Sixteen Years

Twelve hours earlier, James woke to find Catherine’s arm draped over his back. Lifting just his head from the pillow so as not to wake her, he turned to find her face inches from his. Early morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. Patches of light lined the end of their bed – no, her bed. In her apartment. Catherine stirred. She looked much younger when she slept.

James’s free hand found the wrinkles alongside his eyes. One, two, three of them. He knew what Catherine would say if she were awake. She would tell him she loved them – that they made him the James she knew. He knew she loved him, partly because she told him, but mainly because he felt it. He counted the lines with his fingers again.

Catherine awoke and pulled his hand down so there was no barrier between their faces. “Stop that,” she said.

James grinned. “Morning to you, too.”

She moved his arm over her head and pressed up against his body. “I like them.” Catherine laid her head on James’s chest and closed her eyes again.

He forgot her age whenever they spent time together – save for those few moments when Catherine would play with her hair while concentrating, or the way she didn’t quite know how to embrace his many compliments. But those moments were scarce. He’d watched her surpass her twenty-two years when she squared off her shoulders, walked into a room of his colleagues, and held her own in conversation. James loved their late evenings when they dissected their favorite novels, characters, relationships. He never felt their sixteen-year difference, even the night he recounted his messy divorce. Catherine’s eyes never flicked away from his face as he spoke. She was present. And he loved her for it.

James tried not to touch his smile lines, as she called them, again.

“Stop thinking about them.” Catherine was watching him.

He forced a smile and kissed her forehead. “I’m thinking about you.” And he was.

                                                                                                     ***

James was still thinking about her. He pulled the collar of his fleece tight around his neck against the cold, northern rain. With his free hand, he forced one of his suitcases into the car. Night blanketed the street outside his own apartment save for the harsh glow of the hanging lights above. They made the slick pavement sparkle beneath his boots. James’s phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Catherine, for the second time this evening. James tossed his phone into the trunk and headed back for his messenger bag. His fingers hovered over his bottom lip as he remembered their morning. His mind elsewhere, his legs carried him into his now empty apartment he’d called home for a few short months. James wanted to believe that Catherine would give him her usual disapproving look now, but he knew better. She would tell him he wasn’t being selfish, but it’s all he felt when he was alone. Catherine should be with someone who would experience things with her, not someone who had gone through the steps already.

Leaving was the best way. He needed to make it a clean break, for her. James pushed the nauseating feeling aside, shook his head, and began his final walk-through. It felt like the apartment was holding its breath along with him. The kitchen was bare. The bedroom seemed much smaller without any furniture. James poked his head in the bathroom and stopped. On the counter, next to the sink, was a lone bobby pin. James picked it up. He ran the delicate metal through his fingers as he checked his office and living room. Holding the bobby pin between his teeth, he took the last two bags and headed for the car. He angled them into the backseat.

The engine revved to life. James directed the vents at the driver’s seat and waited for the car to warm up. He never needed to use the heat in any of his previous vehicles. The weather in Arkansas didn’t allow for much short of air conditioning. It was something Catherine never understood. Even now, Catherine preferred to use a collection of fans to cool her apartment rather than purchasing an air conditioning unit. She put any additional income to paying off her student loans. James rubbed his hands together in front of the vent. Temperature aside, Catherine’s apartment was light years ahead of his first one. Ahead, even, of the one he was leaving now. James didn’t have a way with creature comforts. Catherine was more put together than James was at that age. He’d followed her around on his first visit to her place. He remembered hiding a smile while he watched her straighten a jar of honey on the microwave between a box of tissues and her collection of corks. James had wondered how many corks he’d have if he’d started collecting at twenty-one. He dismissed the thought, again. This was the right thing, for her. He was sure.

James spun the knob to defrost as fog took the edges of the windows. He knew it would only take him a full day of driving to get back home. Rather, it would only take him a full day of driving to get back. James removed the bobby pin from his teeth and slid it onto the sleeve of his jacket. Backing out of the parking space, he chanced one more look at the apartment building. He saw shadows of him and Catherine dancing in the moonlit windows of the living room and dodging flying bacon grease while they made breakfast in nothing but their skin. He remembered the flowery smell of her shampoo as she swept her hair into a bun and secured it with a few bobby pins. James touched the one on his sleeve. He was bringing a piece of home back with him.

Written by: Erin Davies

Photograph by: Daniel Charles Ross

The Devil We Know

The thick curtains were drawn against the afternoon sun so that the room on the third floor of the Santa Dympna Hotel felt set in night. A thin thread of light beneath the front door was all that penetrated the darkness. The stagnant air hung heavy in the room making the distant murmur of the city viscous, as if it were passing through molasses before reaching Bernard’s ears.

And so he waited, seated on the edge of the threadbare skeleton of a bed, metal springs exposing themselves through the fabric. Bernard’s sweat-soaked cotton button-down clung stubbornly to his chest, and his hands shook as he tugged at the opening of his shirt. The radiator hissed and clicked and whined, scolding Bernard and punishing him with its overpowering heat.

The darkness will help, he thought, to calm his nerves. And for a moment, it had. The stillness of the black had washed over him like a cold tide on a hot summer’s day. But the events of the preceding weeks came rushing back, each time sending him into a state of renewed fear and anxiety.

Time to go.

Bernard had bought an antique European flop when he arrived in the city, a compact two-door hatchback in sky blue, like a rusted homage to the Argentinian flag. Cheap and inconspicuous. The car was parked in an alley behind the Santa Dympna and, with only a leather-bound suitcase that now held the entirety of his worldly possessions, Bernard took off, navigating through the narrow, cobblestoned roadways. Though the winter air outside was frigid, a healthy pulse ran through the twisting veins of Salta’s colonial-era streets. By the time he made it out of the city limits, the sky had darkened and Salta had devolved into a rocky desert wasteland. The mostly silent drive was broken up at random intervals by howling winds that rattled Bernard’s tin box of a car, both his hands clutched on the metal steering wheel at each gust.

And then for long awhile, it was still, and the dreamlike landscape, awash with the same crags and cacti and coarse sand, sent Bernard drifting into a timeless vortex. The exhaustion from his lack of sleep was finally catching up with him, and the dull hum of the wheels against the semi-paved desert roads left him in a trance. Several hours (two? five?) drifted by when a dust-like snow began to fall. Bernard squinted in disbelief, unsure if he had fallen asleep and was now dreaming. Though it was cold, and though it was winter, the snow appeared paradoxical against the arid backdrop. Soon, it was coming down in sheets. Visibility dropped to zero as Bernard turned on the windshield wipers, which groaned, useless as they swiped across the glass. But just as suddenly as the snowfall began, it stopped, like a curtain lifted. The gray of the sunless sky cast a ghoulish patina across the desert, now covered in a layer of what looked more like volcanic ash than snow.

Ahead, Bernard saw a burgundy SUV pulled over to the side of the road, the elderly driver waving his arms as he saw Bernard’s car approach. Bernard hesitated, but pulled over just ahead of the old man, who, with his wild tuft of white hair and grey cardigan, reminded him of his grandfather.

“Um...habla ingles?” The old man mumbled gesturing with his hands, as if it would help in the event of a potential language barrier.

“Yes, what’s seems to be the problem?” Bernard replied, approaching the man and his SUV cautiously.

The old man sighed with relief, “You’re American?”

Bernard smiled.

“Glen,” he said, offering his hand to Bernard.

“Cary,” Bernard replied, shaking Glen’s hands.

“Well Cary, I pulled over when that snowstorm passed through, couldn’t see squat. When I tried to start the car up again…” Glen shrugged.

“I would give you a jump, but I don’t think I have any cables in my car. Do you?”

Glen shook his head, “I have a cellphone. Batteries are dead though. Mind if I give it a quick charge in your car? I can give my hotel a call and have them send a tow truck or something.”

Bernard was reluctant to linger around longer than necessary. Two stalled cars on the side of the road might attract unwanted attention. But Glen’s presence and that peculiar moment of normalcy in what had been a whirlwind few weeks was grounding and comforting in a way he desperately needed. And besides, Glen’s had been the first car Bernard had seen in several hours. It was unlikely another would pass anytime soon.

“So, where you headed Cary?” Glen was seated in the passenger side of Bernard’s cramped car waiting for his cellphone to charge. He spoke genially, reminding Bernard more and more of his grandfather, affectionate even among strangers. He felt cautiously at ease with him.

Without thinking, Bernard replied, “Not sure yet,” instantly regretting his honesty.

“Ah,” Glen said knowingly, but without judgment. “I won’t ask you what you’re running away from, that’s none of my business. But let me tell you kid, and this comes from experience, 9 times out of 10, it isn’t worth it. These roads you’re going down now, they will just lead you right back where you started. If you run away from a thing, that’s all your life will ever be.”

There was a pause. “I made some decisions…poor ones in hindsight.” Why am I telling him this? “My life hasn’t exactly gone to plan since then.”

“Life never goes to plan.”

The tow truck came and went and Bernard moved on, less certain of his intentions then when he had set out on his journey.

The dense clouds set low were unfamiliar. His eyes burned from fatigue and he squeezed them shut, desperate for relief. When he opened them again, it was pitch black. He was back at the Santa Dympna, metal springs digging into his pants.

Written by: Sam Chow

Photograph by: Becky Lee