I watched him pour the hot coffee from the french press to my cup as well as the geese, crying in the sky. Marius lived by Leaky Acres, the main water aquafer in the small city at the feet of the foothills of California. Heaven, it felt like, I thought. Heaven with hills.
Marius, flicking back his auburn hair and pushing my coffee towards me on the black marble countertop, looked at me expectantly, as he sipped from his own cup.
"I'm waiting," he said, after a moment.
I sighed, coffee half-raised. I put it down, and watched the steam rise into my horn-rimmed glasses. "I split up with Gordon."
He didn't stop sipping. He'd known. He's always known, since I met him on that whirlwind tour at Vegas, since we found out we lived at the same apartment complex in Reno, since I moved and he'd decided to move with me, seeing as she had nowhere to go and nothing to do but stare at colorful pixels on a screen all night and cry all day; yes, of course he'd known. I sighed, and drank.
I did little else for two days, it seemed. My boss in downtown felt that I needed space, bless her, and didn't involve me in office drama for a few weeks. I needed that, and was grateful. I'd hear about Doris and Josie's husbands soon.
I met her on Friday in Santa Cruz, her eyes shimmering amber in the sun, at the beach on Thanksgiving break. I smiled, and she returned it and walked away. I caught her at the ice cream stand, as she was tugging on her coverup and blinking in the sun, and I bought her ice cream. She smiled, looked me over, decided I wasn't a threat, which was true enough, and we walked the beach together for a half hour and talked about our jobs in the city.
She didn't work in an office, she worked with a small print shop, where one old woman worked, and had worked for many years before we'd been born, and also with a man who was writing a biography about a dead man who'd been dead and intended to stay that way. We laughed at how the man's house smelled of cats, and how the woman's hair flew madly as very old heavy metal blared on the overhead speakers in the print shop. So strange how someone so young would associate with people like that.
After I'd felt like I was eighteen, I got into my car and drove home. I didn't imagine I'd ever see her again. I put on Louder Than Bombs as I went over the foothills into the valley, and tried to remember the words. My engine wasn't terribly powerful, nor the roads very smooth, but I cherished the silence.
About a week later, Marius cracked open a beer at the bar and looked at my fruity, virgin drink with tired eyes. He leaned back, looking away, and I laughed.
"You know I don't drink, Marius."
He looked at me sideways, head tilted back, and raised an eyebrow.
I sipped my drink. "Abstention." I looked the other way. "It's better than a hangover." The guitarist finished his song, and nobody clapped. It'd been a good song. I clapped.
Marius threw back a swig and fished in his pocket.
"Mack gets a round of applause after this one." He slapped a fiver on the table.
I looked at him in disbelief. I put down my bill.
"Mack!"
The guitarist looked up from across the bar.
"Rikki Don't Lose That Number!"
Mack cocked his head at Marius. He shrugged, and started playing.
A young couple, punks, started dancing. People started singing. Two men were cheering. Marius took my five dollars. I laughed, and joined in. Marius had another beer.
I found her again, somewhere deep in the woods behind the park, painting the sky over the water. The geese flying overhead… It reminded me of Marius. Six months since his suicide. I blinked back tears.
"What-" She whirled around, and I stepped back, thirty feet away.
She peered at me.
"Oh! Hello Tony," she said, waving and turning back to her painting. I picked my way over the weeds on the side of the knoll to reach her. I took off my cap, and looked up over the water. Leaky Acres. Damn…
"You come up here often?" I had to admit I didn't anymore. "Oh," she said, her eyes glowing in the sun, holding her brush vertical, then horizontal, between her and the water, "I thought you did."
I looked out over the water, at a specific house, resold already and filled with a happy family and five cats. They didn't need to know. "I used to, like I said," I said, and gulped.
She turned. "Why don't you?"
I started. "What?"
"Why don't you come here anymore?"
I stared, blinked, tried not to cry, and said, "because Marius died."
She stepped forward, looking at me very sternly. "Did you know Marius?"
I stepped back, down the knoll.
She seemed to grow in size till she towered over me, stepping down after me down the knoll, as I tripped on the weeds and stumbled, turning to run down the hill. She followed me, staring. "Did you know him?" she fairly shouted.
I turned back, raised my hands…
I fell apart as she drove me to her home. I cried and cried. Marius- Marius, Marius. She took my hand as my sobbing slowed, and she pulled up to her driveway.
She made me coffee. I tasted the same blend and the same method, and held the same mugs- I kept crying. The loss was something we found we shared, and in the same way.
We married in five years. In ten years we helped the man publish his biography and helped the woman retire. In twenty years we retired, and bought a home on Leaky Acres. Ten years after that, we'd borne a child who'd turned ten years old, painting as much as his mother, and dreaming. Five years later, we were sitting on the knoll, drinking Marius' coffee, and holding hands. We watched the geese flying over the water.