Tuesday. Walked the reservoir path before the rain came on at four, the gulls holding their stations on the railing, the pump house humming its Sunday hum on the wrong day, and E. was at the far gate in the green coat, the collar up, and I kept my distance the way we agreed without ever agreeing it. The knee was better today.
Wednesday. Bread from the corner place, still warm at the till. The girl there calls me by the old name for the loaf, half-and-half, her mother’s word. E. wore the green coat again. Two days is not a habit.
Thursday. Renewal day. The knee again. Rain from four, and it came at four.
Friday. E. opened this diary at four in the morning. I kept the entry short.
Monday. A long walk, the whole circuit, the water lying under its cover like furniture in a shut house. Thought about the anniversary. The lake, as planned, the second week of June, the room with the balcony over the lake, breakfast at the place with the blue awnings. She will want the balcony side. I have made a note to want the window. She sleeps nearest the door in every room we ever had, one foot out of the covers, and my hand knew the ladder of her spine.
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Tuesday. E. has begun underlining. Pencil, light, the way she does the shopping list, twice under the bread. Under Tuesday’s gulls. Under the collar up. I write toward the underlinings now.
—the man with the black dog has started wearing a hat. It does not suit him. And the bread was still warm when I got it home, which is the whole trick of that place, the shortness of the walk, and E. was on the bench by the second gate, not walking, just sitting with the coat closed to the throat, and I sat the length of the path away and we watched the same water not move.
Thursday. Renewal day. The girl at the corner place has stopped asking after E. People learn the shape of a household quicker than they learn a name.
June, the second week. The lake, as planned. First light the color of the inside of a shell, the balcony exactly as pictured, breakfast under the blue awnings, the coffee arriving before we asked, and E. in the green coat at the rail with her face turned to the water, and I did not photograph her, some mornings are for keeping in the older way. The room kept the reservation in both our names. The second name is a service.
—the gulls again, all facing the same way, into the weather, which is how you know what is coming before the sky says so, and E. stood among them at the railing with her hands in the coat, and one by one they left and she stayed, the last thing on the railing, facing into it.
Saturday. Woke early with her on my skin from the old side of sleep. The hollow of her back damp under my hand, her heel hooked on my ankle to keep me there, the sound she makes into the pillow so the neighbors stay strangers — I have all of it, exact: the salt of her nape, the two moles like a colon on her hip, the way she said my name once after, to file it. I kept the entry long. Some things should be written the size they were.
Wednesday. Pages missing above this one again, the fourth time. I do not remember not writing. The book resumes me mid-sentence.
Thursday. Renewal day. The knee. The rain held off past four and nobody came out to enjoy the error. The cover has a new mark, deep, the shape of a thumbnail.
Sunday. E. read for a long time today, from the first Tuesday forward, the pencil in her hand the whole way, and put nothing under anything, and closed it, and sat with the cover shut under her palm the way you hold shut a door that opens outward. I kept the entry short. Tomorrow the circuit, the far gate, the collar weather. She knows where I walk.