And The Sea Called Her Name Read Online Free Page B

the
kitchen. And when I opened a white takeout box on the counter, I
saw it held the remains of some type of noodles and dark, coiled
shapes wound throughout them. I sniffed again, realizing what the
oily forms were.
    Eels.
    My mouth puckered with distaste. I hated eel,
and up until that point I thought Del had too. Her appetite had
remained good until then, her tastes never including the
stereotypical cravings of most pregnant women. Until now that
was.
    “Honey?” I called. No response. I moved
through the living room and caught sight of her standing in the
veranda, her back to me. There was a languidness to her posture, as
if she’d fallen asleep standing up. “Del,” I said, moving closer.
She turned her head a little, showing me a slight angle of her
face.
    “Yeah?”
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “What are you doing?”
    “Looking outside. What’s it look like I’m
doing?” The acidic edge to her voice caught me off guard. Emotional
swing, I figured, and tried a different tack.
    “I got a call today from Edward and
Towe.”
    “Who?”
    “The firm I applied to a few weeks back,
remember?”
    “Oh yeah.”
    I waited, hoping she would turn fully to look
at the smile on my face, but she returned her gaze to the sea
instead.
    “Yeah. I got an interview in the
morning.”
    “That’s great,” she said, but her tone said
otherwise. It was as if I’d told her the mail was here or that my
mother was coming to visit next week.
    “I think it could be the one,” I said, still
trying to engage her, but she didn’t respond. She picked up a glass
of water from the windowsill and took a drink before setting it
down.
    “I’m really tired,” she murmured after a
drawn silence. She moved toward the stairs, turning her shoulders
so that she wouldn’t brush against me, and left me standing in the
doorway alone with my good news that had deflated like a pricked
balloon. Some quiet music clicked on a moment later upstairs.
    I hovered there for nearly a minute before
stepping into the porch to stand where she had. The skies were
overcast and low, threatening a cool, fall rain. The ocean was a
frenzied wash of whitecaps and breakers that tossed foam high into
the air wherever it touched an outcropping of rock. A feeling I
hadn’t felt in a long time began to invade me. The last time I’d
encountered it was the first year of college when I’d seen my
steady girlfriend of the moment out with one of our teacher’s aides
at a restaurant after she’d told me she was heading to her parents’
house upstate for the weekend.
    My hand trembled slightly as I reached out to
pick up Del’s glass from the sill. A weakness flooded my muscles
like poison as thoughts that I would’ve scoffed at hours ago
whirl-winded through my mind. Absentmindedly I brought her cup to
my mouth and took a drink.
    I gagged, spitting onto the wood floor.
    The glass was full of saltwater.
    Abhorred, I brought the tumbler up and looked
at it, holding it to the gray light. Particles and brown bits I
didn’t want to identify swirled within it. I stared in the
direction of our room and listened to the music pour down from
where my wife had gone.
     
    ~
     
    I didn’t get the job.
    The interview had gone as wrong as one could.
I couldn’t blame it on anything or anyone but myself. I had
stuttered. I had gotten one of the partner’s names wrong, twice.
Near the end, when I knew the job would never be mine, I answered
in single words. It couldn’t be helped. I hadn’t slept the night
before, there was no way I could after having drank from Del’s
glass and realized what its contents were. I had tried to bring it
up to her that evening, but each time I did I would catch the
vacant look on her face, as if she were miles away, experiencing
something or someone intimately, completely in a world of her
own.
    When I came home there was a note on the
table. I approached it with the kind of dread a bomb squad member
feels when reaching for a