The Plain Cup

Blythe chose the chair facing the door and regretted it at once.

It made waiting too obvious. She considered moving, then remained where she was because rearranging furniture to conceal a feeling had begun to seem a tiresome way to live.

Keir arrived early. His coat sleeve bore her small neat repair.

She looked at it before she looked at his face.

“You came,” she said, then disliked herself for making it sound surprising.

“Yes.”

He sat. There was no bag beside him, no flower, no bright thing tucked in his hand. She had not realised until that moment how much she had hoped he would bring nothing.

The woman from the eating house came to their table.

“Pie?”

“Yes,” Blythe said.

“Both?”

Keir nodded.

The woman placed the mustard pot firmly between them and left.

Blythe looked at it. Keir looked at her.

They nearly laughed. Neither quite did.

“I read your note,” she said.

“I hoped you would.”

“I missed you.”

His face changed, and she held up a hand.

“That isn’t the answer to the rest. I wanted to say it before I became too busy being right.”

“I missed you too.”

She nodded, looked down at her hands, and began with the thing that had been troubling her most.

“I want to know when you become tired of something. Even if it is me. I don’t want to be living happily beside an account you’re keeping somewhere else.”

He looked at the mustard pot for a long moment.

“I wasn’t tired of you.”

“I know. This time.”

“I was tired of the course. Part of it. I didn’t like how that sounded. I’ve spent years making people believe I never repeat a movement unless I choose it fresh. Sometimes I repeat it because I’m afraid to stop.”

Blythe let the words settle.

“You could have said that.”

“Yes.”

“I would probably have said something unhelpful first.”

His mouth moved, almost a smile.

“Probably.”

“Then I would have listened.”

“I know that now.”

She shook her head. “You knew enough before. You didn’t want the part where I was inconvenient.”

He accepted that without defending his intentions.

Their food arrived. Blythe was grateful for the interruption. She ate a mouthful, discovered she was genuinely hungry, and ate another.

Keir did the same.

It was easier to speak while doing something ordinary.

“I liked the white turn,” she said.

“So did I.”

“Will you mind that I liked it?”

He looked up.

“No. I might mind if you tell me I should have kept it.”

“I won’t.”

“Then I can bear you missing it. I miss it.”

That was the first answer all evening that loosened the knot beneath her ribs.

She had not needed him to regret what he had chosen. She needed them to be allowed different feelings about the same fact, while agreeing on what the fact was.

He told her about the blue line that moved better now. She listened. It hurt a little to hear pleasure inside the decision that had become part of their quarrel, and she made herself notice that the hurt was not evidence he ought to stop describing it.

“Show me sometime,” she said.

“I would like that.”

“Not tonight.”

“All right.”

They finished the pie. Blythe asked for tea. Keir waited until it came before telling her something else.

“I don’t know if I want to keep the course for another year.”

She put her cup down.

He did not hurry to add that it had nothing to do with her.

“It has something to do with you,” he said instead. “And with wanting to see the city without drawing over it. And with discovering that I have made one piece for eleven years and told myself it was many because it moved.”

“That sounds frightening.”

“It is.”

“You don’t have to decide tonight.”

He looked at her, then laughed quietly.

“I have said that to you.”

“It was useful. I kept it.”

The mustard pot sat between their cups. She moved it aside so she could put her hand on the table nearer his.

He looked at her hand. Did not seize the opportunity as though it were going to expire.

She reached the last inch herself.

· · ·Scene break

They walked after supper.

Blythe had made her circuit early. Keir had completed his before the eating house. For this evening at least, nothing waited that they were pretending not to see.

At the north steps they sat where the moth had landed on the stolen pot. The stone was cold. Blythe had brought a folded shawl and put it down before they sat.

“You came prepared,” Keir said.

“I expected the stone to remain stone.”

“A sound prediction.”

He put his hand beside hers. Their little fingers touched.

She had missed that small available closeness more than she had expected. She had missed him turning a sentence sideways until she laughed. She had missed being able to point at something with no explanation of why he might like it.

She turned toward him.

“I want to kiss you,” she said. “I haven’t finished being cross.”

“Both seem possible.”

“Don’t become smug about it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He was smiling when she kissed him, then he was not. His hand rose to her cheek. She held his wrist, feeling the warmth of his skin and the familiar closed copper beneath her thumb. He kissed her with a tenderness that made the missing days real instead of erasing them.

She drew back enough to breathe.

“I want this,” she said.

“So do I.”

There was no promise that wanting would make either of them easier. She would have distrusted it if there had been.

They kissed again. She let herself lean into him, let the pleasure be unqualified for a moment. The river made its old sound below them. Somebody laughed on the bridge. It was possible to be hurt and also to be glad of the mouth she knew, the hand resting at her back, the man who had come with nothing but an answer.

When they rose, she asked him to walk her home.

At the gate he stopped.

“Would you like company?”

She thought about it.

“Until ten. I want to finish a piece tomorrow and I need to sleep.”

“Until ten.”

He came inside. They sat at the kitchen table while she showed him a drawing she had made during their days apart. Not a new garden. Not yet. Three clear stems with uneven spaces between them, designed to catch different light depending on where a person stood.

He studied it without offering improvements.

“I want to make one,” she said. “Only one. See whether it does what I think.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Then you should sleep.”

She looked at the clock. Ten already.

Disappointment moved through her. He saw it; she could tell. He did not use it to make the agreement meaningless.

He stood and reached for his coat.

Blythe walked him to the door. They kissed once, slowly enough that leaving became difficult, then parted anyway.

“Come on Thursday,” she said.

“At seven?”

“After your course. Tell me when you expect. If it changes, send word.”

“I will.”

She opened the gate.

He went through it, turned and smiled at her, then walked away when he had said he would.

Blythe watched until he turned the corner. Inside, the drawing waited on the table. She put it beside the new glass rod, washed her cup and went upstairs.

For the first time since the bridge, she slept without replaying a conversation to find the place where she ought to have noticed something sooner.