Lynne Saner

I am grateful for quiet days. For being left alone much of the time. And for having someone to go to when I need a break from solitude. 

He is so unlike me. A rock to my feather. An arrow to my swirl. He rests in who he is the way I struggle to find myself.

There was one time – after we broke up and before we got back together  – when we spent an afternoon together. It was late autumn. I drove to Marblehead where he was house sitting for an uncle who had a boat. 

He said throw that rope, and I did. He said pull that sail, and up I made it go. Once on the water, there was less to do so we sat mostly in silence, and we talked some about nothing of consequence. It was the kind of conversation that skirted around what was really on our minds.

 We came back into harbor nearing sunset and awkwardly said goodbye before I began the drive back to Brookline.

A couple of miles away, I realized I’d forgotten my gloves and turned the car around (a quick three-point turn to the slow bend of the boat). From the sidewalk, I saw him sitting on the floor bathed in flickering blue light, watching a football game as he ate a sandwich. I watched him for a moment and knew then I would leave without my gloves. 

Something – a feeling, a knowing, a peek through a tear in the fabric of time? – welled up in me, and I knew he was unlike any other. I couldn’t grasp how or why, but there was something about him, about us, that would keep pulling us back towards one another. 

I got back into my car, fingers a little cold on the wheel.

Our life together has been like that. Day after day. Year after year. Mostly skirting around what we really want to stay. Retreating into corners. And finding each other, now and again.