When Samantha calls, I am sitting on the living room floor contemplating the insides of the wall in front of me.\u00a0 She tells me she may have found us a coffee table and that I should be ready to help her move it home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be here,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease do,\u201d she answers.<\/p>\n
I hang up the phone and wonder: if I peel the plaster away from the wall like the skin of an orange, will I find the horror Samantha assures me is there?\u00a0 She says that at night she can hear them scratching, the cockroaches; she is certain they wait like voyeurs for the lights to go out.\u00a0 In the darkness, she tells me, they are free to violate the pristine surfaces of her flesh.\u00a0 Samantha is a genius at such things\u2014she can and will envision herself the target for everything unpleasant.\u00a0 To her, a cockroach has no worldly purpose but to leave transparent lines of filth on her body, lines she claims she can never really wash away. \u00a0To me the cockroach is all instinct, simply an impulse to find food and shelter and avoid being crushed.\u00a0 But I think about those lines too; these days it seems like I do little else.\u00a0 At night, in bed pretending to sleep, I try hard to keep from swatting at the sheets.\u00a0 I do this so as not to wake Samantha from her own feigned sleep.<\/p>\n
She calls again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re bartering,\u201d she says, \u201cwe\u2019ve nearly agreed on a price.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s we?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old man who owns the antique store,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cStand your ground,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cSage advice,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cI should tell you, though, I\u2019m beginning to doubt my love for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReally,\u201d I say.\u00a0 \u201cWell, just call me back with any news about the coffee table.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI owe you that much,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Actually, the scratching Samantha hears at night is mice in the walls.\u00a0 I have not told her this.\u00a0 Nor have I mentioned the squirrels in the attic, the rot in the floor by the bathtub, the carpenter ants, the possum skeleton I found in the small, dark room partitioned off in a corner of the unfinished basement.\u00a0 The realtor said all old houses have these rooms and in the old days it was where they stored coal, wood, and canned food.\u00a0 But to look at the room now\u2014the single light bulb hanging without a fixture, the splintering plank wood walls, the small window cut in the door and the door with the heavy, iron hinges\u2014you can\u2019t help but believe that terrible things went on in there when the door was closed.\u00a0 If a home is said to have a memory, a room like this is where the worst of it resides.<\/p>\n
Samantha calls again and says that yes, she is convinced she no longer loves me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve met someone,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old man,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d she says, \u201chis son.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the coffee table?\u201d<\/p>\n
She tells me they haven\u2019t yet agreed on a price, but says she\u2019ll keep me apprised on the affair.<\/p>\n
I thank her at least for that.<\/p>\n
We have been slow in furnishing our new home, partly for lack of money, partly for Samantha\u2019s \u2018intentionality,\u2019 as she calls it.\u00a0 She is painfully frugal and has an inalterable vision of how she wants her home to look; in the end, she makes no decision quickly.\u00a0 A week ago Samantha bought a Persian rug and we laid it down over the hardwood floor in the living room.\u00a0 The idea was to set a coffee table on top, but the idea, like so many, has become a bad one.\u00a0 If the dread I feel now emerges from this\u2014the coffee table or the cockroach clinging to the ceiling above where it will go\u2014I can\u2019t tell.\u00a0 I am thankful only that Samantha is not here to see how after lingering above in the living room, the cockroach races off to join the others.<\/p>\n
Again, she calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I love his son,\u201d she says, \u201cthe old man will give me a deal on the coffee table.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it worth it to you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a lovely table.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd do you love him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m beginning to.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 How can you ever know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese decisions are important,\u201d I say.\u00a0 \u201cYou must not rush.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI never do,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cGoodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGoodbye,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n
We have, in each our own way, tried to make things work.\u00a0 Samantha hides the bills from me, knowing how it stings my ego that I am not a competent provider.\u00a0 For my part, I have pacified the cockroaches, if only temporarily.\u00a0 For Samantha, I begged them, do this for Samantha.\u00a0 They live in a nest behind the stove and they will keep out of view if at night I put out food for them.\u00a0 When they want steak, I give them steak.\u00a0 When they ask for garbage, I comply.\u00a0 But they have ears all over and even as I hang up the telephone, I can hear them crawling from their nest across the kitchen floor.\u00a0 The big ones peek their heads into the living room.\u00a0 Some of them are as tall as children, but not nearly as bold.\u00a0 When the phone rings again they startle and retreat.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhilippe assures me,\u201d Samantha says, \u201cthat in time I will learn to love him as much as I love the coffee table.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPhilippe?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old man\u2019s son,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d I say, \u201cthe table,\u201d I say, \u201cit must be very beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d she says, \u201cit is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must follow your heart,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am,\u201d she says, \u201cand I\u2019m leaving you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just as well,\u201d I say, eyeing the host of cockroaches that surround me now.\u00a0 These are the size of small men and their antennae feel odd and soothing on my skin.\u00a0 I hold one antenna against my cheek, tenderly, the way I once held Samantha\u2019s hand. When I hang up the cockroaches seem to offer condolences for my loss\u2014Samantha, they say, she was not what you thought she was; we saw her do things when you were out; we can prove she never loved you.\u00a0 It\u2019s just as well, I tell them, and, when the phone rings the last time, they\u2019ve already bound my hands together behind my back, my legs at my ankles.\u00a0 A large, sympathetic cockroach holds the phone to my ear and looks on with concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cSamantha?\u201d I say.\u00a0 \u201cIs that you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome home. \u00a0Samantha, come home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cockroaches do not like to hear me plead with her.\u00a0 Their antennae wave wildly, agitated and disgusted, and I am embarrassed to behave this way in front of them.\u00a0 No matter, I continue:\u00a0 \u201cSamantha, please, think of all we\u2019ve been through.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t do this,\u201d she says. \u201cDon\u2019t put me in this position.\u00a0 You know how unfair that is.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t ask you to sacrifice your happiness for mine.\u00a0 You can\u2019t ask the same from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d I say. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the coffee table,\u201d I say, \u201cis it yours?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSamantha, I want to tell you\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
But the cockroaches have heard enough.\u00a0 They take the phone away.\u00a0 They hoist me onto their backs.\u00a0 They parade me through the living room and kitchen, thrusting their barbed appendages into the air like they\u2019ve achieved some victory. But soon the celebration fades into what sounds like a dirge, a melody of clicks and squeals so beautiful I\u2019m nearly moved to tears.\u00a0 They bounce me down the stairs into the basement and when I land on the concrete floor I feel dizzy from the fall.\u00a0 A light bulb burns in the small room in the corner.\u00a0 The door with the heavy iron hinges is open and the cockroaches inside are monstrous, standing upright on two legs and rubbing four others on their smoky brown underbellies.\u00a0 Their long antennae curl and twist and twitch as they look at me.\u00a0 The cockroach nearest the door beckons me to rise and enter.\u00a0 \u201cMy friend,\u201d it says, \u201cwe\u2019re all so very sorry it\u2019s come to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if I am not mistaken, there is compassion in its voice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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