She realized much too late: She had a way of bringing things up.

For instance: She noticed the questions and commentary she sprung on Mark often materialized in morning hours.

She’d likely been up too long the night before, in bed and thinking, conducting conversations with the version of Mark she carried in her mind, ruminating about their predicament, the desirelessness, the inability to move forward. Mark-in-her-mind was crueler than actual-Mark — self-serving, quick to prioritize himself, full of terrible intentions.

She often laid in bed, arguing with Mark-in-her-mind, while actual-Mark slept next to her, unsuspecting and defenseless to the arguments occurring with/out him late into the night.

When she brought it up —  with actual-Mark —  she was often standing. Staying on her toes as it were, as if at any moment she might decide to escape the very thing she began. It was usually without preface or context and often in the midst of something else

— watching TV, eating breakfast, washing dishes, steeping tea, another conversation about something innocuous —

that’s where she’d unfurl whatever-was-upsetting-her.

It was as if placing it in the middle, she might keep open the possibility that it might be absorbed by those other things — evaporate and resolve itself there. Perhaps everything would turn back to whatever way it was, whatever they were doing or saying just a moment before, without consequence.

Early morning, standing up, in the middle of other things. Half-way, with exits fashioned all around.

It was true she was quite afraid; fear guided most everything she did. For instance: If she opened the door, she thought, he might be standing there on the other side of it, ready to meet her, which was of course terrifying.Yet it was also possible he wouldn’t be there at all. Or worse (or better, who knew?) — there, while she remained invisible.

She wished he would be absent so it was impossible for her to fail; and wished he’d be there to notice the faintest dislodging of things when she turned the knob. That slight tuft of air, the inaudible click. She hoped he would seize the moment, bursting everything open for her, so she wouldn’t have to. She wanted him there on the other side of things, in wait, all five senses straining to receive the message.

Entirely comfortable being confrontational, it seemed she was entirely uncomfortable with actual confrontations.

She had a way.

So when she mentioned that they’d have to drink a lot of champagne to get something going again, and said people have to have sex to have children it was in their tiny kitchen some morning, likely slipped into some other conversation about something else that had nothing to do with the topic of children and birthing them. Perhaps she mentioned an interesting conversation she’d had with someone else, which had made her think…

She was standing, most likely, and putting food in her mouth. It was probable she didn’t allow much time to speak. Perhaps she asked and answered her own questions, assuming this or that. Getting on a roll.

Odds were he let her speak, listening intensely, trying to understand what she really meant, what she really wanted, while trying to determine what on earth he felt about it all. Most likely he let her speak with herself, uncertain what to say more than he was curious about how the conversation with herself would go. Mark, also avoidant, like her, if differently so.

Did she recall he was washing the dishes at the time, his back to her?

She remembered him. Putting away dry dishes quietly while she leaned on the tall yellow kitchen chair, listing out all the things between them and sex. Champagne, chocolate, hotel rooms, fancy dinners. Cereal conveniently stuffed in her mouth, because this was the last thing she wanted to talk about. She’d rather talk about anything but this.