She remembers reading somewhere (in a book or a poem or just somewhere) recently that a lonely person’s voice sounds like it’s caught inside a tin can. So she listens hard for a minute to see if his words are bouncing off of aluminum.

The sun starts to set outside and he turns as she’s talking to see it sinking into the Long Island sound. She’s talking about something, what she ate for dinner last night maybe, but what he hears is that she misses him. And he doesn’t say anything until the sun is finally completely swallowed by blue green water and then he closes his eyes and just listens.

“I’m trying to read Pablo Neruda in its original Spanish,” she says and he’s already thinking in sonnets.

“Do you even know any Spanish?”

“No,” she says, letting her laughter draw out the word for a few extra syllables.

“Well, good luck with that.”

They’ve been on the phone for an hour and aluminum is starting to sound more like cotton.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly when clearing her throat doesn’t get rid of the tightness.

Lights on boats are blinking in the sound, like stars or satellites. “Can we- Just, let’s not right now. Okay? I just want to talk to you without…”

“Yeah.” She wants to bring up the fact that this conversation hurts regardless, but the tin can is back and she wants it gone. “So I’m taking this painting class and we’re supposed to build a mini collection of related paintings…”

“Oh, yeah? What are you doing?”

“Um, leaves,” she says in a small voice, like she’s embarrassed.

“Awesome.”

“Yeah. I bet you’ve got some good foliage in Connecticut. I remember driving through there once in October and there was a lot of red and gold.”

“I don’t know if it’s really any better than Scranton. There is this one tree outside of my building that’s starting to turn this bright, fiery red.”

She smiles, wonders if he can see its branches swaying in the window from bed. “I’m doing this one of, like, you know when you’re driving and it’s windy and there are leaves on the road and they swell up and swirl around?”

“And smack into my windshield, momentarily blinding me? Yeah.”

“I’m trying to paint that, but it’s hard because I feel like I’m not remembering it in my head right and it’s not something you can just sit outside and watch…”

In his mind, just behind his eyes, her wrist is moving as she quickly sketches the curve of a leaf, dancing around in the air.

“So get someone to drive you around while you sketch.” He tries not to let his tone be hopeful or expectant, but it happens anyway.

She just laughs, “And who do you think would be willing to do that?”

Silence then, but they both know what silences like this mean. And they can both puts words for him there in their heads.

He puts, “I would be more than willing. Honored, in fact.”

She puts, “Me. I’ll drive home tomorrow, tonight, whenever and pick you up and we’ll laugh for hours on winding back roads.”

Instead, he says, “Well, if you tell her there’s a new mall somewhere, I guarantee you Kelly will go.”

“Yes, but I don’t know if I could handle the whining once she realized there really wasn’t any mall.”

He laughs, rich and full, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Cotton, not aluminum. Like he’s speaking under bed sheets, his hand pulling them up over their heads, making their own fortress. The sunlight seeps through the thin layer of fabric and everything glows. It makes it easy to forget all the things that are broken now, all the things they haven’t talked about.

She says, “Um…”

And he says, “Yeah.”