I hear the keys rattle timidly behind me, and I turn around. I see my wife getting ready to go to work. It's strange that all these years she must have done the getting-ready-for-work routine I have never really noticed it. It's as if I were watching a movie for the first time and yet, somehow, the plot is familiar. She checks the keys to make sure that the correct ones were there, the ones for the apartment and building, and the ones for her work, and of course, the one for the car. She drops them carefully in her purse; her purse is a dark green, not my favorite color, but I remember her picking it out one time with me but did not ask me what I thought and I did not offer any opinion. I was probably wondering about something else at the moment. She pauses a little, then walks to the fridge right next to where I am sitting, opens it with a confused look, and inspects the interior of this machine, one of many we share but never really thought of it as something we share but something that exists in our shared space. She pauses again while inspecting or scanning the inner contents of the fridge. The humming of the fridge starts just a few seconds later, as if to complain that she is leaving the door open for too long, or is it a voice in my mind humming this complaint? She touches something, but I can't see since the opened door is between her and me. I do see her fingers of the hand holding the opened door.
I remember those fingers. I haven't looked at them with such attention for, I am not sure, for how long ago. They are both familiar and alien. Like an old friend I would recognize them anywhere, even though the wedding band isn't on this hand. I remember a long time ago I cherished them; I thought they were the most beautiful fingers in the world, in the universe. I would caresse them, tell their owner that they, along with her smiles and the rest of her beauty, composed the princess before this humble peasant. She would giggle every time, and blush too, even when I said this after we got married. They were soft, they were warm, and most importantly, they were in my hands, and I remember writing many times that they were in my heart.
I don't remember how long ago the last time I saw them, let alone touched them. She closes the door gently. Now she has a slight frown on her face as she stared at some invisible space on the fridge door she had just closed. In her other hand she is now holding an avocado. I am a little amused by why she seems so concerned about the avocado. It doesn't belong to me, and so I assume it is hers. I don't know how ripe it is, and I don't remember seeing it in the fridge at any moment, and I don't ever eat avocados. She is standing there, pausing again. I wonder if she notices that I am looking at her. At any moment she would look at me and ask me what I am looking at. It would startle me because I don't remember the last time she talked to me while looking at me. She turns away from me while putting the avocado on the top of the kitchen island. Then she puts her dark green leather bag carelessly on the top too while walking towards the sink. She quietly rinses a paring knife and the cutting-board. Suddenly, I realize that she is using something I washed earlier. I am used to getting my own utensils, eating with them, washing them, drying them, and putting them away all by myself. Now she is actually using two things that are still drying after I washed them yesterday.
I quietly turn a little more to see her better and also to relieve the twisting of my torso. The slight sound of my movement made no effect on her, I notice. She cuts around the avocado, sets the knife down gently, twists the avocado around the pit and releases the two halves. She then strikes the pit with the paring knife, twists it gently, and pulls the put out. The sound of striking the pit and dumping the pit in the waste bin next to the island are the loudest and only sounds made in the entire process, and they are both very quiet.
I want to clear my throat, but something prevents me from making any noise, as if I am a thief at night, as if I am transgressing some law I've just discovered and the realization of this invisible law itself adds turmoil to my discomfort. Suddenly my mind is spinning. Suddenly everything seems out of the ordinary. And I don't really understand the reasons, the causes. I can only observe with the utmost silence.
She manages to squeeze the green flesh of the avocado from the two halves into a plate that I also washed yesterday and let dry. Then with the same paring knife she dices them up roughly and puts them into a Ziplock bag. Is this what she does every morning behind my back while I work on my laptop in the kitchen? I have heard noises happening behind me but I never saw what was happening. She seals the bag and puts it in her dark green leather bag. Then she puts the knife, the plate, and the cutting-board in the sink. And in the next forty seconds or so she washes them quickly. And in these forty seconds or so I could see my wife, at least her back. I see the curley brown hair mostly invaded by silver strands that I have until now not noticed. I remember kissing her hair, teasing its different looks every morning I stroked them. I remember feeling the softness of the wavy strands and wanting to never be far from them, from the person of whom they are a part. These memories, and so many more now, flooding out like the water I am hearing from the sink, gyrates in my head ever more.
Then there is her face. Like the rest of her, familiar and foreign. Familiar to the heart that now only has room for memories, but to my eyes, it looks older than I remember. I can only see the right side of her face; it's lit by the morning sun that has just risen and is shining directly into her now, this very moment, as if someone wants me to take a really good look. There are many wrinkles, and she's become even more gaunt then before. The orange dawn sunlight makes her blue eyes look pale and green and, very sad. Is my wife sad? I don't know. She never says much or I never pay much attention. I am sad; I am always sad, but she and the rest of the world has not noticed or I haven't shown any signs. I don't know what I look like, and I wonder if I am supposed to know what my wife looks like.
Her shoulders are pointy, even under that blazer she is wearing. Has she lost weight? Why ask all these questions; I don't know anything about this stranger of whom I had at some point known everything. Even if she hasn't changed a bit since we got married I would still not be able to claim I know anything about her now. Strange.
Her blazer's true color is not clear in this intense and sad orange sun light. It also hides the true form of her body. It suddenly becomes painful for me. Pain? Pain that's not about me, not the pain that has dogged me, not the pain that has made me "sad" all these years. A different kind of pain, familiar and alien. I remember this pain. It's the pain I felt when I saw sadness in my wife, especially before she became my wife. It was pain that bridged me to her, a bridge that let her come to me without the impedance of her pride, of her fears, a bridge to my embrace, to my soul, to the safety of my love. Funny word, "love."
Now that ancient pain scratches at the door, gently, like she is gently putting away the last of the items she has been washing. She grabs a towel and dries her hand. Does she usually wash dishes in her blazer? I ask this while I am in my pajamas next to my laptop that links me to a different world that provides more than just income. I can see her neck now as she faces the sun and reaches her dark green leather bag. Her neck is beautiful. I remember telling her a long time ago that she would always be beautiful to me, no matter what her age would be. I haven't noticed her neck in a while, but something in me says her neck, like her face that I can see in the brightening sunlight, remains beautiful, familiar and alien.
She is ready to go, I think, bag toting on her shoulder, but she pauses. I realize now that she is standing very close to me. I am sure that even in the recent past we've physically be closer, in terms of two coordinates on this planet. Maybe when I was trying to reach for a cup for my tea and she happened to be washing something by the sink and our clothing could even have touched each other and we wouldn't know it. But at least I never noticed it. Now I notice that my wife is standing within arms length from me. Her face still has that same frown I saw after she closed the fridge door. Her blue eyes staring in the direction of the rising sun and I can see the tiny pupils, so small and yet the irises seem so tense, as if something is held back with immense effort inside her head. She looks down for a second and then she turns to me. All this is happening much more quickly than I am describing, but I, for some reason, is noticing every detail as if the movie before me is in slow motion.
She smiles, though a little forced, and says to me, "Have a nice day, Sweetie. I will see you tonight." And she does this while putting her left hand on my shoulder shoulder, touching or half-caressing, I am not sure. She always says this to me just about every morning, and I usually have my back to her when I respond with a "You too, Hon'." That was the rule of engagement. She would say that as she walks out the door, crossing the threshold between this strange world we share and the one out there that she owns. But now she has defied this rule and said the same thing but looking at me, and I feel I am standing between a past I have tucked away in a treasure box and a present I am not a part of. And the touch her her hand, so timid and brief, feels like a jolt and for a moment I become angry. I frown too, and that probably is the reason she pulls her hand away and turns her gaze elsewhere. The weight of the awkwardness quickly pushes her to turn around slowly, and she starts towards the door.
"Let's go on a date tonight, if you have time, Hon'," I would like to say. I would also like to say, "You are such a beautiful woman, just like I told you let's-see-how-long-ago." I would even like to say, "I love you so much I can't say a word."
But she walked out quietly without getting a word out of me.
