Dinner is a home cooked feast Mrs. Daniels must have prepared before she left for the day. In the kitchen, David fills our plates from the silver chafing dishes, his fingers moving with superb grace. Is there anything he doesn’t do perfectly well? I help him load the plates unto a tray and follow him as he takes them to the living room.
The food is delicious, as is the red wine David pours for me. We eat, seated on the rug, the couch at our backs, and the gleaming lights of the city laid out at our feet.
There’s something about the intimacy of the moment. I feel close to him somehow. “Tell me about yourself.” I whisper.
He leans back on the couch, watching me through hooded eyes. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” I say hopefully.
“My life isn’t half as interesting as yours,” he states coolly. “My father died when I was young, my mother remarried almost immediately and lived happily ever after till her husband died last year.” He shrugs, his voice sounding detached.
Something in his tone gets to me. “Didn’t you get along with your step-father?” I ask, concerned. He doesn’t sound too happy about his mother’s marriage.
“I have no idea.” He says cryptically. “I never saw either of them.”
“How come?”
He looks at me over the top of his glass. “He was very rich, and he liked to travel, my mother followed him everywhere because that was what he wanted.”
My heart goes out to him as I imagine him growing up without the attention of his mother. At least my mother didn’t abandon me. She died.
“They never took you with them?” I ask, a small frown on my face.
He shakes his head. “No, they didn’t.” He says, looking a little bored. “My step-father had a house not very far from here. I lived there.”
“Oh.” I watch as he leans back on the couch, his face relaxed, his eyes hooded by half closed lids. His lashes are incredibly long, I think, momentarily distracted. “Does your mother still live there?”
“When she’s in town, yes.”
He doesn’t seem eager to talk about his mother, so I decide to switch subjects.
“Tell me about your work.” I say, leaning forward. I already know that his company is called Preston Corp and that it has something to do with software, but I’m curious to know more.
“I invest in developing computer software.” He says. “There are a lot of products out there with the ability to provide enormous user satisfaction. Some of them never get to reach their target market. I make it possible for them to do so.”
I’m impressed, and even more so by the confidence in his tone. “How did you get started?”
“A videogame.” He grins boyishly, again looking his age. I have a sudden urge to wrap my arms around him and hold him close, to soothe the lonely little boy my imagination has conjured out of his words.
“Did you miss her?” the question pops out of my mouth before I have the time to consider it. I’m thinking of my own mother, how I’ve spent my whole life with the faint ache of missing her, even though I never knew her.
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
He is silent for a moment, but only a single moment.
“Never.” He states finally, his voice cool. He gets up and picks up the tray, and taking it to the kitchen. He loads the dishwasher while I dump the empty bottle of wine in the chrome bin with the ‘recycle’ icon. It seems our moment of intimacy has passed. We clean up in silence. He works quickly, efficiently, and self-sufficiently. I may as well not even be there. As soon as we’re done, he goes back to his study.
I sit at the window seat in the living room, alternately admiring the view, and thumbing through a glossy magazine on interior design. I can’t really concentrate though. My thoughts are full of David as I piece the things I now know about him together. I know more than I did when I married him, but he is still a mystery in so many ways.
After a while, I’m filled with a longing to recapture the feeling of intimacy I had earlier while we were talking, so I drift towards the study, hoping that David would be finished with whatever he is doing.
I find him seated at the desk, his face lit by the glow from a desk lamp and his computer screen. He looks hard as he sits there alone, the planes and angles of his face made pronounced by the dim light. Watching him, I get the feeling that he is someone that’s used to being on his own. I imagine him as a solemn, dark haired little boy, left alone while his mother chose to spend her time with her new husband. It makes me sad.
Reluctant to disturb him, I walk on to our room, and lie waiting in bed. I don’t sleep until much later, when he comes to join me and makes love to me until I fall asleep in his arms.
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