An Accident

It is raining. Big, heavy droplets that clatter against roofs. A perpetual mist that coats everything in moisture. Enthusiastic splashes of filthy drain water as cars drive through puddles. The constant and stressful flick of windshield wipers, squeaking and streaking and pushing water out of the way and onto the street. The asphalt shines with oil and water, a mixture that catches the weak winter light every once in a while, and throws back a tepid attempt at a rainbow. He thinks he might be the only person on the footpath with eyes attuned to such things, Jake Parker, in-house counsel to one of the innumerable skyscrapers crowding the skyline. He likes the way he feels so small amongst them, the way he has to crane his neck like a child to see the neatly prescribed outline of empty windows that act like mirrors against the wild, natural, moving collection of clouds and sunlight captured in the atmosphere.

He likes to walk without an umbrella in this kind of weather. He likes to take the moment before he moves from the foyer of his building, conformed like all the others to a satisfying and proven model of glass and steel, to watch the rain as it tumbles before him. He tries to catch one in his eye and follow it all the way down to where it collides with the asphalt and is lost to the tide. He has never seen that moment, never been able to keep all the individual capsules of water separate from each other in their race to oblivion. Sometimes, he allows it to overwhelm him. Sometimes, he stands for a little too long in the doorway. Sometimes, he will force his hands into his pockets and lean into the edge of the marble, letting it force the skin of his arm around it so that when he moves he is just a bit sore.

He knows Ellie would laugh at him if she could see, if she could watch her adult husband succumb to the fancies of a child. But he knows that her smile would always be laced with that barely-tangible whisper of love, of affection, that soft part of a wife’s gaze when it is trained on her husband. He tries to catch her watching him when he is doing the dishes or frying an egg or lacing his shoes in the morning, but she is clever and easily adapted to his personal habits and now she has gotten far too good at catching him catching her, those ordinary hazel eyes alight with the kind of fierce joy he too has felt, is feeling. He closes his eyes to see her, to watch her as she was this morning while the rain clatters and splashes and squeaks and crashes in waves outside. The ache of the edge of the marble wall against his arm keeps him anchored but it is not easy, not easy at all to pull down against the elation of memories of his wife, his love, that special piece of humanity only he will know every part of, the piece that awaits him on the other side of his twenty-minute journey to the quiet part of the city where houses sit in gaggles of domesticity and animated conversations can be heard down the street.

He lets a coat pass him before he moves toward the door, a woman-shaped lump just discernible from amongst its dark and varied folds. His own coat is old and smells too much of a life without Ellie. It clutches scents of must and infrequent cleaning, the brittle and discouraging feel of a garment rarely used and largely neglected. He thinks of the times he has had reason to keep Ellie in the space between his chest and the lining that is usually accompanied by the spasms of cold that sneak in through buttonholes and open collars. He thinks of the way she easily folds herself to fit wherever she is needed. The way she locks her hands around his waist because she loves him. The way she breathes steadily enough to calm his own inhalations, the way she leeches out that uncomfortable layer of something unsteady that has a tendency to lodge itself in his chest.

He trudges through a puddle and does not flinch as his sock plays host to a moment of water and the various types of uncleanliness it possesses. He keeps his head down so the rain tickles his neck, settles between his shoulder blades, rests in his shirt where it will be scolded by Ellie when she finds it later. He cannot help but blink away the rain that lands on his face but he does not act out of spite. It is soothing to be wet, to be drenched, to be drowned in this cacophony of water, to be unable to see anything in front of him and to have to rely on the way the pavement feels exactly the same under his shoes as it did this morning, only in reverse. He trusts the mountain of concrete bursting over a particularly audacious tree root. He accepts the guidance of a dip under his left foot where a child immortalised their tiny, endearing handprint amongst a bed of apathetic and quickly-drying cement. He sees the beckoning red of the stationary man, the do-not-walk man, the visual representation of authority he readily obeys while others cross the road in a flagrant display of mockery. He sees and trusts and understands and accepts, and when the light turns green his body responds because his brain doesn’t have to, he doesn’t have to think as he follows the footpath’s descent onto the bitumen, he doesn’t have to look both ways because there is nobody waiting for him, but as he tries to complete his next step forward he cannot because the rain has enticed and seduced him and has beckoned forth a metal creature of black and silver that does not, cannot, will not stop.

It is raining but she doesn’t mind because she is inside, because the clatter of droplets on the roof in the kitchen is soothing. Because the glow of the oven has a homely, domestic feel about it that she is proud to have cultivated herself. Because the smell of a well-roasted chicken is lingering near her nostrils and she thinks that maybe Jake won’t notice if she just tears the smallest, most inconspicuous piece off the side and snaps her jaw shut around it before he can walk in the door and catch her. She can see him doing just that, leaning against the wood so it can shut gently behind him and he can sigh dramatically. She can see the muscles in his face slowly relax as he realises his nose is not deceiving him – there is food in the oven about to grace the intimidating cleanliness of a fresh white plate, a plate that itself is going to decorate the space on the table in front of him for the few brief moments it takes for him to thank her for her efforts and collect his cutlery in his hands. She loves to watch him eat on those rare occasions she is home before him and has the freedom to burn and slice and fry and do everything incorrectly a dozen times before something edible arrives in front of her and they don’t have to order pizza. She loves to watch him take that first bite, loves to see the way the muscles in his face contort involuntarily into a reaction of pleasure, loves to know that her hard work and seemingly endless Google searches for things that are apparently ‘basic’ and therefore never explained in the detail she needs have paid off. Mostly, she just loves to watch him enjoy the things that others barely seem to notice, like the small sprig of rosemary she has reserved to place as a garnish on top of this gently browning chicken, likely too big for just the two of them but a necessary purchase because they now have the money to spend on such things.

She is proud of him, her Jake, and it warms her in a way entirely different to the way the oven warms her if she stands directly in front of it and rubs her hands together quickly enough. It makes her laugh to think of the way she must look, a woman who can afford to cook an entire chicken for two people but cannot afford to turn the air conditioning on in winter. Sometimes, Jake will find her like this and just move to stand behind her, hands around her waist in that way she loves that makes it feel like nothing else exists outside of him. Sometimes, he will rest his chin on the top of her head because he is so much taller than her and even though they are adults it is occasionally delightful to feel like a child. Other times, he will nest his face into her shoulder and just breathe, and she will wonder how he does not suffocate from within her hair or at least complain that she should cut it all off, like he complains that she should donate all her clothes when it takes her far too long to prepare for any kind of not-casual occasion.

She sets the table with wine glasses and the tablecloth with the red trim because this time last week he told her he had been promoted. The symptomatic weight of financial trouble melted into the bottle of mid-range champagne she had received as a work Christmas gift and stowed away in the cupboard for a special occasion. This special occasion. Now, she brings out the expensive wine glasses they have used three times in the four years they have been married and arranges them neatly around the most expensive bottle of wine she has ever purchased. She cannot count the amount of times Jake has lovingly, calmly, patiently told her to stop seeing their world in terms of what they can and cannot afford, but she can count the number of whole chickens she could have purchased instead of the wine. Eight. She decides that Jake simply won’t ever know.

She lays out the last knife and turns expectantly towards the door because now that she has finished he is allowed to come home. The kitchen smells adequately of hard labour and its enticing result; the light is low and gold and domestic; the knowledge that it is raining outside makes the scene indoors all the more welcoming. She tries for a collection of seconds not to look at her watch, then looks at her watch because he is late and he has never been before. Aside from those times she has conveniently forgotten because he is her husband and she is in love with him in that way that easily dilutes the rest of the world. She turns the oven off, leaves the chicken inside to stay warm, slips into her favourite sweater because she knows it reminds him of the night she dropped red wine all over his jacket and he knew he wanted to marry her. She wonders how it is so easy for him to attach significance to so many ordinary things. Even the tongs she has used to toss the vegetables this evening are irreplaceable, used to toss the first salad they ever ate in this house. They will never be able to get rid of anything. She can see them now in their old age, gingerly navigating teetering piles of crumbling possessions that have existed for too long to be of any real use but bring the light to Jake’s eyes because they remind him of her. As if he will need reminding when she is always right here, waiting for him.

She sits at the table, ready to surprise him with a rare display of domestic bliss and culinary success. She imagines the way he will release his disappointment in a sigh when the meal is over, the way he will reach for her and kiss her with a mouth that tastes like garlic. She imagines the way his hands will feel on her cheeks, on her arms, against her back, wherever he can put them, because even now he loves to touch her as if for the first time. She imagines his lips briefly on her forehead as he stands to do the dishes, the feeling of his eyes on her as he watches from the sink while she carefully folds the tablecloth and carries it to the laundry. She images his softly wrinkled hands pulling her toward him now that the night is over, now that they have rejoiced in the thrill of good wine and expensive chicken, neither of which needed to be either of those things.

She imagines this all with the clarity of one who has experienced it time and again, and will do so as the hours tick by and she becomes somewhat impatient and no-one thinks to call her about the rain and the road and an accident.