Two

“Well?” he paused. “Why the fuck are you here?” He stopped to again to rub his eyes, clearing the alcoholic glaze from them.

“Since you obviously don’t recall, I spoke to you last night and I though you were going to kill yourself. So I flew here to show a little solidarity, but you know, maybe I should just leave,” I said coldly, knowing that I didn’t want to sound that way and not being able to change it.

I looked into space.

“I am dealing with my grief in constructive ways,” he said stiffly. “I burnt all my memorabilia because I was too attached to it.”

“That’s not what I would call constructive. What the hell is your problem?” Another thing I’d said too much in the last week.

“Hmm. Seems you’ve said that a lot lately. However, nothing is wrong with me. I believe you are the one who doesn’t know who they are or what they’re doing.”

How could he say that! I’m Responsible Marian!

“I’m going to bed,” he said coldly. He made a point of not touching me as he left the room, and I was left again, alone in his house, with my thoughts.

After the first hour spent poking around his house, I grew bored. Bored. The kind of bored that inspires people to do things like drinking dishwashing liquid to see if it really tastes like lemons, or seeing exactly what an egg looks like when dropped from a roof on a rainy day, or lighting a match and seeing if their carpet really is non-flammable. It’s a dangerous thing, which is why I contented myself by going upstairs into Miro’s room.

His walls were painted blue, the shade of blue the sky is on a summer day when the birds are singing and the trees are green, the shade of blue when it’s a perfect day. Patches of brighter color denoted where wall hangings had recently been taken down. If I’d made the connection, I would have realized he’d taken down all his pictures, but I didn’t. Not then.

A solid wood floor was covered in clearly expensive Oriental rugs, blue and green and ecru. I looked to the ceiling, painted pale blue, and the molding the color of cream.

It was a beautiful room.

I stepped into his bathroom at the other side of the room, trying to be quiet. There was no need—in a house that expensive, there would be no creaky floors nor any squeaking steps.

The bathroom was a miracle of stainless steel and perfectly white tile. Blindingly white counters ended with an abrupt drop into a gleaming metal sink. A mirror hung over the sinks, suspended by a thin metal chain. Another marvel of money.

I went back into the bedroom, Miro still sleeping, and crossed to his bedside. I squinted closer at his sheets….

Sheep sheets. Sheep jumping fences with numbers over their heads in an endless blue sky. Miro had sheep sheets! Sheep sheets!

I giggled to myself and left his room.

Eventually, he came back downstairs and called for pizza as dinner and it was almost like being normal, two guys who call for pizza and watch sports and drink beer and yell at the TV. But we were not normal.

The doorbell rang and the pizza guy drew a box out of his little red pizza bag, steam rising out of the corners. I set it on the table, shaking my hand from the heat. Miro drew out a slice and slowly began to eat it.

“Hey, isn’t that hot?” I said quickly. He shook his head, so I believed him. I reached into the box and promptly burned my hand.

“Ow! Shit!” I yelped. I went to the sink and ran my hand under some cool water.

Miro continued to eat.

“You—it’s—ow—you—I,” I sputtered, transfixed and mystified. He finished eating in silence and finally showed me to a guest room.

I woke up the next morning and thought I was in hell.

The guest room was comfortable, but I wouldn’t have called it restful. Flaming red walls ended in black trim and a yellow ceiling, creating the illusion of being in the heart of a flame. I wondered how much he had paid his interior decorator. Whoever it was had done a bang-up job.

I showered in the Green Bathroom and made my way down the creakless stairs, going into his kitchen. He evidently hadn’t heard me as he didn’t move from his chair at the kitchen table. I edged around the island to get a closer look at him.

I watched as he blew out a match and set it down next to a pile of smoking, dead sticks. He streaked another fresh one against the lighting strip, and I could hear its definitive whoosh as it exploded in yellow flame.

I could see the corners of his lips turning up into a grin, and I knew that if I got a little closer I could see the flame reflected in his dark eyes.

From somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I heard my mother shouting at me, very dimly. “Marian! Don’t play with those! That’s dangerous! MARI-an! Put those matches down, young man!” But I couldn’t tell that to Miro. I wasn’t his mother. I wasn’t his keeper.

But even with all my responsibility, I could do nothing but watch as he raised the lit match to his harm, waiting until the flesh had turned pink, then red under its heat.

Like a steak.

My stomach turned and I went back to my room, not even trying to be quiet anymore. I lay face-up on my bed for another hour.

I finally went downstairs again and I didn’t say a word. Miro smiled at me. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

“Good morning, Marian,” he said cheerfully. He was happy for the first time in God knows how long, and there I was, screwing him up, messing him up, wanting to make him admit things that he wanted to let die.

“Good morning,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and calm. Failing.

“Did you sleep well? I love that spare room,” he said lightly. What a miracle. Was this what he had been like before? He was normal?

I quickly nodded. “All of your house is pretty. Are you going to tell me you did it all yourself?” I joked. He grinned.

“Actually, when I first came here to Buffalo, my sister came up for a few weeks and did all of it. She made me do the heavy lifting, though.” His laugh was bittersweet. “She was always a shrimp.”

The words rattled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“Was?”

“Yeah. She went back to Slovakia and died in a car accident a month later,” he said matter-of-factly. I looked at the ground.

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s been a while.” He looked back up at me and something in his eyes looked broken.