Puzzles (10/03/08 Friday)

Mike's reaction to my Saturday experience was of respectful dismay--to the outcome and my strategy. He knew beforehand what the strategy would be, but it was only after its result that he ventured an opinion: I should have taken a much more casual approach to the discourse, been more patient. I could see his point, and told him so, but I also told him that at that level the discourse might never rise to the realm of ideas and emotions. "That might work for anyone else," I told him, "but not for me." Or with Julie, I said to myself. I did the right thing; Julie knows how I feel about her and hasn't pushed me away. How could chat have accomplished that?

Yesterday evening at work I strolled to the breakroom to fix my second cup of tea. Julie was already there, on the same mission. The silence outside the burbling pot quickly discomfited me. Then Julie said, "I thought you were working on that puzzle." The table on which we'd together assembled three jigsaws was bare of the puzzle I'd started on it last week in hopes of eliciting her participation. She'd never joined me.

"I was."

"Did you put it away?"

"Yes, I did."

"Why?"

It was a question I'd been pondering since Monday, when I swept the pieces back into the box and replaced it on the top of the fridge. My lips parted, closed again. I took in and let out a deep breath before turning to her. "I lost interest," I told her, thinking as I held her gaze, "because it's no fun alone."

The water roiled. She said to it, "I have to get that card table out of my storage unit." She'd mentioned bringing it in for us to build our puzzles on.

"What else is in your storage unit?" I asked with a bit of bitter mischief before I recognized it as such and had a chance to stop it.

Instead of giving me the usual motive-seeking stare, she said to the pot, "Oh, boxes. My housewares."

I was suddenly glad I hadn't simply microwaved a mug of water. Still without a discreet editor, I asked, "So, was it the plan all along that when your mom moved up here you would live with her?"

"Not really," she said to me. "When I moved up here my mother didn't really want to live there alone."

I sent her a puzzled squint. She poured our water. "But," I said, "don't you have a brother down there?"

She looked away, hesitated. I looked at my mug, started to mutter an apology for what I'd perceived as an infliction of pain.

Slowly, with calculated restraint, she said, "They...probably...wouldn't help her as often as she would like."

My editor put a finger to his lips. I obeyed.