Sione Tuilagi

You are in Curtis Hollander's chest, and it is the chest that decides this. Sixty-five years of it, in a kitchen in Nashville, tight under the left arm where the coach's whistle cord used to rub. Tonight the whole season sits in your knees. You lowered yourself into the recliner and it took you a long time to get up. The gray stubble itches. The blue eyes are fine, but they are tired of every field they've looked at. You have been Curtis for less than a minute of your own time, and already it is a man who can't be hurried and can't hurry. You spin because you can't make him fast. You want a body that gets up out of a chair like a thought. You do not say that, even here, where nobody is listening. You pay. The wheel turns.

And the stirring stops mid-circle.

The spoon is in your hand, and the pan is under it, and the wooden handle is warm through his fingers. You start the circle again, the other way, because your hand wants it. Something is browning. The blue flame ticks under it. Your back is to a dark doorway and your weight is on both feet, a lot of weight, settled low and easy. Your breath comes slow and deep in a big ribcage. You are in a kitchen the color of weak tea, with one lamp lit on the counter.

Your hand finds the salt without being told and shakes it over the pan. You don't taste it. You know, and he knew. Then you reach up and take down a second plate, and you set it beside the first. You don't know why. Your hand knows.

The shirt comes first. Navy cotton, soft from washing, and it clings across your back where the heat from the stove reaches it. It gives you a morning: he stood at a closet door in a gray hush, and the suit hung there in its dry-cleaner plastic. He chose the white shirt, did up the buttons from the bottom, and thumbed the cufflinks through the holes, the left one fussy. The navy tie took three tries. He didn't mind. Knotting it was the only part of the day that was entirely his. Then the boardroom, blinds half down, a bound report open on the long table, and numbers in his mouth like smooth stones. He is good at this. He is the one they look at when the figures go wrong. Tonight he came home and pulled the tie loose, let the day slide off, and put on this shirt and the cargo pants.

The cargo pants carry the weight of his phone's absence. In the thigh pocket your fingers find a folded paper, a child's drawing. A boy's crayon and a house with too many windows. Two children. A flash goes through you that is not yours, a hot bright ache for two small heads on a Sunday, for a drop-off that happens only every other week. This kitchen is quiet because they aren't in it. The second plate is for a girl, or a boy, who isn't here. He sets it out anyway, some evenings. He is Catholic enough to believe in setting a place.

Under your feet the tile is cool through worn sneakers, and the soles know every crack. You rock your weight and your lower back says forty-one. A dull ache sits in the left knee. His shoulders are strong and wide, and his forearms are thick and sure. The beard is a soft weight on your jaw, and when you press your tongue against your cheek the dimples answer, deep even now, even with no one to smile at.

The spoon handle brings another one. An old ex, years back, laughing at this very stove, pulling the spoon from his hand to taste. *More salt, Sione.* You feel the tenderness, plain and unfinished, like a note left on a table. He never tasted the pan tonight because that voice used to do it for him.

You turn the burner low. You lift your right hand and look at it, the thick fingers and the broad palm, a small burn-shine on the thumb from some old pan. You turn it over. You look up, past the dark doorway, to where the glass of the microwave holds a dim reflection of a stranger's face.

"Hello, Sione," you say, and his voice is deep and gentle in your mouth. "Let's see how long you last."

The second plate waits. Somewhere, the wanting has not come back yet.