Familiar Spirit

On Saturday morning Sarah left the Marchants’ early, while Pete and Beverly were getting breakfast ready.

“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I may as well go now. I told Brian I’d be there first thing. We’ll get started—don’t hurry.”

Their silence was sympathetic and said more than words. Sarah hurried away before they could suspect her mood. The prospect of seeing Brian again had lifted her spirits higher than they had been in the past two weeks. She had tried to bury the fantasy of winning him back, but it would keep poking up its seductive face.

As she drove the few blocks to Brian’s house, Sarah hoped she wasn’t too early. She wouldn’t mind catching Brian still in bed—she would have loved such a psychological advantage—but not if Melanie was there with him. It was a relief to see only the blue truck parked in the driveway. But, Sarah reflected, Melanie probably wasn’t any more eager than she was to meet her.

Sarah still had her key, so, heart thudding, she opened the door without knocking, and entered the tiny foyer which rose almost immediately into a flight of steps. Suddenly aware of herself as an intruder, she made herself stop at the bottom of the stairs, and called out Brian’s name.

His head appeared at once, looking down over the railing, the slightly shaggy fair hair falling forward in a soft aura around his face. “Hi,” he said. “Come on up.”

Something in her chest seemed to tighten at the sight of him, and she was already short of breath before she had mounted the first of the steep stairs. Brian took a step backwards when she reached the top, and Sarah felt that slight, flinching movement like a slap. All right, so she wasn’t allowed to touch him. She bit back a nasty retort and just looked at him.

“Pete and Bev will be here soon. Pete can help you carry my couch down. I thought I’d get started sorting out my books and records from yours.”

Brian turned and gestured at boxes stacked against the far wall. “I already went through and separated your books and your records, and most of them are in those boxes. The rest of your books are still in your black bookcase.”

Your, your, yours. Each time he said it it was like another little cut. Ours was dead now. Ours meant something else. She wondered if it was Melanie who had put him up to the sorting job—it wasn’t like him to be so organized. She wondered what he had thought, what he had felt, as he went through their mingled possessions and divided them up.

“You’ll probably want to look through and make sure I didn’t miss anything,” Brian said. “And there’re some records I wasn’t sure about . . . things we bought together. If I kept any you especially wanted, just say.”

“That’s all right. You’re the one who mostly listens to records.” Didn’t he know she didn’t care? Had he stopped understanding her so completely, so abruptly? She wanted to weep. His careful, distant politeness and steady refusal to meet her eyes hurt her more than she had expected. The fantasy that had sent her over here in high spirits had dissolved, and she had no anger to protect her. Here in this familiar room, where they had lived together, the distance he maintained—Brian, who had always been so ready to please her—seemed especially unnatural, almost a sacrilege.

“Shall I start loading some of these boxes onto the truck?”

She was sure he spoke only to break the silence, which might have seemed too close to intimacy. She shrugged hopelessly. “Put them in my car. It’s not locked.” She watched as he bent and lifted a heavy box, seeing the fabric of his blue shirt stretch taut across his broad back. She had to look away quickly, to keep from crying. When she heard him walking slowly, heavily down the stairs, she roused herself and looked around the tiny apartment for things which were hers.

Some were easy. The dishes were hers, and most of the flatware. The glasses with superheroes on them belonged to Brian. One skillet and one saucepan were hers, the other two were his. The beanbag chair and floor lamp had been with her since dormitory days. The good stereo system and color television were Brian’s; the old black and white set, two speakers, a radio and the blender were hers.

Other things could not be so easily categorized. They were gifts, or had been bought together, and the sight of them brought back vivid memories of other times. The onyx bookends and ashtray from Mexico—the Rackham print—the armchair they had clumsily attempted to re­upholster—the “Risk” and “Diplomacy” games—the hideous table lamp made to look like an orange cowboy boot—