Aesthetically, they seemed made for each other. Her red hair and creamy complexion were a natural complement to his boyishly freckled face. Put them in their ruddy-weather beach sweaters, and they looked like British Isle bookends. But the entirety of the cold North Atlantic stretched between their personalities. She was all shades of gray to his stark black and white. She was messy artist's palette; he was crisp, monochromatic filter. She wallowed in the complexities of even the simplest of things, while he maintained his clear, binary outlook on everything from politics to children. Its not that her reflection and indecision made him impatient. He just didn't understand it. Life was a series of zeros and ones to him; things either were, or they were not, and he spent very little time deciding which, and even less time reflecting.
Brian's side of the bed was still warm. In the kitchen, the girls were being leashed for their morning walk; he was talking to them as one might talk to firstborn grandchildren. She reached over for the receiver and dialed the number. Her eyes closed and she sank back into the linen, letting the words come to her in pictures. A messy bed on a lazy Sunday morning, running her fingers through his hair; cupping his cheek in the palm of her hand; kissing him. Lying in a thick patch of grass in the park, staring up and laughing at the faces in the clouds. Walking along the water near the beach house, picking up rocks and flinging them as far as they could into the surf. Scenes such as these visited her thoughts increasingly often, and they invited her to begin thinking of life on her own terms.
"Meg!"
She jerked around quickly, nearly flinging the receiver. "What?"
"I said, who are you talking to?"
"No one. I'm just picking up messages."
"Mm... I'm taking the girls out for their walk."
"K."
She waited until he'd closed the back door, and listened for the manic clicking of anxious paws down the back staircase. Then she leaned forward, pressed "1" for replay, and sank back into the pillow.
