26. an increasing divide

written 7 months and 18 days after

Up until 2020, we didn’t have a bed frame and none of our bedroom furniture matched; it was all a mismatch of his old college-room furniture and my childhood dresser and end table. There was no art on the walls and three IKEA Billy book shelves stood beside each other, packed with my books.

The jumbled nature of our room had always lightly bothered us but as the pandemic settled in during the summer of 2020 and we rarely, if ever, left our apartment, I suggested that we make some changes.

“Oooo!” he said, excited. “Yes!”

In the end, creating our bedroom was one of our most collaborative projects, with the exception, of course, of our relationship.

He found our unique swirled teak wood dresser on a special sale because it was a floor model with slight markings on the top. After scrutinizing the ton of photos he sent me, I said, “Green light.”

When we installed the dresser, one day while he was still at work, I carefully oiled the entire surface of the dresser. Several coats and a few hours later, the marks that had knocked so much off the price had entirely dissipated. This time it was me that sent him photos, glowing at his praise as it came through.

“WHOA! Great job.”

Then, we picked out matching end tables, mid century modern, with legs that he carefully angled as he assembled the pieces. He bought a brass and black lamp for reading, to replace the portable camping light he used and with the help of my family, we sold his old dresser, my old bedside table and dresser too. I selected a hand-dyed French linen cover for our bed, which draped in smooth puddles down to the carpet.

He bought a print created entirely by artificial intelligence and framed it. I bought a print hand-lettered in New York and he custom-mat it for me. We set his Neruda coffee table book, which I bought for him in our first year of dating, on the new low dresser, and I arranged his and my geodes from when were children on a small shelf in the corner of our room. 

The final thing we changed was at his insistence.

I had said it would be madness to get a bed frame before we moved and, at first, he agreed.

But, then, he showed me a few online. He told me to imagine leaning back against a padded headboard, instead of the decidedly uncomfortable apartment wall that we had been leaning against for years.

“Imagine,” he said, half-signing the Lennon song.

I didn’t take long to change my mind. We piled into the car and went and sat on a bunch of different bed frames, ultimately choosing a dark grey one with a ridiculously comfortable, padded backboard. After it was delivered, and after he put it together (a process that turned him as close to grumpy as he ever got — which wasn’t very), he and I stood in the bedroom and looked around at our handiwork.

The bedroom looked completely different.

“I feel like we’ve gone keto and changed our whole lives,” I said and he laughed.

“It’s like a hotel,” he said. “It’s so fancy.”

—

Early in our time in the apartment, I woke to the sound of clanking.

In the living room, the innards of our kitchen covered every surface. All of our plates, glassware, silverware, knives, appliances, dish towels, and pots and pans were set in neat piles around our living space, cluttered under the dining table, lining the edge of the media console.

I walked into the kitchen to discover my beloved, dressed in a leather apron, yellow rubber gloves, clear protective squash goggles, with a red paisley bandana tied around his face. He turned to me, his eyes huge.

“Oh,” he said. “Did I wake you up?”

I stared at the carnage that was our kitchen. There were cleaning products littering the counter tops which had been so thoroughly cleaned that they could have been used for operating room tables.

“What are you doing?” I said. I pointed to the time on the oven.

“We have black mould,” he said. “It’s EVERYWHERE.” He gestured wildly.

I tried not to laugh, but did not succeed.

“Don’t laugh,” he said. “That stuff is dangerous. I tried to call HealthLink but it’s too late.”

Then, I really started laughing.

“You called HealthLink?”

“Black mould!” he said, scrubbing at the place where our microwave usually sat.

He told me that he had discovered a piece of toast that had fallen behind our toaster and it had been moulding. After that, he’d Googled and become convinced we were living in one big spore. I tried to explain, between guffaws, that a little bit of mould on a piece of bread did not mean the walls were teeming with it.

“Gloves down, Mr. Safety First,” I said. He grumbled but he was grinning.

“You are wild.” I pointed to our living room.

“I’ll take care of that,” he said.

I glanced around the kitchen one more time and shook my head.

“Classic,” I said.

Even then, even early on, I knew how much he loved to clean. Often, he would take hour-long showers simply because he would spend 30 minutes, with the shower water running, butt naked, spraying and scrubbing the glass and tiles down. Once, I came home and he was vacuuming the inside lining of our pillow sheaths. The inside. He had looked up from the vacuum when I came in and smiled, a charming, caught-out kind of Cheshire grin.

“Do you do this often?” I said.

“First time, I swear,” he said, and I almost believed him.

The black mould night, as he began to move our microwave and mixer back onto the counter, I tumbled back into bed. I fell asleep to the faint clink and scratch of him putting things back into their places.

He was always like that for me — the one who set things right. The one who made us a home.

When he finally fell into bed beside me, I woke up slightly because he leaned over and kissed me gently. He always did this. Even if it was entirely dark, he somehow found my face and kissed me goodnight.

It all comes at me so quickly:

Him, folding his laundry while I look on from under the covers. Him, tucking me into bed. Him, reaching across my body to turn off my light when I’m too tired.

Me, opening the window as soon as it is April because I love to sleep with the fresh air and him shivering, dramatically, using it as an excuse to sleep cuddled close to me, his head on my pillow. Me, filming him while he dances around our bedroom in his apartment, my laughter at his goofiness shaking the camera frame.

Him, spinning his arms like plane wings, glorying in the open carpet space when I finally pick up my clothes and put them away. Him, bringing me a fresh ice pack for my head while I cry into my pillow, seized with migraine pain. Him, taking photos of me asleep, framed in ways that can only be described as tender.

Me, tucking in beside him while he rubs my head when I can’t sleep.

Him, breathing hot ‘dragon breath,’ into my face. Him, turning his alarm off and off and off and off, until he sleeps through the alarm and I turn it off. Him, coming into the room while I’m napping and falling asleep himself; Him, snoring at night until I poke him in the ribs and he shifts onto his side. Him, coming home drunk and me pushing him out of bed at six in the morning to go to our workout class.

Me, coming home from seeing friends and walking down the hallway where the bedroom is glowing because he’s left the light on from me, and, even though he’s asleep, murmuring in it, “did you have fun, baber?”

Us, talking until the small hours, crying, laughing, making up, looking at memes, reading books side-by-side.

I don’t know how to get my head above all of it.

---

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