She Walked East, Along the River

She was the sort of girl who had a bath every day when she got home from work, just to wash the office from her body. The grass in her backyard was thigh deep. It took me three hours to cut it and I had to repair the lawnmower twice. She sat on the second floor window ledge, watching and laughing at me playing the man. She brought me cups of tea. We made love on the couch more often than the bed, fast and breathless when the television was boring. She had a cat called a cat and mixed metaphors regularly. We caught the same tram to work in winter and met when the only seat remaining was the one next to mine. She liked cheap wine and hated fussing over dinner. I taught her how to ride a bike, for she never had one as a child. She was my neighbour, my friend and my lover, though we never went on trips together or attended parties or danced in nightclubs or made promises. She did not ask me who I was with or what I was doing outside of our intimate world.

I left her on a Sunday. Two days later I would be on a plane. We shared a beer on the riverfront and made confessions about near misses, like that time she saw me rounding a corner just as she was saying goodbye to another lover. She was certain I had seen him climb into the cab and always wondered why I had said nothing. I had not seen him, though I remembered her being flustered when she met me at the door, dressing gown open, dragging me straight into bed so I would not notice another man’s imprint amongst the dishevelled sheets.

The beer tapped out and she gave me an awkward hug, refusing to kiss me. As she turned away I saw her face go slack, the gulp in her throat, the shudder in her shoulders and it was only then I knew what had been happening, what we had. It stunned me to the spot, my gaze fixed on her as she walked away without looking back, east, along the river.

Chris Flynn