I plunge in. “Listen, would you like to come for dinner?”
“What?” Incredulity in his voice.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t have a friendly dinner.”
A pause. I picture him contemplating this, running a hand through that tawny mop.
He says, “What’s this about?”
“Nothing … I’ve just been thinking. There’s no reason for us to be unpleasant, is there? What if you just came for dinner tomorrow? No big deal.”
Another pause and I can feel him sighing, releasing. He says, “Will you make pol sambol?”
I laugh, delighted. “Yes if you like, and also string hoppers and watalappam.”
“My god, what did I do to deserve this?”
“Nothing whatsoever. I’ve just decided to be magnanimous.”
“Okay, I need to talk to you anyway. Discuss a few things.”
The flamboyant bird of hope flapping its wings across my chest.
*
I clean the house until every surface gleams and shows me my own delighted face. I place Bodhi’s toys in the empty spaces on the bookshelf where his books used to live. For hours I sweat in the kitchen like I used to do in those first breathtaking years when it was just us two. I chop vegetables, put the chicken in its bed of spices and coconut milk, let it soak into tenderness. I know what he loves.
What is an appropriate outfit to seduce back a husband? I throw off my sweatshirt and jeans and look at my body. I haven’t looked at it in months, and lo and behold, sadness has carved the flesh off me. I’m thin as a model, all angles and elegance. So this is what is needed, I think, misery and loneliness, that’s what they should sell as a post-baby diet. Nothing else works as well.
I pull piles of fabrics on the bed. I try on everything I own. Is it okay to wear my wedding dress? It’s so beautiful. He bought it for me, loved the way the silver straps made my shoulders shine. Can I wear it? No, that would be too mad! I slip on a gray sheath that has always been just a bit too snug. It fits beautifully. I paint my eyes and my lips, and then he is at the door looking at me and his eyebrows rise and he says, “Wow…” and I am in heaven.
He walks in and we are awkward. Neither of us sure how this works. We sit and eat. He exclaims over the food, his fingers working through it. He says, “My god, I didn’t realize how much I missed all this. It is incredible.” I open a bottle of red wine, like the blood of a gorgon. It used to be our favorite. He says, “No, really, I shouldn’t.”
I say, “Suit yourself,” and pour my own fat goblet, and he must be surprised at my good mood because soon he takes a glass. He drinks, I drink. We finish a bottle. I pull out another.
*
It is magic, all of it. The way the wine pours, a crimson fire filling the bellies of the glasses we had gotten for our wedding, the way it roars down my throat. We settle on our couch. The one we bought together a lifetime ago. The closeness of him. The scent emanating from his skin. I know this man. It is easy because the thing we’d had had never gone away, not fully. Love, it was always there. Deep-down love. In a way that we both know. No one else can ever understand us like this. The depth of it, the pull of it—the old jokes, the shared years—bringing us ever closer, so that laughing, giggling, we make our way across the acres of the couch until our fingers are only inches apart and then he says, “My god.” The breath catches in his throat. I can see the pulse jumping in his jaw. The moment of decision has arrived and he is torn about whether to fall into this thing that is still there or not and I reach out and pull his head to mine and taste his lips.
Our bodies lock as if no time has passed, as if unknown to us, these bodies have been in communion the entire evening, waiting for this moment to fall against each other. I pull his hips into mine. Kissing and rolling, we fall heavily on the ground, gasp, laugh, and then are on each other.
His lips are in my hair, kissing the heavy strands, breathing in deeply, and I know he has missed me desperately. I know he has always loved me. He has never stopped. He is still mine. He will always be mine. My gray dress is lost somewhere. Kisses on bare skin, by the ear and the edge of my eye, where a tear dangles and his tongue shoots out and tastes it. His body against mine. The sweetest of homecomings.
*