Work Text:
Southwark, Central London, England
It was the tenth house they’d looked at this week. He was ready to just give up; the apartment would do, or maybe they could just forget the house hunt all together. When he stepped out of the car, he was immediately unimpressed. He looked over, and even though the other man's face was obscured slightly by glasses, it was obvious he wasn’t impressed either. But like they’d done with every other house, they braced themselves and walked through the front door.
*
The horse-chestnut tree outside the living room window
My sister was throwing an ugly Christmas jumper party. I didn’t really feel like partying. I was alone, single, and it was Christmas. I’d rather have been drunk on my couch, but I went anyway. Couldn’t disappoint my sister.
“You made it!” she said, throwing her arms around me and kissing my cheek. “Let me introduce you to everyone. This is my baby brother,” she told the room. She went through her friends, faces blurring in a loud mass of red and green, until one stood out. Tall, blonde, glasses, strategically groomed stubble across his face. He even made an ugly wreath jumper look good.
Later, I went outside for some air and a smoke. I set my beer on the sidewalk and leaned against the tree as I struck a match.
“Can I nick a fag?” I looked up and stared straight into ugly wreath jumper’s green eyes. “Left mine on the bus.”
“Sure.” The man took one and leaned closer as I struck another match and lit his cigarette.
“Ever play conkers as a kid?” he asked through a haze of blue smoke.
“Huh?”
The man pointed to the tree. “Conkers?” I shook my head. “Oh.” One fell from the tree with a loud crash. “Reindeer? Nice choice. I particularly like the jewels.”
I smiled and tossed my finished butt to the ground. “Happy Christmas.”
*
Fully equipped bathroom
Another party at my sister’s, this time for the New Year. I really almost didn’t come to this one since the other party had only been a few weeks ago, but sitting in my flat, alone, with a bottle of vodka on New Year’s Eve was too depressing even for me.
I was coming out of the loo when I ran into ugly wreath jumper again, this time wearing normal clothes. He’d been attractive before, but now it was ridiculous. He was stunning.
“Reindeer jumper, right? The brother?” I nodded and he offered to get me a beer. I said yes. One beer wouldn’t matter. I wasn’t breaking my rule of staying unattached.
“Any resolutions?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t do resolutions. I just do.”
“How proactive,” he said. I could detect sarcasm in his voice. “What will you do in the new year, then?”
“Moving to Greece.”
“Wow.” He looked impressed. “That’s major.”
I shrugged. “Nothing to keep me here.”
He smiled sadly. “That’s unfortunate. I was going to ask you to dinner.”
I looked him over, wondering why he wanted to ask me out. Oh hell, what was one crazy thing before Greece, I thought. The sound of voices counting down started to rise, the volume increasing with each approaching number. He grinned.
“Happy New Year,” he said, stepping close as the voices rang out “one!” Then he kissed me.
When we parted, breathless I said, “I don’t leave for another week.”
*
Living Room with a fireplace
“Mmm, fire is nice,” I said, crouching behind him and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. I placed a kiss on his cheek as he stoked the fire.
He turned around and started kissing me, pushing me back onto the floor. He straddled my hips and slid his warm hands underneath my shirt.
Later, we lay tangled together in front of the dying fire, sweat glistening in the orange-yellow light. His body felt slick and our skin stuck together. I lay contented, let my head fall to the side, and watched him. His hair was mussed, his eyes closed beneath the glasses askew on his face. His lips were kiss swollen, the flames dancing shadows on his naked body.
I knew then that I loved him. I’d been alone for so long, moved from place to place – England, America, Ireland, Japan, back to England – searching for anything. Avoided relationships because I was scared of getting hurt – hurt like when I was beat up on the playground, hurt like when my father walked out, hurt like when my first love dumped me after cheating on me. But it wasn’t just pain I shied away from; I didn’t want to deal with everything that came with relationships, especially the emptiness after they were over.
But it’d been a year since that ugly jumper party. We’d even bought this house together, so I was in it for the long haul (I thought), but I’d had my doubts. What if we didn’t work out? What if I felt like moving again, would he move with me, stay with the house, let me go? None of that mattered now. The wire of his glasses digging into my arm, his foot sliding gently along my calf, I knew I was in love.
“I love you,” I said.
“Love you too,” he replied sleepily.
“No, I mean, I love you, like really love you. Not just love you because we’ve been together and have to say it. I love you, completely and absolutely.”
His eyes opened, two green-filled questions. “You didn’t love me before?”
I shake my head. “That’s not what I mean. I loved you, but I don’t know. I just love you. With everything, I love you.”
“You just realized this?”
“Yes.”
“I love you, too. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you in that hideous reindeer jumper.” He slid his hand in my hair and kissed me.
*
Backyard patio
“Plants are looking nice,” I said, setting a bottle of water on the patio table. The day was hot, and I was quickly beginning to sweat. “Your roses are going to be nice this year.”
“I think so, too,” he said, leaning back on his haunches to admire his work. “You can help me prune if you want.”
“I’ll kill them. I have a black thumb.” That moment, the back gate exploded and two screaming girls ran inside followed by a younger boy.
“DADDY!” one of the girls said, throwing herself against my legs. She wrapped her little arms around them so tightly that I couldn’t move.
“What’s going on?” I said. I looked over at him. The other girl was showing him a scraped elbow, and standing on his newly planted flowers.
“It hurts, daddy,” she said, starting to cry as he brought her elbow close to his face and kissed it lightly.
“What did you do?” I asked, looking at the little boy who I had just noticed was holding a small garden snake. “Did you chase your sisters with that snake?”
“Yes.” He hung his head and looked sad. “I thought it was funny. It wasn’t going to bite anyone. Its mouth is too small, like me.”
“Let him go over there.” I pointed to the yard. He ran over and stepped into one of the well-kept flower beds, trying hard not to step on things but doing a bad job of it. I looked from the little boy to him, now holding the little girl. “So much for your flowers.”
He shrugged and smiled. “They’ll grow back.” He placed a kiss on the little girl’s head as the little boy ran towards the edge of the yard with the dog.
*
Dining Room
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” he yelled. My entire body was in a rage, so furious I was almost seeing red. It was the third stupid fight we’d had that week. It seemed we were always having stupid fights these days.
“You sure act like it matters,” I spat back.
“Shove off.” He glared at me, then picked up an ashtray and threw it. It hit the leg of the table and busted.
“Mature. Why do you always have to throw things? You’re going to wake the kids.” I bent to pick up the broken shards, but he stepped in front of me and pushed me away.
“I’ll get it. Just…leave me alone.”
“Fine, whatever. I’m tired of arguing.” Just as I walked through the doorway, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said against my hair, arms holding me tightly. He placed kisses all over my face. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to fight. I just…will things ever get better?” He sighed, his warm breath ghosting across my ear.
“It will. It always does.”
*
Second floor master bedroom
I woke up, still tired. The older I got, the more tired I was all the time. The girls were off at college, so their bedrooms were silent, but I heard the boy playing video games in his room.
I rolled over and watched him sleeping beside me. His face looked peaceful, most of the day’s worry gone while he slept. It’s amazing how much he still looked exactly like he did the day I met him. He had a full, close-shaven beard instead of stubble, and there were lines fanning around his eyes and cutting across his forehead. His body was a bit softer, rounder in places it used to be flat. I didn’t notice any of that. I noticed the smell of his shampoo, the same smell for twenty years, the color of his eyes, still just as green, the light eyelashes across his cheek, his crooked smile.
I loved the way his hair curled just slightly on the ends. He straightened it or gelled it most of the time, so I rarely got to see the small curls against his forehead, his ears, the back of his neck. I reached forward and curled a strand around my finger, brushed my fingertips across his cheek.
His eyes fluttered open and I saw them crease in a smile. The wrinkles beside them were the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
“Good morning,” he said, and I kissed him.
*
Upstairs study
“I brought you dinner,” he said. He sat take-away containers on the table in front of the sofa, and I dropped the papers I had been grading on the floor.
“You’re wonderful.” I kissed him as he handed me curry.
“You’ve been working too hard,” he pointed out.
“End of semester. I have to get these essays graded. Poetry analysis. What was I thinking?”
I stretched out and lay my feet in his lap, crossing my ankles. He said, “The kids are coming for dinner on Friday. It’ll be a circus. All the kids and grandkids in the house at the same time, and it’s not even Christmas.” He tried to sound grumpy, but I could tell he was thrilled.
“Grandparents, I still can’t get over it,” I said.
“Seems like only yesterday we were living in that crappy apartment together.” I smiled at the memory. Seemed like a lifetime ago. We’d spent our entire life in this house. The kids had filled the walls with screams and laughter for so many years, and now their kids were doing the same.
I looked over at him, chewing thoughtfully. His glasses were thicker, his hair grayer, though mine was much grayer than his unfortunately. His face had more deep-set wrinkles, his hands age spots. Men and women didn’t find us attractive anymore, but there was poetry in his face, his hands, his voice that he didn’t have at twenty or even thirty. It’s like he’d written the poem and revised it for years until he’d perfected it with his smile and the grace of his touch.
*
Full-sized kitchen
I heard the crash from the other room. When I entered the kitchen, I saw him stooping over the sink. Glass shards were everywhere.
“I broke the tea mug,” he said, looking up at me with watery eyes. It was the third mug this month. I walked over to him, saw his hands shaking. I took them in my own, his knuckles swollen and fingers warped with arthritis. I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed it. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I reassured him. He smiled, white hair framing a wrinkled face. Even through his ridiculously thick glasses, his eyes still shone just as green.
“I’m losing the ability to grip things. I drop everything.”
I kissed his hand again. “We can buy other mugs.”
“I’m sorry my hands are so ugly.” He tried to pull them from my grasp, but I held them firmly.
“They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.” I kissed him, and he intertwined his fingers with mine as best he could.
*
First floor den
The beeps from the machines were always heard above everything – the television, a conversation, his breathing. He was sitting in a chair by my bed, my thin hand in his larger one. Against the far wall was his bed, unmade. We hadn’t slept in our bed in months. Last time I saw it – which had been awhile – it was made up tidily, unlike it ever was before. We had never seen the point in making up a bed we’d fall back into at any moment, whether to fuck or to sleep. We hadn’t shared a bed in so long, hadn’t touched each other in even longer. Now the most erotic thing we could do was hold hands, which we did from the time we woke up to the time he went to his bed in the corner.
The TV was on, but we weren’t watching. We were looking at one another, waiting. Any day now, any minute maybe. The waiting was the worst part.
“I’m going to miss this house,” I said. “We’ve spent our whole lives here.”
“Not our whole lives.”
“No, our whole lives. Anything before we moved in doesn’t matter. We fell in love here, made a family here, raised our kids here, grew old here, and now…” I didn’t finish the sentence, because we both knew how it would end. I would die here.
“It was a good house.”
“Don’t sell it,” I said. “When I’m gone. Don’t sell it.”
“It’s too big for me,” he said.
“I don’t want you to live anywhere I didn’t. It’s a stupid request, I know.”
“Okay. I’ll stay here. And then the kids will keep it when…” He didn’t have to finish that sentence either. “They love this house, too.”
“I’ll be here with you if you stay here. I’m in the walls, the floors. We’re in them, both of us, our lives played out in the wallpaper, floorboards, tapestries.”
He smiled sadly, the only kind of smile I’d seen him use lately. “It won’t be the same, though.”
“I know. Maybe it’ll give you the same peace it’s always given me.”
“I don’t think it will without you.”
“You’re probably right.” I squeezed his hand as much as I could. “It’s wasn’t the house. It was you that made it more than that. You gave me peace that I didn’t have before I met you.”
“I love you,” he said unsteadily.
“I love you, too.” I closed my eyes and felt peace encircling me. For the first time in my life, I was leaving him, but I knew he wouldn’t be far behind.
*
Front porch
The real estate agent stood in front of them, waiting for their answer. They’d been on the tour, just like every other time, asked the same questions, seen the same things. The house wasn’t as nice as some of the others they’d looked at, but something was different; he felt something different. Something was in the air, in the floors, the ceilings. He couldn’t describe it, and if he’d tried, they would have looked at him like he was crazy.
But when he looked beside him, he saw his own wonder and hope reflected in the other man’s green eyes. When he grabbed his hand, they smiled at each other.
“We’ll take it.”
-fin