Harold is hacking the onion with a bread knife, again. I pass him the santoku and say, “Use this.” He sighs. He sighs because I have promised to allow him to make his own mistakes. After all, I have no claim on the proper way of dicing an onion. I am no chef. To be honest, I have never pursued an interest far enough to define myself by it, and certainly not with a word ending in er—painter, baker, writer, runner. But I am his husband, and now his fingers are edging too close to the blade. Out of a duty to protect him, I say, “Use your nails to keep from slipping.” Harold pauses. He adjusts his grip, and I marvel at the miracle of simple instructions; the subtext difficult to extrapolate, to guess, or to misunderstand. And because I am not brave enough to leave him, the next best option is to offer simple instructions then get out of his way.

I inventory the produce on the counter. Tomatoes. Bay leaf. Oranges. I check the fridge for the cod, then ask, “Did you get everything on the list?”

Silence bloats while he stares at the cutting board. A small slab of ochre, stained and scarred that he had gifted to me for our anniversary.

“Well,” he says, “I got piri-piri and garlic. I even found São Jorge, but I didn’t see any cod.”

“Didn’t see any cod.”

“But,” Harold says as he reaches for the grocery bag and, from it, withdraws an enormous mushroom. “A hen of the woods,” he says.

I close the fridge so gently it does not make a sound, yet the ceramic rooster teeters above the stove. I tell myself it—the cod, his carelessness—is unintentional; that despite having complained every year about how the salty fish bloats his fingers and how he dislikes the lingering taste of garlic, he would never intentionally supplant my needs with his own desires. We have different priorities, that’s all. We see things differently. Tia Amália would tell me that loving well is a matter of not looking too closely. And I would say to her: Yes, but who wants love if it is afraid to look you in the face?

“I thought you didn’t like bacalhau,” he says.

He is correct. That’s the joke. Even the knock-off version I make, because no stores around here sell the real fish, is too salty. Nevertheless, I won’t agree with Harold. This is not, and has never been, about what I like or dislike. I have promised Tio Silvino that I would make the dish for him every year on the day Tia Amália died. He is my only living family, and this tradition is the only one that matters to us both. But this year, preparing the meal feels like casting an incantation I no longer believe will work. Dice garlic. Chop onions. Simmer olive oil. I worry I will miss one crucial step and reveal that I am no longer capable of doing what I have promised others.

“I need to go to the market,” I say.

He releases the knife. Onions scatter across the board.

“I’m doing my best,” he says.

Harold always does his best. I know that, and I want to apologize for my impatience. I feel guilty for the way meanness pokes through my skin like some artichoke spine when I am unhappy. And when I get like that, I don’t trust words to cut cleanly through my feelings. I am not a talker. I am not a writer. My words sting or they are too dull to emerge. Maybe if I were better at expressing what I felt, I would know how to tell him that I do not want his best.

As I pull on my jacket, I default to simple instructions: “Please,” I say, “just pour this olive oil into the pan. Let the garlic simmer, then turn off the heat.”

I linger in the doorway. His jaw is striking in that light. He is precise as he pours oil into the pan, and that precision has always made me feel safe. But precision is not enough, and the heat is too high. The oil crackles and smokes. The garlic, I know, will burn.

“I’ll be back soon,” I say. I cannot afford to correct him again, and the only way to stop myself from hurting us both is to leave.

—

Harold had arrived early for dinner, and when I described who I was meeting, the waitress said, “Oh, the man with the bowtie?” then led me to the patio. Fairy lights shone above us. Candles glinted on the tables. He stood when he saw me and kissed my cheek. He was so excited that, when he sat, he rested his arm heavily on the table, knocking it off balance. The water glass tipped over, spilling onto my lap. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. But I laughed. His eagerness amused me. At the beginning, he apologized for his mistakes, and I did not feel responsible for them.

While we waited for our food, Harold kept glancing at a couple near the fountain at the far side of the patio. I expected him to joke about them, about the way they held hands and kissed and appeared very much in love. But he just watched them as if their display of affection confused him. It occurred to me that, although we had been dating for several months, we had not yet held hands, so I reached across the table and placed mine over his. He looked down, furrowed his brow. A beetle, clumsy, inoffensive, and only slightly alarming, had landed on our fingers just as I interlaced them. Its feet tickled my thumb as it shuffled over the knuckle.

“My aunt claims these are good luck,” I said. And before I could explain how Tia Amália painted her nails by the kitchen window at night while beetles and moths banged into the glass, searching for the bright light she kept there to attract them, Harold jerked his wrist, and the insect hit the ground. It skittered a foot away, its shell scraping against the brick. After collecting itself, it flew upward, toward the string lights, higher, then higher still, until I perceived no difference between its wings and the night.

The server set a wooden plank on our table. She gestured to the duck rillette, the cornichon, the artisanal pretzels with tiny mustard tins. Harold frowned and tilted his head toward the fountain. The couple shared a bowl of moule-frites. “Maybe we should have gotten that instead.”

“I’m happy with this,” I said. “I love the cornichon.”

I looked up, hoping to glimpse the beetle shining in the dark. Tia Amália ground the wings of dead beetles into a powder that she added to her nail polish to make it shimmer. He did not yet know how the stories she told me as a child burdened me with the hope life would be brighter than it was; that, because of her, new feelings blinded me until my eyes adjusted and the particulars came into focus. 

The couple sitting near the fountain stood. They walked toward us. Harold raised his hand to get their attention, then, “Was the moule-frites as good as it looked?” he asked. The taller of the two shook his head. “No.” The shorter one laughed. “But it wasn’t bad.” Then they continued beneath the string lights, which were flickering in a sudden, strong breeze. Harold took my hand. He was smiling now, luminous with the news that he had made the correct decision after all. A gust blew and paper napkins burst into the air around us, fluttering, dropping, spinning slowly like giant white moths, touching silently onto the ground, except for one, which landed in the candle and erupted into a blaze that flashed and was gone, leaving only enough light for me to see Harold while my eyes refocused.

—

We had been together for two years on the night I told Harold, “Tia Amália is dead.” The power had just gone out. He was pulling back the curtain at the kitchen window and, with those rings clanging against the rod, did not hear me. “Can you believe it?” he said, referring to the construction lamp aimed at the torn-up street below. The glow through his blinds had interfered with his rest all week, and he had been complaining of lightheadedness from lack of sleep. He dreamed that the tips of his fingers were translucifying from fatigue. Harold loathed being wrong, so I did not tell him that the construction crew was not responsible for our lost electricity; that, look, in an apartment across the way, a couple was actually enjoying their dinner together under a bright chandelier; or that we begin disappearing from the toes and only when we have given up hope. Plus, the window was fogging up in front of him, obscuring our view. Somehow, he did not notice, even as he rubbed away the condensation with his sleeve.

“My aunt is dead.”

“When did that happen?”

“Just now.”

“How do you know?”

Aside from the power and the fog, I knew from the ice melting too quickly in our cocktails, and I knew from the cumin canister, how it shimmied on the countertop, and I knew from the dozens of shining beetles collecting on the windowsill, seeking entry to the apartment despite its darkness. I could have pointed out a dozen other ways that I knew, but if I told him, Harold would have dismissed these signs as superstition. Make-believe, he would say, reassured by the logic of cause and effect. More than being wrong, I believe he was afraid of what he could not feel for himself. For him, love was a theory and the end, death, only ever arrived open-mouthed, articulate, and simple, but I heard the world speaking of Tia Amália’s passing through gritted teeth. How do you know?, he had asked me, when the only answer I could imagine was “How do you not?” He looked through the curtain again and grumbled about the power, reassuring himself that all feelings had concrete explanations.

“I need to call my uncle,” I said. “I’m going out.”

I paced the sidewalk outside the building while Tio Silvino flooded me with panicked Portuguese. I told him, “Diga-me com calma,” but he could not dam up his grief. This was not the Silvino of my aunt’s stories, the brave one who suffered no anxieties and who observed the world with such calm he seemed immune to fear. She always glowed when she told the story of how they met: Out on the trail in Lagoa, he had found the camp where she’d strung white sheets between pines and positioned bright lamps behind the fabric. Moths and beetles, craneflies and lacewings, midges and shield bugs and caddisflies swarmed the fabric, which moved like living bark. Silvino, who never hiked without his sketchbook, began drawing a beetle, and by the time Amália had returned from her walk, he had completed an illustration in such detail that its wings beat if you looked at it askance. They fell in love. Not long after, he installed a light in his own window for her to enjoy whenever she visited, and he tended that light even after they were married. I believed everyone deserved a light like that. But now, Tio Silvino said that the light had gone out even though he had not stopped loving her—that he had strung a blanket in the window and set a candle behind it, but he had placed them too close, and the cloth had caught, and the fire department had to be called.

“She is gone,” he told me.

“I know,” I said, and I did not need to tell him how I knew.

—

A bright-eyed grocery store clerk asks me, “Do you need help?” so I tell him I need cod to serve my uncle as an offering to his dead wife. He doesn’t know what to say, so he laughs. Perhaps he thinks I’m joking. “I’m not joking,” I tell him, and he points to the fish counter and hurries away in the opposite direction. No one is working behind the mounds of ice and slabs of pink salmon, so I take a number at the deli and wait for the butcher, an affable giant with a baby face, to ask me what I need.

When he does, I tell him, “Five pounds of cod,” ready to hear him say that I can’t have what I want, but he chuckles at some private joke and says, “That’s a lot of fish!” then changes his gloves.

“Are you sure?” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “Five pounds is a lot!”

“I mean, are you sure I can have it? It is that easy?”

He smiles, and he looks at me as if understanding that I just needed someone to take my desire seriously.

“Sure, I’m sure,” he says. “Anything else besides the fish?” and I wonder how Harold had not managed this—this simple recognition that I might want more than I ask.

I hang my thoughts on the butcher: I imagine him coming home and taking his shoes off outside, which I have asked him to do so the house does not smell of fish and blood. He does not need to be reminded. He showers right away and leaves the steaming bathroom with a towel around his waist to find me on the couch. He kisses my neck. His fingers trace the curve of back. My body does not inspire the least fear or disgust in him. It is so easy for him to give me what I want. For him, my desires are not complicated. He clears his throat.

“No,” I say. “That’s all for now.”

He walks to the other counter to retrieve the loin. He weighs the fish by hand within a tenth of a pound, then he seals the wrapping with a sticker. As he hands me the parcel, the display light beneath him sputters, then goes out. He tuts and bangs the counter with the back of his hand. The light turns on again. He has done this a thousand times. Changing gloves, packaging meat, handing parcels over the counter. Sometimes the light goes out, but he does not panic. He knows that procedures ensure predictable outcomes. He knows how to fix broken things. Bang it with the back of your hand. Gently. Enough to reconnect the circuit. The light goes out again, and when he slaps the counter, it does not turn back on. He sighs and hits it again. Again, it stays dark. Perhaps the light is well and truly dead.

“I can fix it,” I tell him. And, before he can reply, I step around the counter.

“Sir,” he says. “Please don’t.”

“It’s okay. I can fix it.”

But what does he care? He is bigger than me in every sense. I lean past him. I do not have gloves. I twist the light inside the case until it blinks and blinks, then illuminates—a steady, warm, comforting glow. I can’t help myself. I wipe my eyes, and he places his hand on my shoulder.

“Sir,” he says. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“I know,” I say. “I shouldn’t be the one here.”

He notices that I am crying and says, “Are you okay? Do you want a slice of cheese? That always makes the kids happy.”

I nod, and he hefts a block of Land O’Lakes onto the slicer and shears off a square. I think, How gentle he is for such a large man, and my face flushes and I feel as if someone has separated my head from my neck by two inches. But those two inches are enough for me to worry that I won’t ever reconnect with my body. I try not to cry, but I am crying harder, and if the man has noticed, I am grateful he understands that I do not want to be shamed for weeping under fluorescent deli lights. I think, He must know me. He has seen other not-quite people wake up one day after a long half-slumber to find themselves sidling up to his counter, asking for more than they need because it is not what they want and they have lost the habit of deciding for themselves what they want.

I take the slice he offers me. It is so thin that it melts on my tongue.

“How is it?” he asks.

Although I don’t like it, I say, “Good.” I don’t want to upset him, and I still have someone else’s taste in my mouth.

—

Five pounds of cod wrapped in brown paper accompany me past my street, my town, and onto the highway. As I hit the city limits, Harold calls. The photo I had taken of him at the artisan festival appears on the screen. A Christmas tree sparkles behind him, and he holds the plastic bag which carried the cutting board he’d bought for me as an anniversary present.

We had walked from vendor to vendor and bought nothing. He disliked at least one crucial element about each other artists’ work. Much of it he dismissed as unoriginal and overpriced. When we arrived in the woodworker’s stall, the woman so strongly resembled Tia Amália—her hair a messy gray bun, rings on each finger—that I accidentally spoke to her in Portuguese, to which Harold interjected, “Sorry, so sorry about,” as if I had done something wrong.

She showed me a sample board, complete with scars and stains. She wanted to let me know what I was getting into once the wood had taken a beating. Ochre tones popped from the glossy, variegated grain. She was right. Somehow, it was more beautiful when it wasn’t pretending to be flawless.

“How could I ever chop garlic on this?” I asked. “I would feel guilty marking it.”

“You can’t avoid it. They’re meant to be used.”

“How much is this one?” I asked.

“Forty-five.”

Harold cleared his throat. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other like he was eager to get away from useless and costly kitchen tools. I looked at the cutting board once more. It was beautiful. I wanted it, but I could go without it if it meant avoiding a fight. I thanked the woman for her time, and we walked out into the fair. 

“I’m going to get us some mulled wine,” Harold said. Then, before I could tell him I wasn’t thirsty, he left me standing by the Christmas tree. He was gone for only a few minutes, and he returned with two styrofoam cups and a plastic bag looped over his arm.

“I think you’ll like this,” he said as he pulled a cutting board from the bag. It was smaller than the one I had been admiring in the stall. But I said, “I love it,” and kissed him. This, I thought, was what Tia Amália meant when she said that loving well meant not looking too closely.

The ringing jams itself between that memory and the cod, the reek of which is starting to leak from its packaging. The car smells faintly of salt and ocean and early decay. It shouldn’t be going bad so quickly, but it is. Or maybe it was bad to begin with and, in my desperation, I did not check if it was rotting from the inside. I simply trusted the man who seemed to know what he was doing. I answer the call.

“What is going on?” he asks. “I called you three times.”

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t notice.”

“When are you coming home?”

“I’m not,” I tell him.

Quiet spreads between us. He is waiting for the punchline, but when the joke does not end because the joke never began, the joy abandons his voice, and he says, “What?” Then we repeat a version of the same conversation twice before I say, “I’m sorry, but I’m lost. There are no streetlights on this road, and I need to watch for signs.” He holds the silence longer than I imagine he is capable, then I hang up. At first, I wonder what cause he attributes to my decision, but he does not try to call me again so I imagine he must have drawn some logical conclusion.

I drive until I find a highway with a number I don’t recognize. The clock reads 1:36 AM, and I know that it is really 1:33 AM because I am on my own time, not Harold’s. I find a gas station, fill up the tank, and buy gum, electrolyte water, and a pack of cigarettes. I don’t think of myself as a smoker, but I could be. I drive further without calling Tio Silvino. To do so is unnecessary. I’m sure that he already knows—by the blinking of some light, or by the time changing on his own clocks, that I have left.

Sunrise is lonely, but the sky is exceptional: a shining red orb flickering against the purple horizon. I see the sun as if it has wings. I see it as one large beetle producing its own light. I look at the seat next to me, as if he will be there and prompt me.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I say, as if he is still speaking through me. Only the cod hears me. It is giving off its quiet stink. I am still not strong enough to believe I have made the right decision, but I say, “Isn’t it beautiful?” and at least the voice sounds like my own. ■

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