He closed the bathroom door, stood against it.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: i still care about you too
hi joel. i’d like to start out by saying i agree! I AM AMAZING.
you obviously blew it. but yes, you already knew that.
i will never understand how you can say i know you, even though there is a HUGE part of you i obviously don’t know. the part of you that decided to break our marriage vows. i didn’t do that. i would’ve never done that to you. but like i said before, we’ve been over this.
i do have more questions for you since you’re opening up. the love you feel for her…how is it different from the love you felt for me? is it different? it’s the same love, but it shifted? also, how does it feel to be a father? i know how badly you wanted it. or how badly you thought you wanted it. well, now you have it! without me. doesn’t it feel kind of…i don’t know…wrong? what happens when you get what you really want? do tell.
i appreciate the sentiment of your email. you seem to finally be…trying. men need to get better at taking care of the women they claim to love so much.
tallie.
He was stung by those words, his own choices. Tallie had invaded his privacy, and now he’d properly invaded hers. Started it drunk, but still keeping it up sober. Maybe he could spin and sweeten what he’d done by forwarding the emails to her real email address as a gift when he left her. Spill the secrets of what Joel obviously hadn’t been man enough to tell her before, help her heal.
Emmett used the bathroom and ran his hand through his hair—an oil slick. He poked his head out the bathroom door.
“Miss Tallie, it’s okay if I take a shower? I haven’t taken one since Wednesday. I plumb forgot to this morning, with everything going on,” he said loud enough for her to hear him. The Miss had escaped accidentally, out of country-boy habit. The cats walked down the hallway to investigate what the fuss was about. He opened the door all the way and crouched to pet them as they purred and filled the hallway with their tiny-thunder meows.
“Miss Tallie? That makes me feel old,” she said, now standing across from him.
“Forgive me. I promise I don’t mean it that way. I’m from the country.”
“Yes, you can take a shower,” she said, stepping toward him so she could open the linen closet he was leaning against. In such close quarters, her arm slipped across the hem of his shirt; he felt the warmth.
“Sorry,” he said, moving for her.
“You’re fine,” she said. She got out a folded fluffy towel and gave it to him. “Body wash, shampoo, conditioner, it’s in there. All of it smells really lovely.” She pointed toward the ruffly curtain behind him. He thanked her before closing the door and stepping into the entirely new and confusing planet that was someone else’s shower. Took him a second, but he got the right pressure, the right temperature.
（Five bottles of body wash: wild cherry, apricot, lavender, peppermint, Chanel. A thick cake of pressed-flower soap. A frilly pink pouf resembling an overripe peony. A translucent shower mat that looks like bubble wrap. Clean. Everything is very clean.）
He imagined living there, making a life with Tallie. He imagined taking a photo of himself, soapy and dripping in Tallie’s shower, sending it to Joel. Emmett smiled thinking about how much Tallie hated Joel’s ponytail as he lathered up his hair with her shampoo. He held the bottle in his sudsy hands, mouthed the words as he read it: orange blossom and neroli, a lemon tree by the ocean. The water steamed up like a jungle, rained him clean.
*
Once Emmett got out, he realized he hadn’t asked Tallie for any clothes to put on. He could wear what he slept in last night, but those clothes were out there on the couch. He dried off completely, wrapped the towel around his waist. He’d dripped on his white shirt. He put it over his head and stepped out into the hallway. The TV was down low; British accents and a sharp laugh track. Tallie’s argument of dark curls hung loose over the side of the couch.
“Could I put those same clothes back on? Is that okay?” he asked.
One of her cats stretched up on the arm of the couch, sniffed the air, the cloud of citrus following him. The rain had eased up, but the gutters were overflowing, rushing and dripping against her windows. He was sleepy and dizzy from the heat of the shower, from her cozy house, their dinner. From the emotions of yesterday and now tonight. He felt simultaneously light, like he could float away—and so heavy it was as if he were sinking into Tallie’s blond hardwood floor, her plush rugs. For the past three years he’d been suffering from lingering headaches, black-hole moods. His body weight felt doubled and cursed by the burden of gravity. He swallowed the little fire in his throat, petted the cat’s head with one hand, rubbed behind its ears. He kept his other hand wrapped around the towel knot at his waist.