Page 1 Page 2
Sarah and Andrew carried their freshly-aired lungs back indoors. With sun-kissed humors, they went, with revivified senses. The windows they left open as long as they might. Andrew had opened each so the apartment stood aired now of furnace fumes and the residual odors of their winter confinement. But, at a shiver’s quickening, the closing of the windows came all at once, and the broiling of mushrooms to share over a light-hearted salad, and the plopping onto the sofa with a postprandial coffee. Andrew and Sarah began this coffee sitting next to one another, even touching. Soon, though, they found again their opposite corners of the sofa.
Andrew lifted his hand and pressed it against the window glass. The metallic cold of January had returned. The cold hurt his fingers. He pulled them away. Andrew wrapped his hand around the hot ceramic mug.
“It’s the responsibility,” he rephrased. “You know how I live for freedom. And no matter what intellectual games I played with myself, I would always feel responsible, until I died even. A true, total freedom would be lost to me, Sarah… forever. That feeling of responsibility would kill it. I can’t take on that burden. There’s nothing else I can say. I’m sorry.”
Sarah’s eyes burned red behind their dampness, narrowing beneath her futile seeking to comprehend. Her eyes rose swollen above her savaged heart. And now, shifting inward, Sarah’s eyes alighted on her final alternative, on the last option she had so vehemently refused to acknowledge as an option, on the possibility of leaving Andrew.
But then, heatedly, as if an unexpected avenue had suddenly opened before her, or as if to test Andrew, or to provoke him, Sarah blurted, her face an unpent flame, “How would you feel if it happened by accident?”
And Andrew searched himself for only an instant — or did not. For an instant passed, and Andrew had the word. It came to him unsolicited. It came to him unmarred by his pursuit. With no filter between this coming of the word and his speaking it, Andrew stated, numbly:
“Trapped.”
And Andrew looked to Sarah. And Andrew saw something in Sarah give way. Somehow this formulation had penetrated their miscommunication, had let Sarah understand. And Andrew saw Sarah lay her face in her hands. And Andrew saw Sarah begin to weep again soundlessly. And Andrew felt so deeply for Sarah. And Andrew did not want to hurt Sarah. But there was nothing he could do to comfort her.
Page 1 Page 2
Pages: 1 2
About Stephen Muret
