Are you happy?

“Are you happy?”
He watchs the television, changes the channel with the remote, turns his head to look at her, changes the channel again.
“It’s a hard time to know that,” he says.
“Maybe. But I’m not, and I don’t think we should keep on this way.” She pauses. “I don’t think I can keep doing this.”
He runs through more channels.
“It’s not good to be unhappy,” he says, looking at the television, .
“So what are we going to do about it?” She’s sitting on the edge of the green chair, leaning forward, her hands squeezing the arms hard enough that she can see the ends of the fingers growing pinker.
He changes channels again, once, twice, three times. He looks from the television to her, rolling his head on the pillows, not sitting up.
“I don’t know. Wait. See if things get getter. I’m not sure.” She has to strain to here him over the laughtrack as Dave Barry’s TV family squabbles contentedly, a voice-over pulling together all the loose ends.
“I can’t wait much more.” She keeps looking at him, waiting for a response. She stares so hard her eyes start to water, like when she had to stare at her old bedroom closet door without blinking to keep the creature inside.
He keeps looking at the television. The tone of his skin changes as the images flicker on the big screen, the only light in the room, green, blue, pink. His age changes with the colors. He changes channels again, skips through three or four stations, stops on the real estate channel, staring at still photos of expensive houses, listening to cheery descriptions of modern kitchens and multiple bedrooms.
They both wait.
“I don’t know,” he says.
He holds his breath, afraid of what a sound would say, knowing what silence says. She breathes, smells the damp. The room is always musty and cool,windows too small and too high, and in the winter it never seems to get warm.
He folds his hands behind his head, elbows up beside his face, so even the half-view she has is blocked by his crooked arm, only a bit of his forehead visible, his eyes and mouth lost. He stares harder at the television, but can’t bring himself to change the channel, so he watches more houses for sale roll by, one every 30 seconds or so.
“I can’t keep doing this. If you don’t start caring more, I’m going to have to start caring less.” She speaks very quietly, but he can hear her above the house channel, her voice floating just a little, threat and pleading all in one sentence. She reaches with her left hand, pulls the sweater a little tighter around her shoulders, brushes her red hair back. Her fingernails are chewed short.
He lowers his elbow to look at her.
“I’ll try harder,” he says, and changes the channel again. He feels the corduroy pillow pressing into the back of his head, hears the water running in the bathroom, a car starting on the street. He keeps changing channels, looks at her again, then raises his elbows and watches the lights on the screen.
She waits, then stands and leaves the room without saying anything more. He hears her feet, down the hall, down the stairs, into the bedroom. He changes channels, turns up the TV.

“I’m going to the gym.” she tells him 20 minutes later. She has on black leggings, sweat pants, her hair tied back
“Work hard,” he says, looking up from the television.
Once he hears the car leave, he goes to the kitchen, pours a drink, walks down to their room, lies on the bed without spilling a drop of gin. He sees the sweater, pants, underwear she was wearing, thrown in a pile in the corner of the room near the door. He goes and lies on the floor, his head on the clothes, the sweater scratching his cheek. He takes a deep breath, inhales her smell from the clothes, so familiar. He knows it’s the last time he can be sure her clothes will smell that way.

Watching Mrs. Reynold

I watched the Reynolds through their kitchen window for almost three months, before the day I realized Mrs. Reynolds knew I was there.
I’d always sat in the dark, or near dark, across the end of my bed, my eyes just above the window sill, only a small crack in the dark gold curtains. Sometimes I’d played the radio, top 40 then, but often I just sat watching them, hands resting on the headboard, sitting on the brown bedspread that matched my curtains.
I’d glanced their way before. But that November I started to watch almost daily, their house across our two narrow backyards, no fences, just the scrawny cedar hedge Mr. Reynolds and my father had planted together on a hot July weekend two years ago, just before he left, my father that is.
Their kitchen had sliding glass doors opening on to a patio - just like our’s. The lights were always on in those winter evenings, curtains open, and what lights. A warm yellow that splashed a tilted square across the snowy ground, reflected off their pale lemon walls. I could see part of the fridge, the maple table, most of the counter. Off to the left a smaller window offered glimpses of Mrs. Reynolds at her sink, head down as she scrubbed carrots or reaching up for the bowl she kept in the tall cupboard over the sink.
Most days I was watching by 4:30, home from school, often with one small lamp on at my desk, so I could do homework and check out the window without being seen. The sun had already started to sink by that time, and their light was always on. Mrs. Reynolds started supper about then, moving in and out of my view, preparing food in tiny heaps on her clean counter. She was always neat, with the food and herself, usually in slacks but sometimes in a blue dress I particularly liked, light blue with a frill around the hem that kind of flounced out when she walked. She always wore an apron over that dress, usually a white one with a large sunflower across it. The dress made her look a bit like she was floating.
I couldn’t distinguish sounds from our kitchen down the stairs, where the radio was competing with the TV in the family room, my mother listening to some announcer, my brothers watching cartoons. It was just muffled noise, rising to almost making sense sometimes, but it was never quite clear, and I was never sure if I’d heard my brother or mothers say something, or just someone on television.
But I could hear the Reynolds. The plates being set on the table, the knives and forks clattering as she gathered them up, the steady tapping when she chopped parsley, the soft music from their radio - not to my taste, really, but kind of relaxing I will admit. I could even hear their television, but it was quieter, less harsh, smoother. I could even hear Mrs. Reynolds, singing softly to herself, helping the children when they ran in with some question. They had three like us, but one was a girl and they were all several years younger - the oldest was 11.
Mrs. Reynolds had a soft voice, a little deep, that I remembered most clearly from earlier that fall, when she had called “Nice job” across the hedge as I raked the leaves from our spindly apple tree.
I’d watch until I had to eat dinner, when I left my darkened room and sat in the bright white light, steam misting the inside of the windows and reflecting more light and fuzzy images of us back into the room, the radio still on. I’d eat quickly, scrape plates and load the dishwasher, then rush back to my room.
Most nights the Reynolds were at the dinner table then, chairs pushed back, Mrs. Reynolds facing me, Mr. Reynolds with his back to the sliding doors, children on either side of the table. They talked about his work, her day, the kids’ school or friends, their weekend plans. And I watched and listened, until they finished cleaning up, and turned off all the kitchen lights except for a fluorescent tube over the sink which left just a dim white glow and an empty, neat room.
The first day I knew that she knew was a Friday, after I’d finished loading our dishwasher and taken the garbage out to the garage. I headed across my darkened room and settled on the bed, looking across the snowy yards. As I did, Mrs. Reynolds, listening to her husband, looked up at me, and smiled. She looked my way three more times as she sat at the table, once raising her eyes over her coffee and nodding, as she smiled.
I began watching in the mornings, too, some days staying until I was late for school. And each day, Mrs. Reynolds looked at my window, smiled, nodded, gave small waves, showed me the cake she had taken from the oven, took special care of her children when she knew I was there.

And so I packed that Thursday night. Not everything. Some clothes, a few books, the level my grandfather had given me, my CDs - only seven, mostly gifts. I tried a note to my mother, but after four drafts I gave up. No words seemed to make sense, and she would see me across the yards anyway - it’s not like I would be in an apartment downtown. I slid all the things into a gym bag, and slid it under my bed, ready to retrieve after school Friday. I slept on my secrets, always the best kind of sleep for me, on my stomach, legs crossed at the ankles.
I rushed through school, left before the last class, calculus, so I could get my things before anyone else was home.
It was cold, walking across the yard, cutting through the hedge, the snow hard and crusted and making scratching noises with each step. I slipped once and dropped my bag, but didn’t hear anything break.
I went to the Reynolds’ front door, on a concrete porch under its own roof, rang their bell and heard it echo inside.
Mrs. Reynolds answered, wearing the blue dress, but not the apron, opening the door wide despite the cold.
“Yes. Oh, I’ll get the money,” she said, leaving the door open disappearing before I could speak.
“I don’t need any money,” I said when she came back.
“Oh I’m sorry, of course, you’re not the paperboy. You’re too old. How can I help you?”
I just stood there, then realized the problem, and took off my toque, and smiled at her.
“Are you looking for the Johnstons - they’re just two doors down.”
I kept smiling, then dropped my bag, held my hands across my chin and forehead, the view of me I thought she would recognize through the window. She just looked slightly alarmed.
“Sorry.”
I didn’t watch the Reynolds anymore. That summer, I got a part-time job and moved into the apartment with my father and his girlfriend, but it was small and felt too warm with three people and I moved back to the house in the fall. Mrs. Reynolds came over, the first week I was back. She hired me to cut their lawn, but I couldn’t get their lawn mower to start.