Two's a Crowd Ch. 03

I sat down on the edge of the bed. I waited, feeding her Kleenex tissues.

"I am a bad person, Bruce." Her voice was a whisper.

"I know," I said. Her eyes widened.

"I know you are bad, Myriam," I went on. "I just didn't know you knew it too."

This sent another flood of tears to her eyes. I saw I had reached the bottom of the tissue container. The white flimsy paper lay around her like colorless autumn leaves and early paper snowballs.

"I don't want to be bad," she said in between hiccups.

"I guess no one wants to, Myriam." I wondered about my calmness. I also wondered where this surreal talk would take us. It was mostly surreal because it felt so strangely comforting.

"I couldn't help it, you know, Bruce?"

"You couldn't help what, Myriam? Lying to me?"

She just gaped. Her head slowly shook left and right. I shrugged and went on. "Did someone force you to humiliate me, Myr? Did they blackmail you so you had to turn me into a cuckold clown? Were you forced to laugh with your lovers about the fool I was? What part couldn't you help, Myriam? There are so many possibilities."

It reduced her to a fountain of blubbering again. I wondered why it did not irritate me. I rose from the bed. "Maybe you should calm down. Take a shower, Myriam. I don't think this is getting us anywhere."

She shook her head vigorously. "No!" she said. "First I must tell you everything. I have been such a fool not to warn you about who I am and what I did. I never told you."

I sat down again. I studied her face. What did she mean by "warning me about who she was" and "never telling me"?

"Myriam," I said. "Maybe you need to talk, but maybe I don't want to hear it. It has been two years now. Time has done its thing. I worked very hard to let it succeed. I don't think I want to know anymore."

Her eyes froze. The sobbing stopped. "I..." she began. Then she started crawling to the side of the bed. The squeezed balls of moist tissue rolled away from her.

"I," she said again. " I guess I should not bother you, Bruce. I'm sorry for raking it all up again." Her bare feet were on the carpet. She started tidying up the bed, collecting the tissues. Then she stood there. Her eyes shone with tears. It was hard to hold the heap of paper in her shaking hands.

As I said, there are good and bad people. But then there are also people you love -- good, bad or whatever. I rose and took her in my arms. She drenched my bathrobe in a new flood of tears.

The spongy paper balls flew all over the place.

***

When the morning sun peeked through the slits of the blinds, she was still in my arms. We lay on the bed. Myriam had sunk into an exhausted sleep. I had shushed her repeated attempts to "tell me all" until I heard her breathing slip into a slow and regular pattern. I am not sure I slept at all.

Careful not to wake her I reached for the phone and ordered breakfast to be delivered in an hour. Then I slipped out of her embrace and went to take a shower. I left the room fully dressed, suitcase dangling from my hand. The last I saw was her face. It looked relaxed with the innocence of sleep. A yellow piece of paper lay on her chest. It rose and sank with her breathing.

I closed the door behind me.