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Hum
Eight months after her wedding, the ring on her finger already losing its shine, she bumped into him at the grocery store.
They stood for a minute, blinking at each other, before she said, “Oh.” Her hands tightened on her shopping cart.
“Hi,” Mark said. He shifted his basket from one hand to the other.
Sarah looked down and tugged at the bottom of her sweater. “I didn’t know you were back. Are you back?”
She lifted her gaze halfway and stared at the items in his basket: a half-gallon of milk, two oranges, and a jar of salsa. Her cart was filled with things Nathan liked.
“Um, yeah,” he said. She looked up at him, but he examined the rows of cereal beside him. “New York didn’t work out. I came back almost six months ago.”
“And you didn’t let me know?”
“Yeah, well.” He stared at the ceiling.
She looked at the ring on her left hand and said, “Yeah.”
After a few seconds of shuffling silence, he said, “I should—”
“Can we get some coffee?”
He looked at her now. “I don’t think that’s—”
“Please? We haven’t seen each other in so long.” She tried to smile.
The hand holding his basket tightened and relaxed, tightened and relaxed. After a moment, he said, “Okay.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, waiting for their drinks to cool. He spun his mug, and it scraped on the table. She watched his hands.
“I’ve never seen you in the store before,” he said.
“I rarely come to this one,” she replied. “I was visiting a friend on this side of town and decided to stop and pick up some things before I went home.”
The word home hung between them, the unuttered to Nathan echoing in the silence.
“So what are you doing now?” she asked.
“Teaching journalism at Hope Street Academy.” He shrugged. “Not quite as exciting as chasing a story, but I like to think I’m still making a difference.”
She nodded. “It sounds great. We miss you at the paper, though. The guy they hired to replace you isn’t nearly as fun. He has IRS.”
Mark smiled. “Important Reporter Syndrome? I hope he can at least write.”
“Oh, he can.” Sarah made a face. “But he’s from Chicago, and I don’t think he understands that our ‘big stories’ aren’t going to be in the same tier as he’s used to. No Mafia, for one.”
“Then why’d he come to Topeka?”
She smiled wickedly. “Oh, there are theories.”
They spent the next hour in a convincing facsimile of the way they used to be, smiling and joking, teasing one another and commenting on the absurdity of the world. He leaned back in his chair, long legs stretched out beneath the table, seemingly at ease, but Sarah could see in his eyes that his jocularity was forced. Her wedding band burned on her finger, but she ignored it and focused on retorts and banter.
When her latte was gone, she ran her finger along the inside of the mug, wiping up the dregs of foam. As she stuck her finger in her mouth, she looked up to see Mark watching her. She blushed, feeling juvenile, until she realized the look on his face was neither amused nor mocking. Her skin began to hum.
“Can we do this again?” she asked.
He swallowed, opened his mouth, then swallowed again. “Okay.”
One day, while staring into his drink, Mark asked, “Does Nathan know you meet me here?”
“No,” she admitted, picking at the table with her thumbnail. “He thinks you’re my friend Terri.”
Mark didn’t reply, and Sarah relaxed.
She spent her days driving around the city photographing volunteers at the humane society or elementary honor students for the Features page—boring, innocuous photos she could take in her sleep.
She’d always dreamed of a career in photojournalism, walking the world with her camera, documenting the horror and the hope, but she had yet to leave Kansas. Nathan was content to stay where he was, and her life had never not included him in one way or another. On good days her life was secure, familiar, reliable. On bad days it was predictable and dull.
There were more and more bad days, lately.
She looked at Mark and remembered how on slow afternoons in the office or when they were out on assignments together, she with her camera and he with his notebook and tape recorder, she would catch him looking at her in a way that Nathan rarely looked at her anymore. She remembered the way he stiffened when she talked about her engagement or upcoming wedding. She remembered laughter and shared snack mix and wastebasketball tournaments and the way he made a large chunk of her life brighter.
Brighter than it was now.
They left early that day, their denial shattered by the reminder of Nathan. Their cars were parked next to each other, and she watched him unlock his door. As Mark’s hand moved from the lock to the handle, an urge overtook her, and she stepped forward and pressed herself against his side.
He froze, and her skin hummed. She lifted her hand and touched his chest, first lightly and then firmly, and her hand ran from his sternum to the waistband of his jeans. He gasped, and excitement thrummed beneath her skin. It made her bold, and she dipped her fingers beneath his belt.
He moved quickly, turning and pushing her against the car, pinning her there. Her eyes fluttered closed for an instant, but as she looked up at him, she was surprised by his anger.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Something I should have done a long time ago.” She met the anger of his gaze, wondering if he could feel the vibration beneath her skin. “I don’t want to go home yet.”
He pulled back, and the hum faded. She clutched his shirt in both hands, pulling him against her. “Please,” she whispered. “I need this. I need you.”
And he was hers.
That night, as Nathan slept, she slipped out of bed and stood at the window, gazing up at the full moon. She remembered stories of ancient priestesses who worshipped the moon as it waxed and waned in time with their own bodies, and she marveled that something so far away and seemingly so small could control a force as powerful as the sea.
Nathan snuffled in his sleep, and she turned her head to watch him. He lay in the center of their bed, encroaching on her side. The moonlight bleached the color from the room, leaving the empty expanse of bed and the man within it in shades of gray.
She remembered another bed, another man, and turned back to the window. She pressed one hand against the glass, cool against the spring night, and looked up at the white orb that seemed to pulse in the sky in rhythm with the hum of her skin.
“I know what it is to be worshipped, too,” she told the moon.
“No,” Sarah said, his skin hot against hers. “We shouldn’t.”
He pulled back to look at her, his face uncertain. She trailed a hand down his spine, curling her fingers just enough to bring her nails to bear. His eyes closed as he shuddered, and they didn’t speak again for a long while.
As long as she kept Nathan fed and sexed and let him watch his games, he didn’t seem to care what she did with her time. He smiled at her in the mornings and tilted his head for a kiss when she brought him his coffee. He told her he was glad she managed to spend so much time with her girlfriends. He accepted her excuses without a second thought, waving them away like gnats.
At first, beneath the thrill of secrets and lies, she felt guilty, but as Nathan continued in oblivion, no more concerned with her actions than he was with the health of the plant in the corner of their living room, the guilt faded. She invented a photography class in order to see Mark twice a week.
Nathan nodded as she told him about the workshop, his eyes on the television. He shushed her halfway through her explanation and said, “That sounds great, babe. Whatever you want.” His eyes never left the screen, and a second later he was on his feet, yelling at the official.
Mark whistled as he flipped pancakes and peered at the bacon cooking in the microwave, and every time he looked at her, a smile burst across his face, reminding her of her favorite fireworks—giant, golden explosions that filled the whole sky with fairy dust.
She laughed.
“What?” he asked.
She smiled. “You’re grinning like an idiot.”
He looked down at the spatula in his hand, and the smile slipped from her face.
“Maybe that’s what I am,” he said.
He turned back to the griddle before she could offer reassurances, so she sipped her orange juice, the acid biting into her tongue, and looked out the window. The moon had already risen, pale and translucent against the afternoon sky.
A few minutes later Mark slid a plate in front of her, smiled an apology, and they were okay again.
“I know.” He looked at the floor of his kitchen. His feet were bare, and Sarah watched his toes curl against the linoleum.
“Should I not have come?”
“It’s your anniversary, not mine. You can spend it how you want,” he said, but he didn’t look at her, and she knew he was lying.
She knew she should leave, that today it would be impossible for him to forget she was married and not truly his. Instead, she stepped forward, wrapped her arms around his neck, and brought his face to hers.
After only a moment, he pulled away, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I can’t—I don’t think I can do this.”
She stared at his chest, chewing on her lower lip. Nathan had made reservations for dinner at seven, and she could go home and spend the afternoon pampering herself, pretending she felt excitement about being married a year instead of a flat numbness. Everything in her life was flat and numb now, except this man before her in bare feet.
Sarah reached for him, watching his eyes, watching as he gave in to her. “It’s my anniversary,” she said, “and I want to be here with you.”
She kissed him again, and a low, keening sound escaped his throat. He backed her into the counter, and as it pressed against her lower back, she could feel life seep through her skin.
Sarah moved her arms away from her body, her skin sticky and hot. Her hand touched his and they pulled away from each other at the same time. She told herself it was because of the heat. He lifted his arms over his head, and his knuckles knocked against the headboard.
They lay in silence for a while. Sarah turned her head to look at him, but his eyes were closed, his face tight. He breathed slowly and evenly, and she watched his chest rise and fall for a moment, trying to think of something to say, then sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. He didn’t watch her as she crossed the room to the bathroom.
She ran the shower a few degrees cooler than usual, shuddering as the water ran down her stomach and legs. She touched his shampoo bottle and the bar of soap sitting crookedly in its tray, but used neither. She couldn’t take Mark’s scent home with her to find on her pillow or in her towels and sweaters.
When the water began to feel chilly rather than refreshing, she turned it off and stepped out, wrapping herself in a towel. She walked back into the bedroom and saw Mark sitting on the side of the bed, his back curved.
“What are we doing?” he asked, looking at his feet.
Sarah pulled her hair around to the front of her shoulder and squeezed, letting the excess water run down into the towel. A few drops splashed on her feet. “What do you mean?”
He looked up at her, and his expression made the water on her skin feel cooler. She shivered.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to say yes. That’s all it would take—one word. But it stuck in her throat, and when she tried again, she said, “I need you.”
His smile was bitter as he looked down at his feet again. “You need me,” he echoed. He shook his head and stood, his skin still wet from earlier. It glistened in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the window, painting everything in the room, including him, in a golden hue. “That’s not enough.”
She swallowed. Her skin felt cold. “Please,” she said, stepping toward him and reaching out the hand not clutching the towel to her chest. “Don’t. I do need you.”
He avoided her hand as he bent to gather his clothes. With one leg in his jeans, he said, “You should have thought of that before you married him.”
Her body warmed, the heat rushing to her face. “You never seemed to mind before.”
He laughed, a harsh sound that made her take a step backward, and she realized she was destroying him.
“Why do you think I left in the first place?” he asked. “I couldn’t stand it. Still can’t. And I—if we keep this up—”
He broke off, and the hum returned to her skin. Darker, lower. It scared and excited her at the same time, pushing her forward and giving her the words to draw him back to her, but she resisted. She could feel the futility of their time together; it sat in the hot, stagnant air of the room, making it harder to breathe. She’d taken all she could from him, and she had nothing to give back except the chance to become whole again.
Sarah walked to the chair on which her clothes lay in a haphazard pile and dressed silently, aware that he watched her. Even with her back to him, she could feel his resolve crumble as he realized she was leaving, and her hands shook with the need to go to him. But an image of him a year from now flashed behind her eyes, and she moved to the door.
She turned, looked at him one last time, half-dressed in the afternoon sun, and said, “Goodbye, Mark.”
If he replied, she didn’t hear it.
end
