The Park Avenue Hovel, page four

    In April of 1924, a fire had started upstairs, an accident stemming from an unattended curling iron. It hadn’t done much structural damage, catching mostly on the rugs and wallpaper, but three rooms had been gutted and all the siding on the north side had been ruined. The siding had been replaced and the top floor remodeled afterwards, a few walls knocked down to turn two bedrooms into one and the bath expanded to accommodate the growing household. Smoke rose again from the old nursery windows, a much thinner plume which threatened only the ceiling plaster. She stood as far away from the bed as she could, keeping the desk between them, and watched the smoke trail from between his lips out the open window. Part of her remembered to be gratified by that small concession, too little, too late.
    He didn't stay long, having just stopped by to bring her the clothes she'd asked for and the papers the lawyer needed, lingering just long enough to tangle smoke in her curtains. She watched him rubbing his scent into her territory and wondered if he were consciously aware of what he was doing; wondered if, realizing it, he would correct himself. He certainly had shown no deliberate interest in possessing her, or maintaining their shared borders. They exchanged pleasantries, the same automatic words that had made up so much of their life together, and he stubbed out his cigarette on her windowsill before leaving. She walked him downstairs as far as the front entrance, an overbearing affair rarely used by the house's inhabitants, which she took some strange measure of delight in directing him to. When the heavy doors closed behind him, it all seemed so easy and direct, their marriage just a habit to get out of.
    She'd moved in a week before, two suitcases and a stack of divorce papers. Since then, he'd come to see her almost every day. Sometimes she didn't come down; the landlady told him that she'd gone out, but really she was up there under the eaves, reading or talking to a friend or just lying silently on the bed in a house she was not responsible for. The landlady, whatever her own preferences, was understanding enough to elicit a suspicion of a former life. Perhaps it was nothing more than the professional discretion of the chatelaine, like a bartender's smiling sympathy. She was glad of it.
    Back upstairs, it was still Thursday, and it didn't matter. She could go back to bed, today, and not get up again if she didn't want to, no house to run and no one to clean up after. Some small, nagging part of her chafed at this meaningless freedom, contingent on and inherent to her indeterminate state, and paced within her, longing for its necessary, inevitable end. There were things that needed doing, even here; documents to go over, things to sign, ties to unravel, and that restless spirit clutched at them to pull her from her lethargy.
    She shifted papers around on the small desk, grateful for the sunlight that made it through the trees, dissecting the legal jargon, trying to pick out the exact words that meant that there was something deficient between the two of them. It was a fact; she was certain that there were words for it, buried inside alimony agreements and statements of cooperation.

Posted at Sunday, November 15, 2009 08:34 PM
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