1: running hot water in the sink, just to have something
Speaker 1: with weight and heat to anchor me in the silence.
Speaker 1: The reality of loss arrived all at once, her marriage
Speaker 1: condensed to three duffels, the sick taste of nothing left,
Speaker 1: and said, for a moment, I sat on the edge
Speaker 1: of the stiff, over bleached bedspread and studied my hands,
Speaker 1: half expecting Julia to knock on the door or coal
Speaker 1: with words that could reverse what had already been torn. Instead,
Speaker 1: I reached for the gallery showing vivatations guarded in the
Speaker 1: outer pocket of my back hand, fish the wedding ring
Speaker 1: from my jeans, turning it over in my palm. The
Speaker 1: only action left was clarity. I opened my laptop, found
Speaker 1: the gallery's email, and sent a message, please remove my
Speaker 1: name from all exhibitions plans. I will not be participating
Speaker 1: in future events. Thank you for your understanding. A minute passed.
Speaker 1: No response came, not yet, but I felt as surely
Speaker 1: as if the door had closed behind me, the first
Speaker 1: so arise of freedom, not revenge, not peace, just motion
Speaker 1: my own. I deleted all the dinner plans Julia and
Speaker 1: I had made for my calendar with three quick taps,
Speaker 1: each one a smaller rasure. Then I stood, pulling the
Speaker 1: blackout curtains open to let the city light in and
Speaker 1: set my wedding ring next to the invitation on the
Speaker 1: stale glass desk. The city beyond look and familiar, still
Speaker 1: full of Julius tracks and inventions. But for the first
Speaker 1: time I saw what lay behind them, the blank on
Speaker 1: curated possibility of my own life. I'd been handed the
Speaker 1: truth finally, and it was enough. After the email to
Speaker 1: the gallery, I stared at the box, half hoping for
Speaker 1: some kind of denial or reversal, as if a new
Speaker 1: page might shiver on to the screen with an apology,
Speaker 1: We're sorry, we didn't mean to summat a form of
Speaker 1: institutional bomb anything but the saftage nothing that greeted me.
Speaker 1: I pinched the bridge of my nose until my vision
Speaker 1: made patterns against the daylight, blinking back the urge to
Speaker 1: catalog and ra cattalog, the evidence to slabrify Julia's portrayals,
Speaker 1: to keep compulsively justifying the fact that I was here
Speaker 1: in this impersonal room with a two frown bed, a
Speaker 1: fresh roll of toilet paper at a right angle, and
Speaker 1: no one calling my name except the echo from my
Speaker 1: empty phone. I willed the silence to receipt, but it
Speaker 1: just pressed closer against my skin. Companionable in its insistence.
Speaker 1: I put the wedding ring into the little drawstring bag
Speaker 1: that had come with it years ago, cined it tight,
Speaker 1: and dropped it beside the keys to the apartment. The
Speaker 1: idea that I had keys all felt monstrous, symbolic, the
Speaker 1: tokens of return, trust and welcome dangling from my hand
Speaker 1: like a relic. I ordered tea from room service, just
Speaker 1: to stay off fitching for a drink, and sat on
Speaker 1: the faded setee by the window, phone on the table,
Speaker 1: trying to decide what came next to not in theory,
Speaker 1: not in hindsight, but just the next actual movement. Before
Speaker 1: I'd left the apartment, I'd looked back at Julia once
Speaker 1: in the elevator mirror. Would she beg would she chase
Speaker 1: for a second, I'd imagined her pounding down the stairwell,
Speaker 1: or pounding out at texts so sincere and wounded out cave.
Speaker 1: But she stayed only in the lint light of the hall,
Speaker 1: motionless except for her fingers at her mouth, gnawing her
Speaker 1: own thumbnail in a gesture of deep exposed panic. Now
Speaker 1: hours later and thirty blocks away, I wondered how she
Speaker 1: was filling up the absence. I pictured her pacing the rooms,
Speaker 1: tidying and untidying invisible evidence, picking up the gallery invitation
Speaker 1: and the mug, stacking relic's, counting losses. I pictured her
Speaker 1: checking her phone, watching my last sent hanstump starting and
Speaker 1: scarring messages. This imagining brought no comfort. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to regret. I wanted her reversal, her evaporation, her confession,
Speaker 1: her impossibility, anything but this slow for usened aftermath messages
Speaker 1: as predicteds tacked up. Two miscalls from Julia, then a
Speaker 1: longer text, I know you need time. Please let me explain.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you everything, all of it. I
Speaker 1: can come to you if you want, or tell me
Speaker 1: what you need. The words were scattered, slightly frantic, with
Speaker 1: punctuation beneath it a single sentence. I felt like the
Speaker 1: purest form of her panic and so sorry, Sam, Please
Speaker 1: I let us sit there, vibrating on the lock screen.
Speaker 1: I didn't answer. My own hand hovered thumm itching across
Speaker 1: the track pad, composing replies I raced before they formed.
Speaker 1: How do you say I don't know what I need
Speaker 1: but it isn't you? Or I want you to disappear
Speaker 1: backwards out of my entire history, unchoose me undo the city,
Speaker 1: or more simply and truly, you made a stranger of me.
Speaker 1: As dusk thickened, I found myself standing in the shower
Speaker 1: at the city's metallic water pound in my back, the
Speaker 1: echo of our last week's replaying in vivid cut glass yards,
Speaker 1: Julia's fingers on my arm, the strange notes in her voice,
Speaker 1: the soft as she deployed a dinner to steer conversations.
Speaker 1: I remembered the feeling of her eyes on me at parties,
Speaker 1: calculating not so much how to please me, but how
Speaker 1: to maneuver which faced, to show which parts of each
Speaker 1: life to wouitdhold, how to keep me at one galleries
Speaker 1: removed from her other world. It was all logistics now,
Speaker 1: hotel toiletries, the unfamiliar grade of tiny industrial soap, the
Speaker 1: sense of moving for some one else's life, even as
Speaker 1: the core of mine crumbled. I saw it with humiliating clarity,
Speaker 1: the double vision of Julia's cleverness and need, my own
Speaker 1: wish to be someone easy in accommodating, someone who could
Speaker 1: believe even while doubting, even while losing the pulse of herself.
Speaker 1: A knock at the door startled me out of my haze.
Speaker 1: I jolted upright. Raoul belted hastily, but it was only
Speaker 1: my room servicetra I sand the slip with a borrowed
Speaker 1: pen hand briefis shaking. The server's eyes were gentle, as
Speaker 1: if she had seen the scene a hundred times before,
Speaker 1: a person alone midweek, sitting with a drunk tea in
Speaker 1: a set jaw. For a moment, I envied her easy distance,
Speaker 1: the clarity that comes from simply witnessing an unfixable thing.
Speaker 1: I ate half a cracker, poured too much honey into
Speaker 1: my tea, and stared at the gallery invitation again, a
Speaker 1: stylised font now just cous, meaningless, stripped of all the
Speaker 1: imagined welcome. I didn't cry, I didn't even feel angry. Instead,
Speaker 1: I felt flat and emptied out. It occurred to me
Speaker 1: that this must be what clarity looks like, not relief,
Speaker 1: but exposure, the world with all a scaffolding torn away,
Speaker 1: nothing hidden, nothing between me and the truth except scale
Speaker 1: and consequence. I reached for my phone again. There was
Speaker 1: another new message from Julia, shortened now I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I want to do better. Please talk to me. Then
Speaker 1: another this isn't the end unless you want it to be.
Speaker 1: I put the phone face down and stood by the window,
Speaker 1: staring out of a rowse of headlights cinching through rain.
Speaker 1: I could walk anywhere now, go to any cafe, into
Speaker 1: the gallery, as myself were not all no one waiting
Speaker 1: for my arrival or orchestrating my belonging. The city was
Speaker 1: just blocks and people in possibility. Again, painful, but possible.
Speaker 1: The gallery never replied it didn't matter that part was done.
Speaker 1: Burnt to the wick. I watched all leaving light scatter
Speaker 1: in the hotel glass, not looking for a lesson, just
Speaker 1: testing the cold comfort of my solitude. I thought about
Speaker 1: text to Michael to explain what had happened, or maybe
Speaker 1: to apologize for our tangled alibis, but the effort felt impossible.
Speaker 1: I deleted his number instead. I wouldn't need to confirm
Speaker 1: Julia's story or mine, not with him or with any
Speaker 1: one else in the city. The web of explanations collapsed
Speaker 1: under its own weight. I realized, with the ache of
Speaker 1: an old wind reopening, that I was free of her story,
Speaker 1: free too, of the responsibility to fix anything. It was
Speaker 1: just after midnight when my phone rang one more time. Julia,
Speaker 1: her name bright on the screen. I didn't answer. I
Speaker 1: turned the phone off, set it by the ring and invitation,
Speaker 1: and lay back against the cool hotel pillow. As wide
Speaker 1: open to the quiet, I catalogged the room starch plastic glass,
Speaker 1: the feigned e litricity of a life about to Beginnet's ear.
Speaker 1: At dawn, I stood by the glass again. The city
Speaker 1: below had returned to its weakly mechanics, unremarkable, lawful in
Speaker 1: its new indifference. This was a world that could cross
Speaker 1: in any direction, not as a shadow or guess, but
Speaker 1: as the one person who would tell my story true.
Speaker 1: I pressed my palm against the glass, savoring the chill,
Speaker 1: and finally let myself breathe. I slipped the ring off,
Speaker 1: placed it next to the gallery imitation, and watched sunlight
Speaker 1: creep over boath. I told myself gently that clarity of
Speaker 1: the safety and loneliness, this hardest relief, was the last
Speaker 1: gift I would ever allow Julia to give me. And then, quietly,
Speaker 1: as the city's morning shimmered and the light pride its
Speaker 1: way through and familiar blinds, I turned away from the
Speaker 1: old life and stepped forward into the one still Lamerton