Matches

   “Whose horrible idea was it to do this?” I asked the air, my voice catching and dying on the recycled hot air. I leaned my forehead and cheek against the cool glass of the window, looking out at the craggy rocks capped with snow. 

   Phillip turned his head to look at me for a moment before turning back to the road. “Yours.” 

   I grunted low in the back of my throat and had nearly gotten comfortable with my shoulder under the seat belt when the car began to shake and jump again as we hit yet another patch of rocks. We might not make it off the mountain at this rate. 

   Phillip clenched his jaw, both hands tightening on the wheel as he guided us away from the edge of the road closest to the drop off. I could see the tendons under his skin working, feel the tension radiate off of his body. Attraction and anger coiled within me, forming a thick rope that held me like a puppet, control-less but upright. I turned away from him, swallowing hard and focusing on the texture of my sweater sleeve against the door. 

   “We have to be getting close. The road’s about to end.” 

   I barely had time to look up before he jerked the wheel and turned the car at a 45° angle. I yelped as every small item from our backseat flung itself across the car. 

   “I’m sorry, babe, I didn’t see the turn until too late. I mean….I….” We both froze for a moment, the car slowing to a crawl. 

   I tried to both pretend that I hadn’t heard him and remind myself that it didn’t mean anything. 

   “Anyway, we’re here.” His voice was gruff again, back to an even, uninterested tone. 

   I nodded and looked out the window. It wasn’t much to look at, this cabin. A boring rectangle, with a tiny front porch and ugly mismatched chairs. None of the cute plaid flannel that I had envisioned when I read the listing; “Charming Off-the-Grid Cabin”. 

   He wrenched the car into park and pulled at the emergency brake. He didn’t say anything, but I could see he was disappointed, the way his forehead got tight on the left side, his salt and pepper eyebrows furrowing, and his eyes scanning back and forth as if looking for an escape route. This was a terrible idea.You’re an idiot, Phoebe. 

   I shrugged my shoulders as if that would help quiet my brain, and opened the back door to pull out my suitcase. I’d packed a backpack because it felt outdoorsy, and an old hard side suitcase of my dads, because it felt quirky and vintage. I wanted everything about this to be perfect, but I didn’t know how to make that happen. Phillip took out his matching luggage set. I had one just like it at home, but I had carefully decided not to bring it. A minute later we both stood on the porch, looking at the front door, more knots than smooth wood. 

   I felt him looking at me and heat rose to my neck. 

   “You have the key, right?” 

   “Right, uh, yeah, of course. The key.” What an idiot. I reached deep into my pants’ pocket and pulled out the key that I had picked up from the owner of the cabin yesterday. It wasn’t a very tight operation.  

   I had to wiggle it a few times in the lock, and then pushed the door open. The sun was setting, and despite the warm orange glow coming in from the windows on either end of the cabin, the furniture was mostly just shapes and shadows. I fumbled to the side of the door for a light switch, and found nothing. Phillip had made himself small and stepped around me into the space, turning slowly on his heels.   

   I gave up on my light switch search for a moment, finally registering the rest of the room and the tightness between my shoulders even under my coat. “Fuck, it’s cold.” 

   “Is there no heat?” Phillip raised one eyebrow at me, a talent he had cultivated since childhood. 

   “Um, maybe we need to turn it on.” 

   He looked from me back to the wall where the light switch was supposed to be. “This place does have electricity, doesn’t it, Fee?” 

   “Mm, I thought so. Let me just check my email and see.” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, my stiff fingers taking two tries to enter my pass-code. Once I got in my email, nothing pulled up. “There’s no signal. I’m going to go back outside.” 

   He didn’t say anything, so I marched out on my own, down to our car. Still nothing. He was on the porch when I got back. “So?”

   I shook my head. 

   “You never were much for reading the fine print, were you?” I never am. I’m not dead, I’m still here. 

   “I’m sorry.” 

   “It is what it is.” He shrugged. “We can find a solution.” Like I was one of the people he had to schmooze at work. I could say that I was trying to get him away from his job, when in reality I was just trying to get him away from Nathalia. What an exotic name. Natalie was too mundane for a bombshell like that. 

   “Do you want to go home?” The word felt bitter on my tongue. 

   “If that’s what you want.” 

   I closed my eyes for a moment, trying not to sigh audibly. “What about Kathleen? What if she calls us and she can’t get through?” 

   “Kathleen’s in college. I don’t think she remembers she has parents most of the time.” 

   I couldn’t argue that. She hadn’t called me in weeks. 

   “I guess we could stay just for the night. Driving down that mountain in the dark seems scary.” 

   Phillip nodded, and I swallowed hard, wrapping my arms around myself. “We’ll need to do something for warmth, though.” 

   He raised his eyebrow at me, and I shook my head quickly. “Like a fire or something.” 

   “There’s probably a wood pile somewhere around here. Do you want to check the house for matches?” 

   I tugged at my scarf, strangling myself just slightly, and headed inside. A mission. That was good. I could do a mission. 

   A few drawers and a stubbed toe later, I had procured not only a jumbo box of matches but also two lanterns. I hadn’t been camping since Kathleen was little, and barely remembered how to work a lantern (or matches, for that matter), but I got one going, illuminating the room in the absence of the sun that had now lowered itself behind the mountains. It wasn’t bad inside, really. Worn, but not dirty. There were soft, although mismatched rugs on the floor, and a little dining table by the kitchenette. Tucked beside the big fireplace, the backdrop of the whole room, a bed. One bed. 

   My body coursed with nervous energy, and combined with the cold that had now permeated deep into my bones, it was almost painful to move, my whole body tensed up and frigid. 

   I walked to a window and pulled the yellowed curtain slightly to the side, peeking out. Phillip had found a huge stack of wood by the side of the house, and was carrying loads to a big rickety wheelbarrow. Work smarter, not harder, he had always sworn by. I watched his body move under his coat, the wind ruffling up his hair that had started to become gray on the sides. I didn’t recognize the coat. She couldn’t have gotten it for him, could she? It wasn’t that serious. Perhaps even worse, maybe he had bought it to impress her. Only a kiss. Desperate, frantic, their kiss at a New Years Eve Party, like his eyes as he pleaded with me to believe him. It wasn’t about the kiss, I said, but about what led up to it. Moments like a new coat. 

   It was hard to picture that fervor in the impartial man I had seen over the last few weeks. It made me wonder if I had imagined it, or if it was guilt and panic, instead of any sort of desire for me. 

   He chucked another piece of wood in the wheelbarrow, and I hid behind the frame of the window so he wouldn’t see me. Strange, how the man in front of me could be such a stranger. I heard the wheels start moving, and I quickly moved away from the window, moving over to the bed, sitting down briefly before standing back up, trying not to be awkward, failing miserably. 

   He walked in the room with a small stack of firewood, glancing at the lantern. The hint of a smile played over his face and I let it warm me for a moment. The moment was quickly gone, though, and he let his face drop as he walked across the room and went to the fireplace, unceremoniously dumping wood in. My Philip was a city man, living within the limits his whole life. I had always loved him for it, never tried hard to make us try new things, go new places. So he tried someone new. He did his best with the wood, stacking it up like we used to stack Lincoln Logs when we were trying to make sure that Kathleen was a well-rounded child. 

   He looked up at me and I inched closer to him, wanting to be closer to that magnetic force he had around him. He was like the sun, he always had been, holding all my bits and pieces together, our family in orbit. The days when I felt so free to wrap myself inside his arms were long gone, when I could tuck my face against his chest and breathe more easily, but my body still felt it, still wanted it, wanted to be close to the comfort it had known for 25 years. 

   “Where are the matches?” 

   I took a quick step to the table, the rough wood catching on my boot and tearing the edge slightly. These boots were a gift from Kathleen, and were possibly the most stylish item I owned. I don’t know why I wore them to a cabin in the woods. 

   I took three steps back, puffing out warm clouds into the room, and pressed the matches into his hand. He was still wearing his ring. Had he ever taken it off? I couldn’t remember seeing him take it off, but maybe he was one of those men that took it off in the car before he went in to work. I remember still when we were so excited to wear our rings, an external signal of our love, of our commitment. We felt like grown-ups, even though we were so young. I had never gotten tired of mine, looking at it sparkling in the daylight, water beading on it while I took showers, with him, at first, but now alone. 

   He struck the match a few times before it lit, and he tossed it in the fire quickly, like they do in movies. It didn’t catch, so he muttered something to himself and leaned forward, carefully holding a fresh match to the bottom of a log. It took a moment to get it going, but several minutes later I had begun to feel the warmth. I sat down on the bed, clenching my shoulders up by my ears, focusing on the crackling noises inside and not the wind outside that surely would do nothing but make it colder in here.   

   To my surprise, he came and sat next to me, the bed creaking and sagging under his weight. He inched closer until his knee was almost touching mine.

   “How long do you think it will take to warm up?” I asked, as if he were Smokey Bear.

   He shrugged. “Probably not that long. I think fires usually go pretty fast. Domino effect. Do you want a blanket?” 

   I shook my head, even as my teeth chattered. 

   He lifted the edge of the quilt we were sitting on and put it around my shoulders. “I can, um...hold you? I’m plenty warm.” 

   My throat caught, making it hard to breathe, and all I could do was nod. 

   He wrapped both of his arms around me, still laced with lean muscle, one around my back, one around my front, and rested his head on top of mine. 

   The tears crept up now, breaths barely escaping the lump in my throat, blazing hot streams down my cheeks. I closed my eyelids tightly and begged to whatever entity that might be listening that he wouldn’t let me go for a while. 

   We sat in near silence for a while, the wind brushing against the roof outside, the fire popping in the fireplace, the room slowly gaining heat. He reached up to stroke my hair after a while, turning my insides into liquid. I dared a few glances at him, and in the firelight, he stopped looking like the man who had betrayed me, and started looking like my husband again.

   His chest vibrated as he began speaking, deep and just loudly enough that I could hear him. “This reminds me of that time when we were supposed to go to your parents. And it got too dark for us to keep going, and you were scared of the ice. Kathleen was with them and she was just a baby and you were so worried about her, even after we called and you got to talk to her.” 

   I tried to keep the noise of my crying to a minimum, terrified that I would look weak, that he would be reminded of why he deemed me unfit as a companion. 

   His arms squeezed closer. “I remember how attracted I was to you that night. I never told you that because it felt so wrong, because you were so worried, but you were standing there, at that payphone- remember payphones?”

   I nodded, sniffling loudly. 

   “The snow kept falling on your hair, and you were so frantic but you kept it together for her. You always kept us all together, you know. You looked so beautiful that night, in that dingy little hotel room, you were like an angel. I knew I was damn lucky that I was the one there with you.” 

   I pulled away slightly and looked up at him. It had been so long since he’d spoken to me like this. “I barely remembered that night at the hotel.” 

   “I could never forget it.” He tightened my arms, even though I had come a long way from the shivering mess I had been. He looked at me, breathing softly through parted lips, his eyes intense, heavy. “I’m sorry.” It was a whisper. 

   He reached up and cupped my jaw, stroking the wrinkles where my jaw met my neck. “I’m so sorry.” 

   I shook my head slowly, never breaking eye contact. “I…”

   “You didn’t do anything. This is my fuck-up. I love you, Phoebe. I’ve never deserved you.”

   I remained wordless, wondering if I was in a dream, holding my breath just in case the next exhale would be the one that would wake me. 

   His eyes searched my face, a question that I answered with my eyes. 

   He bent his head and kissed me, like I hadn’t been kissed in years. His fingers tangled in my hair, his body absorbing mine. My body had been without his for so long, it felt as if all the nerve endings that I thought had retired came back to life. Be quiet and enjoy this, Phoebe.

The next morning when I woke up, my head was inches from his, and his hand was on my side. It had been months since I’d felt him this near to me. I didn’t move, didn’t say anything, just watched the light slowly move down his face, listened to his deep breaths. After a while, he woke up too, but didn’t say anything either. Not for a good while, though surely time was moving more like honey than sand here in the woods. After a while, he spoke, his voice rough from sleep. “Let’s stay here for a few days.”