Blood & Water

Delilah: Saturday

It's a short walk to the edge of David's neighborhood and across one major street and then I find the paved walking path along the river, though the river is barren. I hadn't realized that when he talked about it, but of course there's no water here. Back home, the earth is filled with the sound of water rushing or trickling through the green, even now when the leaves are dying their vibrant deaths. The water wouldn't be quiet until it froze.

  I'm wearing the purple leggings and tank top I purchased for the kick boxing class my friend Leslie talked me into. She had a guest pass and I had a brief image of myself as someone who did those sort of things. Within twenty minutes, that image dissolved.

  I should call her, but what would I say?

  She never liked Marty. She was smart enough not to say so, but I could tell. We'd known each other for a decade, met when we'd both worked for Easter Seals. She'd gone back to school for her Masters in social work and was surviving the cuts. I'd never done that and I ended up working at a grocery store.

  Until I lost that job too.

  I can't call Leslie until I figure out how to spin it. She knows me too well, will hear it in my voice. It's more than the stupid job. I'll have to email her.

  David tried to convince me to take a bottle of water and I didn't want to argue so I nodded and put it back in the fridge when he wasn't looking. I like to have my hands free. I make fun of people back home who carry water everywhere, but as my steps slow, I realize the desert really is different.

  I'd like to sit and catch my breath, but I imagine rattlesnakes in the sand beyond the pavement. Instead, I stop and stretch my arms over my head, bending to the right and left, smiling as a cyclist comes whirring toward me and passes me without so much as a nod. It's like I'm not even there.

  And I wonder: Do you still call something a river when it lacks the very thing that made it a river in the first place?

My boss came to speak to me after my lunch break. Business was slow; she had fewer and fewer hours to give me. When people started tightening budgets, organic vegetables and cage-free eggs were some of the first things to go. By the end of our conversation, I was the one trying to keep her together.

  I went to Marty's house, knowing it was his day off. I drove there thinking about Leslie's advice these past months, going back to school. But, did it really make sense to double down on a career in social services in the current political climate?

  The other obvious concern was how to go to school and keep paying my bills. Whenever we'd discussed moving in together, Marty would sigh as if the idea was too boring to put into words. "Aren't things great as they are?" he'd say.

  And I had to admit I liked my privacy. Some mornings I didn't brush my teeth until after lunch. But was that worth paying rent at two places?

  I could tell Marty wasn't home when I pulled into the driveway and his car was gone. I undid my seat belt and texted him: Where are you?

  We didn't have each other's keys, but I knew where he kept the spare. I couldn't imagine he'd mind; it was not a typical day. And besides, I had to pee.

  I let myself in, figuring I'd just use the bathroom and wait for him to text me back. If he was somewhere in town, I could go meet him. While I waited, I looked in his fridge, absent-mindedly opening the lid to a box of leftover pizza even though I wasn't hungry. It was pepperoni, which was weird.

  Marty was a vegetarian.

  I closed the door to the refrigerator. There were an infinite number of simple explanations for this, of course. That's what I told myself as I walked down the hallway to his bedroom. There, I found his bed was neatly made. Again, weird. Marty never made his bed.