When we lived in that house, it was always snowing. The house was warm but I always felt cold, because of all that white just beyond all those windows. I always baked—bread flecked with caraway seeds, cakes tart with marmalade—because the oven, and all that labor, warmed me.

I always had trouble sleeping because the moonlight bounced off all that snow and into the house through all those windows. I would get out of bed, maybe read a novel; I was always reading novels by Anita Brookner in those days, who, mercifully, wrote so many. Mornings, I always felt a little groggy.

You always wanted eggs for breakfast; I never wanted anything. But I always cooked, and did the washing up, and you, so industrious, vanished into your day. I always took a too-long shower and spent too long wandering around the house, thinking about nothing, maybe ruing all that snow, which I had come to hate.

I always ate soup for lunch, maybe whatever bread I'd baked, slick with butter and salt. I'd read the newspaper, always turning to the sections about travel or real estate, always imagining some other life, some other place, the other person I might be. I was always a little disappointed in myself.

I've always liked a tidy home, so I'd attend to that, righting the pillows, watering the winter—dazed plants in their chipped terracotta pots. I cleaned the toothpaste-flecked bathroom mirror, always using a crumpled up page from the newspaper, feeling virtuous, eco-conscious.

You always liked to go for walks, after work, but I never wanted to trudge out into all that snow, and would go days without leaving the house. You always told me this wasn't good for me. You'd venture out, irritated and—always feeling guilty—I'd prepare some indulgent dinner, with cream, strong black pepper, lots of lemon.

When we bickered, it was always operatic: yelling, whatever was near at hand hurled to the parquet in anger. We always made up, and we'd lie in that huge bed, the bedroom bright from all that snow outside all those windows, my hand stroking your forehead like a parent with a feverish child. We'd always talk about where we might go live and be happy, an apartment in Copenhagen or New York, a stone house in Italy where it would always be sunny and life would be different.


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Rumaan Alam is the author, most recently, of LEAVE THIS WORLD BEHIND, a recent New York Times bestselling novel.

Read more of his work in the archive.







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