They move backward, she to the couch, he to the chair. They never drank coffee, never made it; never had that conversation. They’re both reading, or she is and he has the book on his lap. Their son’s on the floor putting a picture puzzle together. It’s a nice domestic scene, he thinks, quiet, the kind he likes best of all. Fire going in the fireplace — he made it. A good one too, though fires she makes are just as good. It doesn’t give off much heat, fault of the fireplace’s construction, but looks as if it does and is beautiful. Thermostat up to sixty-eight so, with the fire, high enough to keep the house warm, cozy. He has tea beside him on the side table. On the side table beside him. Beside his chair. A Japanese green tea, and he’s shaved fresh ginger into it. Tea’s now lukewarm. Tastes it; it is. He’s been thinking these past few minutes and forgot about the tea. She has a cup of hot water with lemon in it. Not hot now — she might even have finished it — but was when he gave it to her. About ten minutes ago she said “Strange as this must sound”—he’d said he was making himself tea, would she like some or anything with boiling water? — “it’s all I want. I wonder if it means I’m coming down with something.” He said “You feel warm?” “No.” “Anything ache — limbs, throat, extremities?” “Nope. I guess I’m not,” and resumed reading. “What could you be coming down with, Mommy?” the boy said. “Your mommy means with a cold,” he said. “Oh,” the boy said and went back to his puzzle. I wonder, the man thinks, what that long parting scene I imagined means. It’s not like that with us at all. We’re a happy couple, a relatively happy one. Hell, happier than most it seems, more compatible and content and untroubled than most too. I still love her. Do I? Be honest. I still do. Very much so. Very much? Oh, well, most days not as passionately or crazily as I loved her when I first met her or the first six months or so of our being together before we got married or even the first six months or so of our marriage, but close enough to that. She still excites me. Very much so. Physically, intellectually. We make love a lot. About as much as when we first met, or after the first month we met. She often initiates it. Not because I don’t. Lots of times she does when I’m thinking of initiating it but she starts it first. She doesn’t seem dissatisfied. I’m not too. What’s there to be dissatisfied about? A dozen or so years since we met and we still go at it like kids, or almost like kids — like adults, anyone — what I’m saying is, almost as if sometimes it’s the first. I have fantasies about other women but what do they mean? Meaning, they don’t mean much: I had them a week after I met her, they’re fleeting and they probably exist just to make it even better with her, but probably not. They exist. That’s the way I am. As long as I don’t act on them, which I’d never do, for why would I? Which is what I’m saying. And she tells me she loves me almost every day. Tells me almost every day. And almost every night one of the last things she says to me, in the dark or just before or after she turns off the light, is “I love you, dearest.” And I usually say “I love you too,” which is true, very much so: I do, and then we’d briefly kiss and maybe later, maybe not, after I put down my reading, make love. So why’d I think of that scene? Just trying it out? Wondering how I’d feel? How would I? Awful, obviously. I couldn’t live without her. Or I could but it’d be difficult, very, extremely trying, probably impossible, or close. And without the boy? Never. As I said in the scene, I want to see him every day. He’s such a good kid. I want to make him breakfast every morning till he’s old enough to make his own, help him with his homework when he wants me to and go places with him — museums, the park, play ball with him, take walks with him — with him and her. Summer vacations, two to three weeks here or there, diving off rafts, long swims with him alongside me. Things like that. Libraries. He loves libraries and children’s bookstores. Really odd that I thought of that scene then. Just trying it out as I said, that’s all, or I suppose.
He gets up and gets on the floor and says “Need any help?” “No, Dad, thanks. If I do I’ll tell you.” “Sure now?” “Positive. I like to figure things out myself. That’s the object of the puzzle, isn’t it?” “Well, sometimes it’s nice to do it with other people — it can be fun. But do what you want. And you’re pretty good at this.” “So far I am. I want to get up to one with a thousand pieces. This is only five hundred. But that’s still two hundred more than the last one I did, which was two hundred fifty.” “Two hundred fifty more than the last one,” he says. “Two hundred fifty times two hundred fifty — no, I mean times two; or two hundred fifty plus another two hundred fifty equals—” “Five hundred. I know. Two hundred fifty times two hundred fifty is probably fifty thousand, or a hundred.” “That’s good. You’re so smart.” He touches the boy’s cheek. “Okay, but if you need any help, whistle.” “What for?” “I mean — it’s just an expression, like what you said before: if you want me to help you’ll tell me.”