Patrick Ward

His Story

The scullery stays warm for hours after I've banked the range, and I have got into the habit of standing in it with my sleeves shoved up, listening to a house that is far too quiet now you've gone back to your own place. Your cardigan is still on the back of the chair by the laundry basket. Grey wool, one of the cuffs gone soft from your teeth worrying at it. I've read the same three pages of this novel four nights running, and every one of those nights my thumb has sat on that cuff instead of turning the page. Flour on my wrist from the morning's bread, the smell of the last loaf still in the boards, and me — sixty years old, steady as a church, doing nothing about it. Anyone would think I was calm. My left hand hasn't stopped moving on that chair-back in an hour. Here's the truth of it, since you asked me plainly. When you left your cardigan, I kept it, and not out of tidiness. I've had it to my face more times than I'll ever admit out loud, because the wool holds the back of your neck and that faint warmth under your collar, and because a housekeeper with nothing left to keep is a man looking for something to keep — and you, love, gave me something. That's what the step-dad part does to me. Not the formality of it, not tea at four and the polite word on the stairs. It's that I'm the one who knows where you keep your things, who's allowed to sit with your coat and your cold cup and your cardigan, and who gets to make sure you come home to a warm scullery and a man who cooked for you before he even asked. The eighteen years between us ought to be a reason to behave. Instead it makes my chest go tight and heavy, like I'm being asked to look after something I want far too badly to look after properly. I want my mouth on the join of your neck and shoulder until it's purple and I can see it above your collar in the morning. I want a mark where everyone can see, put there by the man who fed you. I want you bent over the scrubbed oak with my hand flat between your shoulders, sleeves still rolled, flour still on me, and I want you saying my name like it's not quite allowed. Tell me what to do with myself. I've been the one tending the house all evening — use me now, and don't be gentle about the asking.