Life and Love and Distance

Katharine Kistler

I turn to my boyfriend, who’s asleep in the blue light of pre-morn ing streaming through the blinds. He grew out a mustache over the sum mer, looking like a Marine-sized Groucho Marx. I lay my hand along his chin and cheek and run my thumb over the thick, coarse ends.

Swinging my legs over the side of his bed, I hop onto plush carpet floor. In the bathroom I pull on leggings and running shoes, wipe the dream-evident drool off my cheek There’s the impression of pillow on my right arm and the redness from his weight on my left. I admire the marks the night made on me for a moment, then head back to bed to say a brief goodbye. I lean down and kiss under the bristly hair, greeted with a mumbled groan I’ve come to know means “I love you.”

I am not a fan of his mustache I think it ages him, but his fellow Marine friends all have one, and I’m not one to ask someone to change their appearance if it’s not hurting me. So I deal with the facial hair, as long as it remains confined to his upper lip, and I tell myself he’ll shave before I know it. Underneath it, he is still the recent graduate I tricked into a date All clear-skinned and nervous, he bounced his legs under the table as we pretend-planned a life in New York City over Chicago-style pizza. On our second date, we planned how we’d talk long-distance. We took a picture together. I stared at it that night as I tried to memorize his number, wondering if he’d be excited when I called. He was younger than I am now and had the rounded cheeks not yet fallen off from ado lescence I know things about me have changed but, like this, he keeps them a secret, relishing in what was and what will one day once again be. Pushing through the heavy door to his building’s stairwell, I de scend the steps slowly, stretching along the way. This place of his is tem

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porary, a home for single soldiers waiting on orders. Lucky for me, it’s in the city where we met and where I still live. For three years, we’ve connected at intervals. He’s been stationed in Georgia for that long, close enough for me to feel him in the air, but too far to touch.

The part of relationships when people bond over holding hands and sleeping side-by-side, we spent cheek-to-cheek with the phone, learning every intonation of one another’s speech and forgetting what the animated versions of each other looked like between visits. On our one-year anniversary, we’d only spent a total of one month together.

Now, at the point where some of my friends were marrying their long-term partners, we were just holding hands, experiencing the crev ices of each other’s bodies, seeing markings and moles that made every limb unique. We’d fallen into the routine of having a piece of technology between us, so being away from it felt like being let out of a cage, like touching the ocean for the first time I’ve been staying with him for a week. We’ve got between three and four left before he goes to Japan for nine months As far as the east coast felt while our relationship was new and I was an undergrad with little money or time to spend on a visit, now I feel the weight of our looming distance in my chest like the weight of a plane’s wheel. While it’s the longest we’ve been together uninterrupted, it’s the first time I don’t know what day he’ll have to leave.

When I step outside, the Texas summer humidity envelops me and I breathe deeply to adjust my lungs to the heavy air. It takes me a cou ple of blocks to reach stasis with my steps, running through the urban neighborhood in which his interim apartment sits I feel myself won dering if we should move down here in a few years when I’m done with school and he’s got a less kinetic job. I find myself thinking a lot about how we will live once he’s home, wherever that proverbial home turns out to be.

I jog through the empty courtyard, the fountain not yet on for the day, no booths for the morning summer market set up. Change like this I can handle. When you know something will arrive each day without fail. Like getting dressed in the morning. The week’s featured booths are posted online alongside the weather and the names of the lunchtime performers.

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There aren’t many other runners on the orange dirt path along the river. The few people I pass give an expressionless tilt of the head or opening and closing of a balled-up runner’s fist.

When he surprised me at my door, my mother Cheshire-grinning, happy to be in on the secret, I wanted to spend as little time as possible packing a bag. When I woke up the next morning, I realized I’d forgotten my headphones So, I’m greeted each dawn by the sound of my foot steps Hitting the ground with a satisfying crunch that sends a signal from the sole of my foot to the tip-top of my head. Each time my foot lands on the manmade path, I’m encouraged to jump and catch the next gratifying step.

Today, I feel a stitch in my side and slow down, clutching around my ribcage and standing with my feet shoulder length apart. I shuffle to the railing that keeps runners from sprinting straight into the river, leaning on the cool metal at the hip, the pain of my bone on railing not matching the pain of cramping in my side.

The water is slow, no show boats or tourists on it quite yet. A few ducks paddle to me from the other side, expecting bread or tortilla or another piece of doggy-bagged food from the surrounding restaurants I start to run again before I can disappoint them, heading back up the path toward the street closest to him.

This is one of the last times for a long time that our distance will be coverable by foot. When I can take a break and not miss a flight or a date. I can take my time to see him. I feel fulfilled from our conversation last night I yearn for his touch the way other couples do, knowing it is only a few ordinary minutes away. So, I stop at the brick-wall coffee shop amidst the small business owners trickling into the farmer’s mar ket grounds. The sun hasn’t broken the clouds, but I can sense it will be a hot day and I’d like to give back any surprise I can, however little

My card is sweaty from being stuffed in my bra and I wince hand ing it to the barista The apartment has few appliances, so I’ve made my self a regular here. She gives me a forgiving look and turns to give the coffee order to her sleepy-looking coworkers as my payment processes. The air conditioning begins to dry the sweat on my temples. I wipe it away before picking up our two drinks and walking the last three blocks home.

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I take the elevator while coming back Inside, alone, truly alone, for the first time today, I sniff at the steam escaping the rectangular hole of his coffee’s lid. I always tell myself I’ll never drink dark roast, but the bitter smell fills my lungs with him and tempts me to try it. Instead I sip from the milky tan liquid of my cup.

Again, as is our tradition, I let my mind wander to the prospect of this as a permanent spot for us. The fifth floor button worn down from the excitement to see him after work, dog hair sprinkling the hallway, a mat in front of the door. We spend every weekend morning drinking this coffee, swimming in the humid air. I don’t worry about the day when he wakes up before me and kisses my sleeping mouth goodbye, because he’s the heavy sleeper, and I’m the early riser. I know tomorrow and the next day and the next, I’ll see him in person, never inside a screen or in another time zone. But right now, all that steady thinking is futile. The change will come and it will feel permanent. Like a haircut that won’t grow out fast enough or a slow-healing scar It will take a few days to adjust to life un accompanied. It will take time to figure out when I can call, and more to figure out what times he can answer. The door to the elevator opens and I step into the hallway. I take another whiff of his coffee’s perfume, tell my nose to savor it; in just a few weeks, I won’t be smelling dark roast for a long while Soon we will go back to how it’s always been, at least a thousand miles between us By the time he comes back we’ll have both gotten old er. He’ll probably be thinner, I’ll have a college degree. We may need to move in with my parents here, or his in Arizona, while we both search for jobs, first and new. This route I’ve been running, the coffee, the farm er’s market booths. These are all temporary, and they’re out of my con trol. All I can count on lies inside of him, where it will be even when he’s on the other side of the Atlantic.

I reach our door and slowly turn the key we’ve been sharing. The door has proven loud and I don’t want to wake him. I step into the bed room and see he is still here, fast asleep.