Omar Haddad

You are leaving Marcus Teague because of a sound. The kitchen in Maine has a window over the sink, and the morning has gone thin and bright on the wet counter. His wife's voice comes down the hall, calling a name that is his and not yours. You answer it, because his mouth knows how. Then you stand with the coffee going cold and understand that the answering was the only thing you did all week that came easily. His beard itches. His knees complain on the stairs. His good work sits open on the laptop, and you do not want it. Nothing is wrong with him. He was less than a minute old on you, and you are already tired of being handed back to yourself. You open the page. The wheel is already turning.

Cold light, a tap dripping. You are bent over a sink with your weight on one forearm, and a razor is stopped against your jaw. Foam covers half your face. The tile under your bare feet is cold and the mat is damp. The razor moves up the jaw against the grain, and you do not stop at the corner of the mouth. The second half goes faster than the first.

The shirt comes first, soft and washed thin across the shoulders. It gives you a morning he does not remember choosing it: reaching into the drawer in the dark, a sleeve turned inside out, the quiet of a building before anyone is up. Then the counter's edge under your palm. The porcelain is chipped, and your thumb knows where. A flash follows: a ladder open in a hallway, a ceiling panel lifted, dust falling into your eyes. A tenant is thanking you in a language that is your mother's. Pride comes with it, plain and unspoken, the pride of a man who fixes things so that nobody has to think about them. The razor handle is rubber, worn at the grip. It brings a garage under a house, a steep driveway, white fog at the bay window, and a night he sat on an upturned bucket doing nothing, content. Nobody knows that about him. The legs are short and strong, the back warm. There is a faint ache in the right shoulder, from reaching overhead for years. Your fingers are callused at the tips. They know the razor's angle better than you do.

You rinse the blade under the tap. The water runs warm over your wrist. You lift your free hand and turn it over, palm and then back, the nails clean, the knuckles scarred by nothing. It is a good hand, and it is not yours yet. You look up into the mirror at brown eyes you have never met.

"Morning," you say, in a voice that is lower than you expected.

Somewhere a clock is running. You do not know how long this one lasts, or when the wanting comes back.