Tell Them This When I Die

Peter the Egomaniacal Suburban Mon

The coffee is burning Adam's hand, but he refuses to succumb to the feeling and drop it. He rings the doorbell to Sarah's—or, rather, his house, again.

The beautiful pattern of red stone and the black window framing had caught his eye a few years ago, only weeks before he met Sarah. She moved in after the engagement, and Adam was the one to leave when she won custody. He wanted Daphne to live in a house, not the low-grade apartment in the south end where he ended up going.

Adam rings the doorbell again. Finally, it swings open, and Sarah pokes her head through. Her hair is that stark white-blonde—something Adam used to find attractive but now finds distasteful.

"Oh, hey," Sarah chirps. "You just missed her."

Adam foots the door open and hands her one of the coffees. "Missed who?"

Sarah shuts the door behind him. "Daphne, silly."

Adam turns around to watch her disappear into the kitchen. The one he paid for. "What?"

"What what?" she says. "I had Kelsey bring Daphne to pre-school today."

Adam sets down his coffee on the counter and leans over it, holding tight to his patience. "Did we not discuss that I was going to bring her to pre-school?"

"Well, you mentioned you wanted to," Sarah says, "but then you said you'd be here at seven, and Daphne had to be there for seven-fifteen, so I figured you just wanted to see me."

Adam curls his fingers over the marble countertop he had workmen come in and install four years ago. "But you said you didn't let Daphne drink coffee," he says calmly.

"Well, I don't," she replies.

"But I said I was bringing coffee, and you responded by saying Daphne doesn't drink coffee, therefore implying that Daphne would be here to drink the coffee that I would bring at seven o'clock—which was simply a suggested time that you didn't bother to correct."

Sarah waves her hand. "Don't treat me like your work," she says, moving around the counter.

Adam blinks. "That's not detective work, Sarah, that's just common sense—"

"Whatever," she says. "I'm going out with some friends at nine. Do you think you'll stay until then?"

"I came to see Daphne—"

"Of course you did. You don't ever want to see me."

Adam refuses to yell or snap. That doesn't work with her. He takes a deep breath before he speaks, "I like seeing you, Sarah, but you've blown off every attempt I tried to make. So I stopped making them."

She shakes her head, hardly listening. "You don't like seeing me. You just want to move back in so you can live with Daphne and obsess over work in your big house." She walks past him.

Adam sighs, spinning the jacket on his coffee. "I'd like to live with my family, yes—"

"You can live with your family when you quit drinking," she replies, heading down the hallway to the master bedroom—his room.

Adam leaves the coffee on the counter and follows her to the room. She's covered it all in millennial pink and patterns—both of which Adam can't stand. But he'd pretend to. He'd pretend to like the awful way she's decorated his house; he'd even pretend to like her, as long as he got to live with his daughter.

Adam used to love Sarah—back when she would sit down at a piano with him and teach him some of the cords. Back when she would stop an entire room with her dancing fingers. Adam bought her a beautiful piano for the house, but she hasn't played it in years, and Adam hasn't loved her since then.