1
Decorated in sunshine. It gets stifling after a while, doesn’t it? At first it’s easy to laugh and breathe in the light. You run and dance amongst blossoming petals. Your friends shout, and your lover shimmers. Remember? And then you start to sunburn. Someone goes to get some water. The heat is suffocating, as they say, but it’s also kind of comfortable, and you think of sleep. You close your eyes. You open your eyes. And everybody’s gone.
* * *
When he realized he couldn’t feel it any other way, he hopped on a train. Her leaving was a caustic summer’s day putting his life on pause. Her absence a thirsty swallow. Her face was the worst part because it was still beautiful, even when she told him it was over, and now he realized. He really couldn’t feel it any other way: this was grief.
And he had to get away.
The train rocked on rails built for hundreds of other people hundreds of years ago. Everybody escaping and coming home. He didn’t know which direction was his.
He opened the book he’d brought with for comfort. Thumbing the pages, he smelled her and closed it again. The grass outside the window bowed under what he hoped was a new wind, rescuing.
* * *
At the train station, it started to rain, a fresh and eager shower, keeping his hopes up. The bright wind continued to play on the leaves and flowers and flags of this quaint, mountain village. Arriving at his rented apartment, he dropped his bags on the ancient hardwood and stepped outside onto the balcony. Behind him, the one-room summer home echoed with memories – not his own, having never been here before, but with those of lovers and adventurers before him.
He began to feel okay again.
* * *
The cafe charged almost nothing for a melange, so he bought three in quick succession, looking gratefully around the town square. The summer wasn’t over yet, and maybe it didn’t need to conclude in that wasted heap of regret and exhaustion as he had thought it might. This place was wet with wonder and simplicity, shining now though the clouds remained. He held his camera deftly in his lap, at the ready. Only minutes ago, as he’d sipped his second cup, he’d missed the chance to capture an elderly man coaxing his horse to drink. In the city, horses wore blindfolds. Here, everything was different. It was something about the familiarity these people expressed. Toward each other. Toward their fields, trees, and animals.
Suddenly, he lifted his camera and adjusted it as a child carrying a pot of flowers half his size stumbled across the cobblestone, his mother laughing and clapping from the doorway of the boutique. Click.
Half an hour later, a man sitting near the fountain lifted a hand with bread crumbs; a sparrow fluttered onto the bench beside him. Click.
A teenager crossing the square turned her face to bask beneath a silver sky.
Shutter speed. How fast do you have to be to gather all of that light into a single moment?
Click.
2
Alana couldn’t cry.
She kept breathing heavily, manufacturing sobs in the morning light, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t make it real. Dust particles noodled around as she stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom. A straight line of sun blasted through the window across her, burying itself into the plush, lilac carpet. What do you do when nothing’s wrong and you’re still sad? What’s the next step?
Alana didn’t know. She watched that golden light sweep in slow motion through the room until the window couldn’t hold it anymore, and it ran away. She thought of her parents, vacationing in San Torini, and she thought of her career, rising like the sun that just left the room. Rising, yes, and even taking her with it. But what comes after noon?
Well, it was only 10:03. She rolled to the right and tucked her knees. Arching her back, she stretched her body, always reaching, and stood. Downstairs, Leo was finishing his breakfast. He knew she wouldn’t leave the bedroom until at least 10:00 o’clock. He always made breakfast around 8:30 anyway. It was always cold when she came downstairs. He always smiled as if to say, “Can’t you see how much I hate you?”
She never complained.
* * *
Her colleagues applauded as she shuffled back to her seat. Another victory. Apparently. She held her breath until the room was empty.
After work, she bicycled from the university, down the stoic hillside toward Cafe Renata. Beneath her, the pebble-strewn road took on a life of its own, provoking her, accusing her. It wouldn’t be so difficult to take a hard right, over the edge, into the heaving water below. Slip, said the pavement. Let me do my part. Maybe a crack up ahead could give her the excuse she needed. Maybe a sharp turn where the slope fell most welcomingly. But what can a path do, crooked as it may be? Nothing, if the pilgrim balks.
And just like that, she was inside, speaking with Hermann, purchasing a coffee, sitting in her corner, and, finally, seeing the man with the camera for the first time.
3
Rain outside the window. Falling. Steadily. They stayed inside. Those were the early days of lovemaking and unknown histories and quick forgiveness.
Snow on the cobblestones. Whispers. Echoing. They navigated the city with the confidence and arrogance of sophomores through the centuries. Alana talked about Leo seldom, but mostly here, during the winter, disguised as she was in the drifting snowflakes. He didn’t notice her nostalgia at first.
Spring sunshine boring a hole into his mind. Dust bunnies under sweaty feet on the wood floor. Spores infiltrating every breath. He started choking long before he knew why.
* * *
Summer.
On a Sunday, they awoke to the curtain sun framed in the window. Alana said she felt sick, and he reached over with his palm to her forehead.
“Not warm.”
“Feels warm to me.”
He got up and shuffled into the kitchen. She’d mentioned (not just a few times) that her previous husband was constantly making breakfast too early, leaving it on the table to cool long before she was ready to eat. She remembered it as a slight. He endeavored now to trap the heat, but the longer she stayed in bed, the more he began to doubt her memory. He left the food and stood into the hall.
“Alana?”
* * *
Hours later, he left the apartment to get some fresh air and couldn’t find any.
When he got home she declared the breakfast – and their relationship – tepid: “Just like Leo!” He froze by the window, decorated in sunshine, and stared outside until she left.
When he realized he couldn’t feel it any other way, he hopped on a train.