Hugo pulls my hand into his coat pocket to keep it warm. The side streets of Cabbagetown are quiet and dim, people’s tiny yards perfectly manicured even at this time of year.
We stroll toward Riverdale Park and Pollock does his business on the way. Once there, Hugo produces a glow-in-the-dark ball, unleashes Pollock and throws it. He shouts encouragement and the little dog dashes after the ball and then brings it back, tail wagging furiously, and waits for another throw. The game lasts until Pollock flops down a few feet away, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
“Very cute,” I say.
“Pollock?” Hugo beams. “Yeah, he’s not bad.”
“And you,” I say. “The two of you together.”
He smiles and ducks his head, which is also cute.
“Thanks for giving me time to recover,” I say, and he nods like it was no big deal.
We collect Pollock and start walking back toward Hugo’s.
“So...” he says.
“Yes?”
“Was that, ah, good crying or bad crying?”
I bump his hip with mine and he gives a surprised yelp.
“Good then? Good-ish?” he says, bumping me back.
“Yeah,” I say, “good-ish.”
“Okay,” he says.
“Hugo?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we sit down for a sec?” I gesture toward a bench at the edge of the park and we walk to it and sit. Pollock sniffs at the leaves under the bench, finds a stick, and deposits himself at Hugo’s feet to chew on it.
Brave and beloved, he called me. I don’t feel so brave, but I have to try.
“What’s up?” he asks, still holding my hand inside his pocket.
“Uh, not to lay anything heavy on you but my last boyfriend...”
“Yeah?”
“He died.”
Hugo gets very still for a moment and then goes: “Whoa.”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus, Mara!” he says. “Jeez. No wonder. My God.”
“Sorry to...I know it’s...” I trail off, not sure what else to say.
“Listen, don’t be sorry. I’m glad you told me,” he says. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”
I am, though.
“Ah...when did it...I mean, you don’t have to talk about it but...”
“Five years ago. It was...there was an accident.”
“Wow.”
“His name was Lucas.”
We sit and watch Orion rising up over the restored hundred-year-old row houses across the street. On the corner is an old-fashioned General Store and I wonder if Hugo and I might come here in the summer and buy ice cream cones, like normal, happy people who are in love. Then I wonder if Lucas can see me, if saying his name out loud brings him closer. I wonder what he would think of me now, sitting with Hugo and trying to envision a future. I wonder whether I will ever breathe air that is clear of his ghost.
“So, your reticence about dating,” Hugo says, “your fear of getting involved...that’s the reason.”
“I guess so. But it was a long time ago. I should be over it.”
“The soul doesn’t experience time the same way the mind does,” he says. “Have you had grief counseling or anything?”
“Um, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I’ve talked to people. Sort of.”
“And...?”
“And talking helps to a point and then it’s about time, I guess,” I say. “Time and moving forward. And I’m doing that.”
“Hm.”
“I’ll be honest, the counseling route didn’t work that well for me. It was pretty short-lived,” I admit.
“Well, it’s not for everyone,” he says.
“No.”
Pollock is snuffling at our feet and looking bored, so we get up from the bench and stroll back to Hugo’s.
Back inside, Hugo leads me to the couch. He takes my hands and rubs them between his to warm them.
“Thanks,” I say.
He gives me a look.
“What?”
“I’m just digesting what you told me. You’re a survivor.”
I humph and look away.
“You are,” he says, and then grins. “You’re scrappy.”
“Scrappy?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, that’s not the most romantic adjective ever,” I say.
He makes a goofy face in response.
I laugh and then reach out, pull one of his curls, and watch it spring back into place when I release it.
“I’ve been wanting to do that,” I say.
“My hair is yours to command,” he says.
I start laughing. “Careful what you say, I do strange things with hair.”
“Really.”
“So,” I ask, seeing that he’s still looking at me as though he really, really likes me. “Was your last girlfriend the most boring woman in the world or something?”
“What!”
“Because I’m trying to figure out why you like me, and all I can figure is that you were bored to tears by someone in the past and are breaking out in the opposite direction.”
“I thought you didn’t want to do this,” he says with a teasing look on his face.
“Do what?”
“I think you called it ‘the litany.’”
“Oh, um...” I say, momentarily stymied.
“Ha ha!” he says, “but now you’re curious. You want to know things about me.”
“Don’t be smug.”
“Don’t be surly,” he shoots back.
“Well, hello!” I say, throwing my arms out, “You must be craving drama or something to still like me. It’s like: ‘screwed up, anti-social, crazy father, estranged mother, dead boyfriend—total package, wow, she’s for me!’ So I figure your last relationship must have been a snoozer.”
“Not a snoozer, just not the right person.”
“So you did have someone serious.”
“I had the same girlfriend all the way through university and for a few years after. Things just stopped working. She wanted to travel, I was unhappy working in insurance and wanted to go back to school to become a vet. We both started making plans and they didn’t seem to include each other. It was sad, but it was just...over.”
“And since then?”
“Nobody serious since then,” he says. “Nobody that really intrigued me.”
“And I intrigue you? Is that it?”
“There’s that,” he says. “Plus you’re tough, smart, beautiful...”
“Oh my.”
“Sexy.”
“Ah ha.”
“But maybe it’s just because you make me laugh.”
“Uh hunh.”
“Or maybe it’s because I like making you laugh,” he says, and he reaches over to me and starts tickling me until I shriek for mercy.
Then we neck on the couch, and even though we’re both hot and breathing fast, we don’t do anything else. I should probably feel fourteen again, except I skipped right past this part when I was fourteen. Now I wish I hadn’t.