We sleep.
I wake rested and new.
I wake before Erik and watch the light grow in the morning sky. I hear the city waking. I breathe in the smell of my exploded life and wonder that I am still here and feeling so much better, so much more, than expected.
I tiptoe to make coffee and then check my messages as it brews.
It’s been two days, but there are only four.
Mom: Hi dear. I know you’re busy, but call me sometime when you get a chance.
Bernadette: Okay, I appreciate that you called to let me know you’re all right, but where the fuck are you? Call me. Call me soon, I’m worried.
Sal(!): Yo. Babe. I came by twice and you weren’t there. We gotta talk. Call me, or next time I’m gonna break down the door.
Bernadette: Please call me, I need to talk to you. It’s important. Jesus, where the hell are you?
7 a.m.: Erik wakes and joins me for coffee on the couch.
7:10: Erik pulls me closer and we hold each other without speaking...and without spilling our coffees.
“You have to go, don’t you?” he says eventually.
“My house could be falling down.”
“That’s not really the reason.”
“No,” I say. “It’s just time. Listen, this whole, last night and—”
“Shh,” he says.
“Okay.”
“It’s funny,” he says, “I don’t even know where you live.”
“The Danforth—on Pape.”
“We could walk.”
“What?”
“I could walk you there. Walk you home.”
“You’re kidding—it’s cold out. And it’ll take over an hour.”
“Good,” he says. “The longer the better.”
In the shower I wash his hair.
He holds me and we share the hot water and I ask, “Did we dishonor him?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “Not this time anyway.”
“I hope not.”
As we walk, we hold hands. We stop for toasted bagels with jam and cream cheese and more coffee. I see a dog that reminds me of Pollock and my heart flip flops, but the owner is a young Asian woman, not Hugo.
Crossing the Bloor Viaduct, we stop at the center and look down at the parkway.
“Erik,” I say.
“Yes?”
“I wish things were different.”
“I know,” he says. “Another lifetime maybe.”
“We’d always be...in relation to him.”
“I know.”
He turns my face to his and presses his forehead to mine.
“It was good to love you,” he says.
The ache at his words is deep.
“At least for a few hours,” I say.
“You know it was longer than that.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Alone in the center of the bridge on a Wednesday morning in January, we hold each other and let our hearts mingle one more time.
“We’d better go,” he says, when he feels me starting to shiver.
“All right.”
We wrap our arms around each other’s waists and stay that way for the minutes it takes to get to my house.
In front of it we stop.
“I like it,” he says.
“Thanks.”
He pulls me closer, presses his cold cheek to mine and sighs.
“Well,” I say, and pull my key out, “this won’t get easier, will it?”
“No,” he says.
“Do you want to...come in for a few minutes?”
“Better not,” he says. “I might never leave.”
I nod and take a step back.
And he goes.