Impasse

19 - 20 November

I had only wanted to lie down for a short while. Perhaps it would take up the time Colin was away. Wherever away was. I could tell it was afternoon just by opening one eye and peering out the huge window. If he was back, he was being quiet. Then again, maybe he wasn't yet. Plausible. I had laid some stuff on him he had to deal with, come to terms with. I had no idea how he had taken any of it, but he had to, somewhere in the back of that gorgeous head, understand and know what I meant. What I was getting at. Didn't he? I wasn't, at all, trying to end us. Not in the least. I was only trying to remind him of what we knew was our true journey this time around. He couldn't cop out on it. Basically because I knew what was so. He had fabricated some shit to tell me back at that restaurant and now he seemed to be holding to it, like it was actual fact, and it was far from it. He should have just gone home and gotten his act together and his life back. We would survive. We would stand any test of time. We, apparently, already had. I stretched out my backbone and flexed my legs as I rubbed my eyes and threw my arms over my head. It had warmed up. Time for shorts and a halter top. And I was hungry.

"Where the hell's my laptop? Oh shit, where's my papers? The poem?"

"Colin?"

I wasn't getting an answer as I plodded down the hallway in mild anxiety and stopped short at the guest room when I saw he was lying across the bed in there. How long he had been back was anybody's guess. And I didn't feel like taking one. Especially when I saw what I had been fretting about lying on the nightstand next to that bed. I wasn't even going to be quiet about it. You know you say those things, think those things, but you don't mean it really, unless of course you're a klutz and you trip over something. Like giant feet.

"Damn it to hell!"

"You're awake."

"Brilliant."

"I'd thought it better that I. Didn't want to disturb you."

"No? Then what the fuck is this? This is disturbing. This is very personal. You had no right."

"You've known."

"Is this a brainstorm?"

"How long?"

"I think we covered this ground before, more than once."

"How long damn you? That's not an original piece of work. It's a final draft. The original would have mistakes, changes, grammatical errors."

"Like I just said...."

"No, specifically...that."

He was definitely pointing at and referring to the poem.

"I don't remember."

"Do you want me to take your word on that? You've not lied to me ever, that I can recall."

I leaned back against the wall and put the poem up to my forehead.

"I really don't remember exactly. I worked on it, changed it here and there..for ages.  Valmont."

"Come again?"

"Valmont, damn you. You know this."

I folded the page back in half and headed out of the room as he grabbed for my arm.

"Colin."

I waved the paper in the air.

"This...has nothing to do with anything right now. Get your ass and act together. I need you to do that."

I pulled away from him and slammed the door behind me. Which immediately flung back open as I continued towards the kitchen.

"What do you want from me?"

I didn't stop as I continued to gather the fixings of a sandwich.

"It's not me Colin. You have to want from yourself. You have to get it from inside you. I can't help you anymore."

One should not approach an angry female with a knife in their hands. Under any circumstances.
"I don't know what you're talking about?"

He entered the kitchen and I turned, holding the knife up shaking it at him.

"You went off to God knows where for God knows how long and nothing hit you? Nothing came to you? Like your senses? Good Lord."

"I might have figured a bit."

"That's a start. Hungry?"

"Not particularly."

"Hmmm....suit yourself."

"Why don't you put that up? There's a place not far we could go. The fare isn't on a grand scale, but it's casual and....."

"Let me guess. They serve drinks?"

"That also."

"See Colin? You just don't fucking get it. You can go. Be my guest. I...can't. We just came out of a firestorm and you want me to be seen with you somewhere? I'm not your wife Colin. They may have seen you here already, but........."

I stared him down.  He got furious and grabbed the keys then, three at a time, took the outside steps. I was exasperated, but I couldn't stop him. I'm certain he hadn't heard everything I said as he pulled away in that jeep. I threw the knife in the sink. My appetite went out that door with him.

Why wasn't he getting it? Didn't he understand I wasn't mad at him? Not really. I only wanted for him what he'd had all along. All those years before. I wanted to be a part of his life, not all of it. Why? Because I knew that was how it was supposed to be. How was I ever going to get through to him?

I sat down and tried to concentrate on other things. That was a mistake too. Well, part of it was. Part of it wasn't. I hadn't heard from Hilary, not that I expected too, but then again I did. She had said she had some ideas about. Anyway. Maybe it was time for me to try and figure that treachery out for myself. If I could stay with it long enough. I shot off an email to Hilly and settled back to read the book I had brought with. Nick Hornby's latest. I bought everything he wrote. You tend to do these things when you've actually met the person. But I loved his writing anyway, had so before I was ever introduced. The other, the painful item that hit me? I pushed it aside.

I woke up to stumbling and things falling, with a kink in my neck and my bookmark on the floor next to the book that I had obviously dropped. I couldn't tell you what page I had lost consciousness on or where I was. I could hardly remember how much I had read or what I had read. Too much crap going on in my head. I turned to the sound of

"Ah fuck that hurt!"

And glass breaking against the inlaid flooring. I didn't move. I was trying to judge whether he'd want my help or not. I guessed wrong.

"You okay?"
"Why the fuck wouldn't I be?"

"You mentioned something about something hurting."

"Figure of speech. Spying on me?"

"I don't think so."
"Then why the hell are you staring at me and why are you here?"

I took in a deep breath and kept my cool.

"I can go if you like, but it would have to wait until later. No boats or anything this hour. It's like one in the morning."

"I didn't mean that."

"What did you mean? Oh Hell, I can't talk to you like this. Colin we need to talk. We really do but you need to sleep right now."

"I'll talk if you want to."

"I need you sober."

"Fine, suit your damn self. You sleep...I'll take the guest room. Wouldn't want to be accused of anything."

"And what the hell does that mean?"
He practically fell into the room and I was certain I heard him fall onto the bed. Time was running out. I couldn't stay here forever; I wouldn't anyway and it was now the twentieth.

I expected he would be a long time sleeping it off, but I'd gotten up early and made coffee, black. Grabbed aspirin, three, and went into the guest room unannounced. Fortunately the windows faced west here so the morning sun wouldn't hit his face, now fully whiskered. Not that I minded. I always thought it great on him and actually kind of arousing. Not today, too much shit going on and he looked that way too. He stirred slightly, opened one eye and turned over.

"Coffee and some aspirin. I'll be out... I'll be on the patio."

I didn't close the door fully. It wouldn't make noise that way. I was barefoot so no clunking on the flooring would vibrate back and forth in his head. I lit a cigarette from the pack I'd brought with me from Austin. Yes, after all this time I had actually bought some and had consumed half a pack. Not today mind you. In a week. But that was far too much. I opened my laptop and let it boot up as I watched some gulls playing around and just begging, or daring me, to throw them something. I knew better. It was already warm, but there was a breeze that carried my exhaled ringlets away from the house and wispy clouds slid lazily by carried on that same wind. It was perfect here. A place you would dream about spending a long lazy vacation with the one you loved...and I was as miserable as you could possibly be.

"Thank you."

"Sure."

"You sleep alright?"

"No...you?"

"Not at all. Seems I've a cut here on my foot."

"You knocked a vase onto the floor, it broke. You had your socks and shoes in your hands. I guess you were trying to be quiet and not wake me."

"You're smoking."

"Yes, I know."

"You don't have to be such an ass about it all."

"Didn't know I was...sorry. So tell me, you have a good time last night? Is this what you've been doing all this time on your own when you should have been getting yourself back into the real world? Getting your head on straight? Instead you've been killing off brain cells that, I might add, you seem to need more of right now, not less."

"This is uncalled for."

"Is it? What the hell have you been doing for five weeks? Vegging out?"

"That's not fair."

"Not fair? Let me see. You have no books here, no scripts, no music, no television or radio. You've been incommunicado to practically everyone. This is not exactly Miami Beach or anything. Not a hell of a lot to do, especially if you're here by yourself. So what exactly have you been doing to wile away the hours? Or do I want to know?"

"What I've been doing is none of your concern."

That called for another cigarette. Ok, maybe it didn't, but I lit one anyway.

"I see."

"I hardly know that you had the time to consider me at all. Running around with your friends and having a...."

"Finish it. Having what? A hard time with everything? With everyone? Trying to get my life back...rather unsuccessfully I might add."

"You moved out of your home. I imagine you had found a story in all this somewhere."

"Did you? Fuck off Colin. You still don't see it do you? You're taking all these conversations so far out into left field you'll never catch the ball."

I followed him over to the railing and caught him off guard as I whirled him around to face me.

"First of all, I can't write.....not now! Haven't you caught onto all of this all this time? I write because of you. Don't you know that? Christ. Every writer, artist, whatever, has something they draw on for inspiration. What they end up doing comes from inside, naturally. But there's one driving force behind it all. Something that says go on...do it. My talent laid there, as I imagine it has always been inside me. It was waiting for that spark to set it off. You are that spark, that inspiration. If not for you the world would have five less books and two less movies I'm sure didn't need to be made. Bollocks!"

His pretensions to ignorance were starting to wear on me.
"I moved out, sure I did. I needed some space, but I didn't go a thousand miles away from the situation. I had to stay in arms reach. There was no other way for us to work on getting our life back if I'd gone off. Shit I have."

He'd gotten that one in. And he was right, in a small way. He walked over to the table and picked up the now, I was certain, cold mug of coffee.

"Is there more? Coffee I mean."

"You see, that's what I'm trying to tell you. At least I went home. I tried, I made an effort. It's not going particularly well, but there's hope. You didn't even give it that small chance. You didn't make an attempt. Instead you sailed off into the sunset, for lack of better words."

"Is that what you want, to be back with him, to be done with me?"

"No, damn it. I want you to have your life. This life. The life you have had, that you are intended to have this time. It's not me. Somehow you've forgotten that. Don't you see? That's where you've gone off half-cocked. Go back to where we were."

"Perhaps I've changed my mind on it all."

"No you haven't. But if you want to believe that fine, but you see..I haven't. Thom and my kids are my reality this time. That we have been fortunate to actually connect, that won't change, because our conscious minds legitimized it."

"So you're not leaving me?"

"That's not an option I have is it? I may leave here. I shouldn't even be here. I think I only came because somebody had to................"

"Help me get my ass back in gear, get me back on track?"

"It's reasonable to think."

He sat in the chair and stared at me. It felt like an incalculable amount of time. But I could see those wheels finally starting to turn in his head. I could almost see the light bulb go on and get brighter. He sat back and drank that awful cold coffee, but never took his eyes off of me. I continued to lean against the railing not knowing what to do or say. I figured I had said enough already. If it still wasn't getting through, I didn't know what else I could do or how else to go about explaining.

"So...you....you're not letting me go then?"

"No...I never said I was. Only if.."

"Would you mind to give me a few moments?"

"If you like. I'll be inside, I'll be waiting."

I went inside and slid the door closed behind me. I turned back as he put down the mug, walked back to the rail, looked out and then put his head down on his hands. He had, whether he wanted to admit it or not, gotten it.