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“Anyway, I can’t quite put my finger on it. We just don’t seem to do as much together. I mean, we used to do the shopping as a couple. Yard work, household chores. Now, he’s says that if I’m getting groceries, it’s more efficient if he puts in a laundry, or does some weeding in the garden. I liked that we did that kind of thing together, but now we hardly do.”
“So tell him.”
“I have. It doesn’t help.”
“And is he taking more out-of-town gigs than he used to?”
I shake my head. “No, but that’s a funny thing. I was looking at the calendar the other day and noticed that most of his out-of-town gigs are during a full moon. Then I checked the website his booking agent put up for him, and he’s always out of town during the full moon.”
Gwen smiles. “Maybe he’s a werewolf.”
“That’s not helping.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “But there’s always been something different about him.”
Different? I suppose. There’s certainly always been a part of him that I can’t reach—that I feel I’ll never know—but that touch of mysteriousness is half of what attracted me to him in the first place. And I’ve never been the kind of person who believes in changing the person I’m with. You fall in love with them because of who they are. Unless they acquire some new, destructive habit, why would you want to change them?
“Just remember,” Gwen says. “You’re not defined by your relationship to him.”
“I know that.”
“And besides, you’re not even married.”
That’s so Gwen. For her, a piece of paper always has more weight than the knowledge we acquire beyond school or university, or the depth of the feelings people carry around in their hearts.
For me, the feeling is everything.
We fall silent for a few moments. I drink some of my coffee and consider getting one of the café’s fancy scones. Gwen has a sip of latte and I know she’s not even tempted by the treats behind glass at the counter. She’s looking out the window. It’s a beautiful autumn day out there, but that’s not what has her attention.
I’m not sure if she’s fascinated or repulsed by the parade of people with their tats and piercings and individual fashion sense. Probably a little of both. She so doesn’t fit into the scene down here in Crowsea, but I feel right at home.
“You know,” she says, “whenever I hear about something like this, a big change that comes out of nowhere, I…”
She gets this look that I’m beginning to recognize. This has come up before. Her gaze turns to meet mine.
“What happened that last year of high school?” she asks. “I thought we’d be friends forever.”
“We’re still friends,” I say, my voice mild.
She nods. “But you know what I mean. You just changed overnight.”
“I didn’t change. I evolved. If anyone changed, it was you.”
“I didn’t…”
“Besides,” I say before she can go on. “Change doesn’t automatically mean bad. Sometimes we need to change, to become who we really are.”
“And who are you, really, Mary?”
This is new. I’m about to brush off her question with a joke, but I think about what’s happened to me, my suspicions about Edric, and the way it has me feeling stupid, spying on him, grasping for some, any kind of understanding.
“I don’t know,” I tell her.
I manage a CD shop over on Williamson, but I don’t believe that people are defined by their jobs any more than they are by their relationships. Both can tell you something about a person, but they’re only pieces of the big puzzle. And that’s what I am to myself right now. A big puzzle.
“This is going to sound awful,” she says, “and I’m totally sympathetic to your situation, but I have to admit that there’s a little piece of me that feels relieved that you can be going through all of this.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
