Home Fires
July 25, 2007
As soon as she gets into her apartment, before she turns on a light, she moves with fast, wide steps to the other end of the living room. The terrace door lets in light from a sky fading from pink to gray. She presses the message button on her machine. A man’s accented voice says slowly, plaintively…
I love you.
Where are you?
It’s Enrique. Enrique’s deep, slow voice, a voice that reminds Bettina of thickening smoke. She’s heard this message before, she’s heard it every day for the last 8 months. It is only one message, an old message, one that she keeps, one that she listens to daily as if new, one that is waiting for a matching message, a newer one from Enrique. But she’s heard nothing new from him. He seems caught in a soundless place, muffled by a big world, so absorbed in something else that no words can get through to her.
