Goodnight Owl

I can tell she’s probably in love with me by the way she sits on my bed, when her eyes get big and then shy and she says I wish I lived with you, not him. I don't want her to live with me which makes me feel guilty and confused so I say nothing.

One night she invites me over to her house to watch a movie. Because it's suspicious that I always go over to your place, she says. When I come in the door her little black cat runs over, sits at my feet and meows and meows. Its yellow eyes interrogate me like I have something to give away. She picks up the cat and puts her chin on top of its head. It purrs. I sit on the couch.

She sets the cat on the floor, turns off the lights and sits on the couch – flicks on the TV. The nightly news is about to end, they are showing a local story about a family who brought home a Christmas tree and found a barn owl living inside of it. We both laugh at the close up of the little owl’s big eyes, clinging to a branch, lost and found in the living room of some family nearby. I want an owl to live in my Christmas tree, she exclaims. I shake my head. We both look at the large tree in the corner of the room, half expecting to see a pair of eyes glaring back at us. Her husband picked it out, she’s told me earlier, and she has decorated it.

Poor little owl, I reply. It needs to go home. She agrees, then pushes play. An old film. Singing in the Rain. I get bored at the singing and so nibble a little on her neck. Her husband is asleep in the other room because he has to get up at four and perform surgery at the same hospital I had all my teeth pulled when I was twelve. She turns her neck and checks the bedroom door and then turns around and looks at me. Hi, she whispers. She moves her face close to me and smiles, I can see the white of her teeth in the dark. Hello, I whisper back. She puts her long pale hand on the back of my neck and scratches my skin with her nails. I tilt my head to the side and she moves her fingers behind my ear and through my hair. I close my eyes and let everything go black until I can feel her watching me and so I open my eyes again. She looks at me, sighs through the back of her throat. I lean her down on the cushions and crawl on top of her.

When I am moving on her legs, I hear the click and creak of a door opening behind me. I leap off her body, my spine curling up into the air like lightning, and I push myself backward against the far side of the couch. I sit erect and breathe out of my nose. Her husband flicks on the hall light, shuffles down the hall, opens the bathroom door, shuts it, peeeeeeees. We glance at each other until he opens the bathroom door again. He walks over to where we are sitting and puts his hand on top of his wife's head. Everything alright? he asks. He is wearing black and blue pajama pants. I notice how wrinkled they are and suddenly he becomes a real person. I turn my head away. She says yeah honey, her voice timid and shaky like a little bird. He kisses the top of her hairline and I notice the few ruffled strands of black slipping out the back end of her tight bun. When he catches me watching, his eyes linger on me so I turn and face the glow of the television. On the screen there are two men and one woman in the middle. The three of them are doing a dance.

He stands there behind me a while, says goodnight, returning to his bedroom, he leaves the hall light on. Her and I exchange eyes and stay on opposite sides of the couch. On the television there is a rain-soaked man running through the streets, swinging, propelling himself around the light pole as he sings. When the song ends, I tell her I should go. No don't leave, she says. Her black cat jumps up off the floor and onto the sofa. She scratches behind its ears and it meows again. It won’t stop. Shhhh, she says. She scratches the cat up and down its spine with her long nails until its quiet. The cat moves its nails in and out of its front paws against the jeans of her thin legs. It makes a circle and settles on her lap.

Really, I should go, I tell her. She exhales heavily, and tosses the little cat onto the floor. It runs behind the Christmas tree. I'm not sure who she's mad at. She follows me to the door and when I open it, her cat scurries over and out the door, tries to escape into the dark of the night. She screams its name like she’s already lost it. I dash on to the porch and grab the back of the cat’s bony little body. Something about its spine reminds me of her. I keep a tight grip as it tries to free itself from my hands. I walk over to the doorway where she is standing and throw the cat inside as I quickly pull the door behind me. I leave a small crack open. I smash my nose and mouth and eye against the slit, where I can barely see her silhouette standing there in the dark, the Christmas tree glowing behind her. I stand there, outside in the cool of the night, my hand on the cold handle of the door. Hoo, I say through the crack. The timer on her tree lights flicker then turn off. She's just an outline now. Goodnight, she whispers.