Free Hummingbirds by Joshua Gaylor Page B

hips and moving her away from the broken glass. Then he was down on his knees, delicately plucking the shards of glittering glass from the carpet and placing them in the upturned palm of his right hand.
    An offering. Those fingers, priest-soft and steady. He could cup in his orchestral hand the broken and the treacherous.
    When he stood up he was right in front of her—and everything stopped. The look in his eyes said that he had forgotten what he was just doing. Then he spoke.
    “There’s one thing,” he said. “One thing I want to tell you.”
    “What is it?”
    He spoke slowly. “Your article on Nathalie Sarraute. I think you’re wrong about her. She’s a romantic.”
    That’s when he kissed her. And he was right about her article. And he kissed her. And he was right.
    The glass shards he must have put down somewhere, but she could not remember that part of it. It was only afterward that all the proper lenses suddenly clicked into place—and everything came into sharp focus.
    “Oh my god,” she said. “I don’t even know your name.”
    She was lying in the bed trying to make herself as small as possible under the sheets. He was leaning back in a chair at the foot of the bed, looking at her.
    “It’s Ted.”
    “Ted what?”
    He told her.
    “Oh Jesus. Fine. My name is Anne Sexton.”
    He squinted his eyes at her. Then he sifted through the clothes that were on the floor and from the pocket of a pair of pants he brought out a conference badge with his name on it. He held it up as proof.
    “Great,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s just great.”
    He sat back down silently at the foot of the bed.
    “Stop looking at me,” she said.
    Then, later, riding down in the elevator, she said, “You don’t understand. I’m not someone who does illicit things.”
    “Come back tomorrow.”
    “Did you hear what I said?”
    “It’s not about being illicit.”
    “What is it about then?” But immediately upon saying it she realized that she didn’t want to know—and was grateful to him for not answering.
    “Come back tomorrow.”
    And he put his hands on her.
    She wondered what it would be like to see her husband. She was sure he would be able to see it on her, like a haircut. She tried to think of things she would say in response, but she couldonly keep saying I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry under her breath. Yes, he would know. He knew her better than anyone.
    And then she tried to be angry with him. It was partially his fault. She wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t left her alone. Or, no, it was because they had argued on the plane ride out here. If they hadn’t argued, then…Eventually she was angry with herself for trying to blame him. It was a while before she realized her anger was just old-fashioned panic.
    By the time her husband was there, right in front of her, she was tied up in miserable knots, and her stomach hurt.
    He said, “What’s the matter?”
    “My stomach hurts.”
    He put his hand on her cheek. “Why don’t you go up to the room and lie down. I’ll get you something to take.”
    “No,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Really, I’m okay. Let’s just go have dinner.”
    The rest of the night he was concerned about her stomach. She hated how easy it was to lie to him.
    So the next day she told him she was going to some sessions, and she met the young man again. Since she had already betrayed her husband once, she wanted to find out what it was exactly that she felt for this Ted Hughes—because she feared that it was something rather than nothing. And she knew that if she didn’t try to articulate that feeling, to expose it and name it, she would always think of it as lost treasure—something that her husband would never know he wasn’t offering her. It wasn’t fair to him. She would get to the bottom of this feeling. Held up to the light, it would look frail and small and common, she was sure of it.
    But after her second day in the young man’s room, she was