Let It Snow Part 15

"I know."

"You just went your separate ways?" Holly asks.

"We did."

"And you had been together for how long?"

"A couple years," Michael says, looking out into Eric and Annie's yard from their back deck.

"That must've been hard. Saying goodbye after all that time."

"Not really."

"How can you say that?"

"Don't get me wrong, I missed her. Sometimes I would come home from work and feel her absence in the new house. I missed having something familiar in a strange town. And there's no doubt that I missed having someone to listen to me talk. And, it's true, I suppose, that we'd built a life around each other, that there were memories we had that would come back to me now and then. And those memories would give me a sense of sadness, a tug of nostalgia that made me wish things might have been different for us."

"I would hope so. I can't understand how you could love someone, share your world with them for that long and not be devastated to say goodbye."

"But you're projecting."

"How am I projecting?"

"You're a.s.suming that since we were together, and shared a home, that there was some great love between us."

"There wasn't?"

"No. Not at all."

"You never loved her?"

"No."

"And shea?"

"I don't think so."

"And you're sure this was a romantic, s.e.xual relationship?" she asks, jokingly.

"More like a s.e.xual partnership, but yes."

"G.o.d, that sounds so cold."

"It does. I know."

"And you're sure it ended on good terms?"

"It did. She got a teaching job down south, I got the job here, and that was it. It wasn't something that we discussed really. It was never a question of if we would stay together, it was more about our circ.u.mstances. It just so happened that we attended the same graduate school, but I don't think we were under any illusions about it stretching into the future. We both wanted to teach, and we both were going to go where we had a job. And the chances that our jobs would be geographically close enough to accommodate a relationship were remote at best. I just think we both always knew that the relationship was a temporary arrangement."

"It just sounds so logical, so callous."

"Again, though, it's only callous if we had the relationship that you're projecting on us."

"So, that kind of arrangement relationship seems normal to you?"

"No, not at all. Not now."

"What changed?"

"Well, at the time, it felt like the right thing to do. Even then, I was more troubled by not being troubled by it. I worried that maybe I wasn't capable of the kind of love that I grew up believing existed from pop songs and movies. There was a part of me that worried that the fantastic love that pop culture fed us was purely a construct, a social invention, a flimsy monument to hope, and that I'd never really share anything that emotionally heightened with anyone."

"So, you always knew that you didn't love her?"

"No, see, that's the thing. I didn't know because I didn't know anything about romantic love. I had a distorted view of it from my own past relationships, and my romantic experiences weren't particularly warm. So, I thought what I had with her was love. Mostly because it was pleasant. But when things were over, and I felt none of the heartache that I knew I should feel, I began to realize that I'd never known love. At least, I knew that I'd never known the kind of love that I'd absorbed from pop culture. And I began to worry that love was really nothing more than fondness through proximity, and that pop culture love was some hoax of hope, and that what I had with her was the best that it would ever be. That was particularly depressing because I felt no electricity with her, no craving after she was gone."

"Do you still think that pop culture love is only a fantasy?"

"No, not anymore. I haven't felt that way since I met you."

"Oh, come on."

"It's true. What I'm feeling standing here in the snow with you right nowa I never felt a fraction of this the entire time I was with her."

"You're just saying that toa""

"No, Holly. Please don't attach cynical motives to the things I say to you. That's not how I talk to people, and it's certainly not the way I will ever talk to you."

"Sorry."

"I listen to pop music nowa"on purpose. Old songs that I never used to understand, I understand now because of you. I crave those songs, silly songs, because they remind me of you. All that electricity, all that craving I never knew, I know now," he says, and moves nearer to her.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting closer."

"You certainly are."

"You want me to stop."

"No, I don't."

Eric is still sitting on the fallen log by the tree-lined edge of the backyard. From here, he can see Max and Annie standing on the deck. He can barely see them from this distance, but they're there. They're mostly obscured by the snowa"two silhouettes flickering in out of the static, like watching some black and white movie on an old television with bad reception.

It feels like it's gotten colder. It's probably the same temperature as it was when he first came out, but the amount of time he's spent in the weathera"not moving arounda"has made him feel colder. His collar is up on his coat, and his bare hands are tucked under his arms. He either left his gloves and knit cap in the bedroom, or they fell from his pockets somewhere from the house to here. Either way, he's definitely missing them.

He would love to sneak back into the house, but, at this point, he's afraid that any move he makes will call attention to his presence and they'll think he's been spying on them. Still, there's no other reason he's needed at the house. Amy, Wendy, and Tim have all left. And he's a.s.suming that Michael has taken Holly home by now. So, he can sit here as long as Max and Annie remain on the deck. And, if they're anywhere near as cold as he is, they won't make it much longer.

Still, with them on the deck, and with him not wanting to call any attention to himself, he's reluctant to make even the slightest movement. It's ridiculous, really. He's absolutely shivering, and he's on the dark side of the yard. He could probably get up anda"if he were carefula"chances are they'd never even notice him. But it's a night full of the kind of quiet you only get out in the country. Most nights you can hear the traffic from the state route behind the house, but tonight the bad weather seems to have kept the cars away, and the only sound is the hyper-silence of the snow. So, any noise might call attention to him.

He impulsively reaches for his phone as a reflex to his boredom. Then he thinks that the light from the phone might give his existence away.

He's getting frustrated. Why should he wait? Why should he be made uncomfortable so that they can wax nostalgic? Besides, would they really care if he were watching them? How would they know what he was doing? He could say he was just taking a walk through the woods.

But the longer he sits, and the longer they talk, the more important his staying invisible becomes.

And, after all, he has been anxious for Max and Annie to talk, hoping that it might rid Annie of the longtime illusions that she's been carrying of Max all these years.

At least, that's what he hopes is happening between them.

Then again, he had hoped it wouldn't get to this pointa"them standing alone together. He'd hoped that Max would bring his young girlfriend and that Annie could finally see that he hadn't existed in a state of suspended animation these past ten years.

Eric can accept that everyone dreams about what life could've been, and that sometimes, unfortunately, we tie those dreams to people from our past. But his hope was that they would finally see that the years had unequivocally pa.s.sed, and that they had both aged and changeda"as people tend to do. And, maybe, they'd finally see that a healthy life can't co-exist with a past life. Everyone, eventually, has to move forward.

But then he watched Max squeeze closer to Annie. And he watched Annie stay put, not move away. That's when Eric sat up straighter, almost got up, nearly called out to them. But he stopped himself.

He trusts Annie.

It doesn't even matter if he trusts Max to do the right thing. He knows that Annie loves him.

At least he hopes shea And there it was. Doubt.

Nothing like a spouse being visited by an old lover to expose all those dormant insecurities.

He tries to relax, to rid himself of those fearful thoughts. He tries hard not to let random dramatic scenarios play out in his mind. He takes a deep breath, leans against the tree beside him, and watches them as closely as he can through the screen of flickering snow.

"What are you doing for the holidays?" Michael asks.

"I'm not sure. My mom wants me to visit."

"Where does she live?"

"A couple hours upstate."

"You going to go?"

"Well, I was thinking about it, but this storma"

"I'll go with you."

"You will not."

"I would, though."

"You would?"

"I'd go anywhere with you."

Holly smiles and turns away from him.

"Why do you always look away from me when I say something nice to you?"

"It embarra.s.ses me."

"Why be embarra.s.sed? It's only you and me?"

"I suppose I've gotten in the habit of not wanting you to see how much I like it when you say nice things to me."

"I hope you won't mind if I don't stop saying nice things."

"I won't mind."

Michael presses a finger into the snow on the rail at the front of the deck, measuring the snow's depth. He traces the line in the snow from himself to Holly and back again.

"And you? What are you doing for Christmas?" she asks.

"I'm Jewish. Christmas isn't exactlya""

"Oh, right. Sorry."

"No need to be sorry. I just don't usually have special plans for Christmas, that's all. Most people's Christmas plans revolve around family, and since my family doesn't celebrate Christmas, I don't have plans."

"Your family doesn't do anything, even for Hanukkah?"

"My parents still celebrate Hanukkah, but they've spent the past several years celebrating it with family in Israel."

"Really? Well, I hope you won't be offended if I don't offer to go to Israel with you for a visit."

"No, not at all."

"So, you don't do anything for Christmas?"

"No, but it's not because I'm against it or anything. Generally, I'm not religiousa"holiday or otherwise. Though I do have a menorah, a small, fake tree covered with blinking lights, and I've always enjoyed Christmas carols. And, even if I think the little rituals we've created over time are silly, I can't resist the whimsy of it all."

"So, when you say you're not particularly religious, does that mean you're not a practicing Jew?"

"No, I don't practice. But I am a knowledgeable Jew."

"Obviously."

"What about you?"

"Am I religious?"

"Yeah."

"I was brought up casually Catholic."

"And now?"