Butterflies in November

FIFTY-NINE

When I re-emerge the following morning, I find him half out of his sleeping bag, with one arm dangling on the floor, a familiar but alien body. Saliva is dribbling out of the corner of his mouth onto his chin, the same chemical composition as the thousands of waves in the sea, I tell myself, and there’s an entire ocean between us. When he turns over, I catch a good glimpse of the scar on his back. If I run out of topics at the breakfast table, I can always ask him how he got it; but when the moment actually comes, I find I’m not interested enough in the answer.

A butterfly flutters over him, drawing irregular circles in the air. Then, suddenly losing its force, it falls to one side and tries to stumble to its feet again on his slippery chin. My ex tries to wave the itch away with his hairy arm. I observe the butterfly’s struggle and suddenly feel the irrepressible urge to save it while I still can. I try to scoop it off him with a sheet of paper, without waking the sleeper, but to no avail. Finally, I grab a jar on the table and press it, mouth down, against my ex’s cheek, perhaps a bit brusquely.

He springs up. There’s a red circle on his cheek.

“Did you just hit me?”

“I was saving a butterfly.”

“The last time you hit me your excuse was two flies in October. This time it’s a butterfly in December.”

“It’s vanished.”

“You’re not normal; you hit me every time we meet.”

He glances swiftly at the clock and has to go out onto the deck to make a private call. Like some marsupial creature, he staggers outside with the sleeping bag still wrapped around him; there’s better network coverage outside. I prepare breakfast, while he is recovering from the assault.

I can’t remember how he likes his eggs. Softly boiled, medium-boiled or hard-boiled apart from the innermost core of the yolk? Fried? How did it ever occur to me to offer a man such a complex breakfast? The boy stands beside me so that he can time the boiling of the egg with the divorce watch, which he’s wearing on his wrist with a new strap. My ex believes hen’s eggs require seven minutes. The boy toddles around the guest, occasionally glancing at the watch.

“Hang on, isn’t that the watch I gave you? Why is he wearing it?”

“Yes, he’s got the watch now.”

“Did you take off the golden bracelet with the inscription on it and replace it with a strap instead?”

“Was there an inscription on the bracelet?”

“Yes, there was an inscription on the bracelet. Are you going to tell me you didn’t even read the inscription?”

Sometime later, I notice him peeping at my diary, rapidly skimming through it. I think he might be saying something in the living room, but the whistle of the kettle prevents me from hearing what. When I return he is sitting in white socks and underpants on the sofa bed and has rolled up the sleeping bag. I get the feeling he might have been crying.

“The good thing about you is that you never placed any demands on me.”

Then I sit down beside him, pat him on the arm and, after a moment, say: “Yes, I can well understand you, but sometimes people have to make decisions, go home to Nína Lind now.”

“I might be pathetic, but I’m not a bastard.”

He has stood up and walks towards the living room window where he pauses a long moment, his back turned to me, peering into the morning darkness.

“It sure is incredibly dark here.”

When he is about to leave, he can’t find his scarf.

“If you ever find it, it’s purple with yellow stripes and a brown fringe, Nína Lind knitted it.”

Before leaving, he asks me if there’s another man in the picture. I don’t answer.

“You’re a quick operator,” he says. “I take my eyes off you for one second and you’re already hitched up with someone.”

“That’s a bit of an overstatement.”

“We could have such a good time together, travel and do lots of things.”

Stepping out onto the deck, he abruptly swivels on his feet to pull me into a tight embrace. I can tell it’s a quality impermeable anorak that he’s wearing, it insulates well.

“I just wanted to tell you that I just texted Nína Lind to ask her to marry me.” He then moves away a few steps before turning one final time to ask:

“Have you any idea where the box with the Christmas decorations got to?”

“Wasn’t it in the garage?”

“Wait a minute, did you leave all the stuff in the garage?”

“I forgot it, didn’t you take it? The sleeping bags were there.”

“Jesus Christ, did you give the new owners a year’s supply of toilet paper, the bag of walrus teeth from Greenland and all the Christmas decorations, including the blinking singing reindeer?”

When I walk back into the house, I see that he has left a handwritten note for me on the table.