Away From Everywhere Read Online Free PDF Page A

been there and done that, but do nothing when they are there. But who am I to judge, really? At least they’ve been there and done that. It’s just that all his friends are the same person. Only the name changes. Alex knew who I was when he married me, how I am. It didn’t seem to matter then. It does now. And the truth is, everything about his life is flawless, so shouldn’t I be? These women, these “female acquaintances” of his, they are petty, shallow. But maybe that is what he likes about them. They aren’t too deep to drown in. Like me. Their traits are external and evident: bony hips like handles and cleavage even a priest would glance at…
    Owen closed the book and lay down on the couch. He’d read it like a novel, front to back, dog-earing his favourite parts. For the first time since the affair started, he reflected on how it had all begun and traced it back to him telling Hannah all the things Alex was taking for granted: petty, innocent little things, like how good she was with Callie and Lucia, that she made her own mayo instead of buying it, and how she bit her lower lip in a really cute way when she spread it over a slice of bread. Then he started noticing all the complimentary things there were to say to a woman like Hannah.
    He loved her need to touch things, how she’d rub the velvety skin of a peach before biting into it, or how she’d smooth her daughter’s shiny, jet-black hair every time she hugged her. And then he thought of her delicate, tactile hands as those of a passionate lover. And how weightless his body would feel with her hands on it. His mind would drift as he watched her planting bulbs in the garden, or scrubbing forks and knives in the kitchen sink. And he started picturing her body without those clothes on it: the jeans that carved out the curves of her body and the cardigans she always wore over shirts that cupped her breasts, like hands to be jealous of. He hated it when she wore her grey cardigan with the white tank top beneath, because whenever she bent forward he could see everything he wanted from life and everything he couldn’t have.
    The image hollowed his bones.
    He started picturing her lying on her back in his bed, naked, the fingers of his right hand snaking slowly from her belly to her breasts, to circle her nipples and feel her quiver beneath him. He took that image to bed one night, and couldn’t face her the next morning. He’d waited until ten o’clock so she wouldn’t be in the kitchen. But she was.
    With the girls entertained by the television, she sat at the kitchen table reading a novel. He watched her from the corner of his eye as he searched the fridge, a little too long, for milk. She’d periodically use a finger as a bookmark or just splay the book open on her thighs, and stare out the window – because every cloud was a miracle to Hannah, and it was that very fascination with ordinary things that made her so mesmerizing. He wanted to sit at that table and share meaningless stories with her, or their favourite movies and meals, and dream jobs and vacation spots. He just wanted her voice in his ears. He needed it. Like lungs need oxygen. Like how they’re useless without it.

THE BIGGEST LIE
    June 18th, 2008,
Alex, Owen, and I on the way to the cabin.
    My sister is watching the kids again, or, rather, living vicariously through them. Any chance to babysit Callie and Lucia and she’ll take them like they’re free gold, because my daughters are exactly what every expectant mother wishes for. The best thing in my life is knowing they could not live without me. Being needed this way. Alex loves our children, but he doesn’t know them like I do. Their favourite books and meals and animals and colours and places to go. I am their link to the world, they are experiencing it through me, and I know they are becoming who they are because of me. It is an astounding acknowledgement. I