Why does she turn her face away from her lover? Aldo had asked. Regan thought it was to show the woman’s expression, to capture her emotion by the blissful contortion of her face, but Aldo thought otherwise. He thought: To give into something all at once was to lose yourself completely, and therefore to resist was to exchange one fleeting moment of pleasure for a more exquisite, abounding pain.
Relatedly, there was Regan. “No, not here,” he had said, catching her hands. She’d already had his pants unzipped, her dress hiked up, but he had his face turned away. “Not here, not now,” followed by pain or anger, he didn’t know which. What had come first, the warp of rage when he’d pushed her away, or the one when her mother betrayed her? Had Regan felt a compulsive need for sex to be reminded that she was loved, or had she simply craved the love she had never received inside the house where she had never received it? Aldo had thoughts about compulsion and craving, about the differences between them, and now, he thought, Which was he?
Was it love between them, or was it need?
Lines, colors, and textures. The little hexagon, and then the yellow-not-yellow of Regan’s dress.
Where would he undo it, if he could undo it?
“Where’s the real one?” he had asked her, and was that the thing that had done it?
（Undone it?）
No, not there. Not yet. Close, but not quite—
She was full of innocence, softly murmuring, “What do you mean?”
“You’re lying.” He’d already done the research. He’d learned her right away.
“Aldo, listen—”
Wait for it, he thought, replaying it again. Wait for the blood to boil in his sad, pathetic veins. Wait for his confusion, his sense of loss. Wait for her to stare at him, lying like only she could lie, and wait for him to think, for the first time, about the way she’s never really answered a question. It was charming at first, wasn’t it? An eccentricity, an artistic detail, a golden little hexagon on the mark of what she was. It was infatuating, learning to read her, only she’s not just a problem without a solution, she’s a broken loop that can’t be fixed. Wait for him to realize it, to place things into categories in his head, and then wait for him to wonder if, while he was experiencing something special, she had ever really felt the same?
Wait for him to think, My god, she’s a forger. She’s a thief, she replicates things. Wait for him to say to himself: I am not only the same as Marc, but Marc is the same as the man before him, and the men who are the same as the men before that, and perhaps we are all counterfeit bills, recreated over and over while she cheapens our value, drains us of meaning, spends us like currency and throws us away. Wait for him to think, It’s too fast, everything is too fast—and surely he doesn’t really believe this, but how could he not, when the signs are all there? He is supposed to recognize the patterns. He is the one who calls things that are always true by their names, he understands the difference between constants and variables, he assigns logic to exceptions and rules. Wait for him to look at her as if he has no idea who she is, or who he is, or what they are.
Wait for it—
“You really haven’t changed, have you?” he asks her.
Eventually, a later version of Aldo will recognize the detail for what it is. There it is, he thinks, and the thought is unsatisfactory, but final.
There it is. That’s the moment.
That’s the one.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO ALDO.
The spring preceding that particular evening was both familiar and unfamiliar, the way spring in Chicago always was. One day it was winter and the next the ice had thawed, and gradually buttons were loosened on coats, or perhaps coats were forgotten altogether on the way to normal, unremarkable errands down the block. Let’s get coffee, yes yes let’s, is it cold out? Surprisingly no, let’s go; and then outside the sun would shine, and so the relevant parties would say, Sunglasses?, Yes, sunglasses; and thusly, spring would creep into their constitutions. People would begin to crawl out from wherever they’d been hiding through the winter months, filling the streets again and reminding the rest of the city’s inhabitants that people did, in fact, live there. Every year it was a surprise how long and desolate a winter could be, and thus, every year spring was a welcome champion. It was like a collective breath of relief, the exhalation of monochrome dreariness. Even for Aldo and Regan, who had been warmer that winter for having been in each other’s arms, the arrival of spring was its usual reminder that all things have a season.