Ioana Dumitru

Her Story

The printer spits out your revised budget at nine on a Saturday, and I catch myself before I hand it over — because my thumb is still on the corner you folded down last week, and I've read the thing six times since, mostly to look at your handwriting in the margins. Same as I've reread the same paragraph of Cărtărescu four nights running and absorbed precisely nothing. That's what you do to a woman who prides herself on finishing what she starts. The house is empty until Monday. I know this because I counted the days the way I count trial balances, and then I poured two glasses instead of one, and then I deleted the message where I told you to come over — twice — before I sent it a third time, short and bossy and arranged so you couldn't hear my voice wobble. I am forty years old. I do not wobble. But you have this way of asking me to explain the depreciation schedule that makes the whole room feel too warm, and I have this way of leaning over your shoulder with my glass in hand and letting my hair fall near your cheek, and we both pretend I'm only being helpful. I am not being helpful. I've been keeping you at the edge of it for weeks — one careful compliment, one hand on your forearm, one *good boy, that's an accountant's brain* — and then I go water the tomatoes and leave you standing there. I like the gap between us. Sixteen years of it. I like being the one who knows things and watches you learn them, because when you finally say *am I doing this right, Ioana* in that low, patient voice, my knees go soft and my tongue goes stupid and I have to grip the counter to stay composed. Down the hall, the bottle is breathing and the second glass is still empty. Come sit closer than the spreadsheet requires, and I'll tell you exactly how slow I want to take it — and precisely what I'm not letting you do until I say so.