"Say somethin."
   I pushed his hand away and got up from the davenport. I walked over to the window. There weren't nothin to say anyways. I went to the kitchen where the gnats got to work on the dishes there, and I started to washin up.
   He came into the room and stood at my back. Close to me at the sink like that. "Ida," he said.
   I just kept washin up.
   "Ida." He put his hands on my shoulders, and his hands felt thick and hard like they always did, and I felt it on my skin by my dress straps and that went all through me. He moved the hair away from my neck and kissed me there below my hair. And I was cryin.
   "Will you look at me?" He was tryin to turn me around, but I didn't wanta look.
   "Come on, pretty girl."
   The dishes had been there gettin hard and the water had to be hot for it to get done. But I'd made the water too hot, and it burnt my hands, but I was too still there to turn it. I kept to wipin at one clean plate under the hot tap with some of the tears drippin in.
   He took one hand from my shoulder and reached over me and turned off the tap. I stopped wipin.
   He pulled me to face him and I looked downt the floor. He started pullin the way he can on my jaw to get me to look up at him. I worked to keep my head downt there. And then he stopped tryin.
   He walked to the window in the kitchen.
   I stood there like that but then I turned back to the dishes. I put my hands in the water and jumped a little at the hot. I didn't change it, though, and went on, hopin I'd come use to it.
   It was rainin out. And it was that time before bed in summer when the light struggles. It smelled soft in the house from the rain. From the sink I could see out the window the car up on the jacks.
   He went over to the kitchen drawer there by the wall, and I heard him take the bag out and the papers and he was behind me, but in my head I could see him stand there and roll it like a thousand times before.
   He lit it from the stove and I shut my eyes to smell it there with the rain and the dishwater like a thousand times, and I dropped my head with my eyes blinkin.
   He came back over behind me and there was that wet wind that comes in the breezeway when it's like that out, and I got chills because he touched me at the same time it come by me.
   "I'm sorry, pretty girl." He stood there behind me, with me at the sink. The joint was in his one hand and he put the other arm around my waist.
   We stood there like that and there was some thunder and I remembered when we smoked that time at my sister's when it was kinda like this out. The lights went out and my sister was gone with her husband and we was watchin the boys and they were in bed. And we smoked on the floor in the upstairs bedroom and the light was like this and he pushed my hair from my face and said, "Pretty girl." And we made love there in the bedroom on the floor. And when we was done, he had his head on my belly and he cried there and I felt the tears in my belly button. But I didn't ask him what was wrong. I touched his hair.
   The water was still stingin in the sink, and I was cryin but less now.
   I felt the hot start on my neck from where his face was and felt it get hotter there and wet and I could smell that smell that a man cryin has. Salt and spit and somethin weird and sweet from the breath from his nose.
   I took my hands out from the water and they were wet and pink and big and my one finger swelled wet around my wedding ring. I turned around with his arm around my waist and I faced him there. And we was cryin, the two of us in the kitchen like that.
   He was holdin me around the waist and his back was bent. He shook a little in that way when you're cryin. The joint put that gray smoke against the globe light above our heads.
   I held him there like that lookin out the breezeway and the light outside got me to think how I'd held him like this before with the light like this and these smells. And I thought about other times, different times, when the light and the smell were different. I thought about the number of times I'd seen him put the joint out in a little spot of coffee in the morning. And I could see him with his big fingers act so gentle with it like it was a sewing needle or some precious piece of hair.
   And so he cried there against me with all that in the room, and I touched his hair. And I nudged him forward and looked at him but only for a second, and I took the joint from his fingers. I smoked it a second. And he heaved a breath like I never really heard him do. It was phlegmy and hurting and he coughed wet.
   When he got through coughin he said quiet, "Jesus, Ida, I'm sorry." His lips were wet and his hair was pullin out of its ponytail in the back. His hair was all gray now. The gray only happened in the last few years. A month or so ago when I was meetin him after work at Hodge's, I didn't even recognize him. And I laughed then, "We been married that long?" "I guess so," he laughed back and put his hand under my hair on my neck like he does.
   With the joint in my fingers there lookin at the light outside I stepped out of his arms and just stepped back and looked at him. He was stooped sort of and his skin was pink from bein sorry. I stood there lookin at him and I tried to think of a memory where he weren't in it. And I looked at him and his shoulders moved like when you just got through cryin and those smells were all over and those little sounds I heard everyday so's I don't even hear them anymore. The light hummin, the joint's buzz every now and again. The pump in the downstairs clickin off, and I heard all those sounds and I looked at him. And I couldn't remember a memory where he weren't in it. I always knew him. Sometimes in my thoughts I knew him before I met him.
   I handed the joint back to him and when our fingers touched I felt an old rush in my belly. But then there was a single second when I thought of his fingers takin the joint from some fingers other than mine in some room that wasn't this room.
   I turned back to the sink. I felt him near me and he pulled on the joint wet. I looked out the window at the Pontiac on the jacks. I ran my fingers across my lips. I knew him from the feet up. I ran my fingers across my collar bones. I put my hands in the water.
   "I'll go if you want it," he said.
   I thought about a woman's body. A woman I never saw. Her tits larger than mine and her belly and hips fuller. I thought about her hair a different color than mine. Pale blonde maybe or maybe black. I thought about her as pieces. Mounds and flows. And I thought about her hands and what her fingers might look like with a cigarette or with a dish rag.
   "Ida, I'll go if you want it," he relit the joint at the stove and sat hard and slow at the table like a thousand times.
   My heart pounded with my hands in the hot water. I felt cramping in my groin when I thought of his hands on the back of a neck that wasn't mine, and I did want him to go. Or I wanted to go myself. But I stood there with my fingers in the dishwater silent.
   "You have to say somethin," he whispered it like it weren't for me. "Please, baby, say somethin."
   I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to ask him why he needed some neck other than my neck or some belly that wasn't mine. I wanted to ask how come I can't think of single memory where he weren't in it and he has new memories I'm not in. I wanted to know if he remembered the thousand times we stood in the kitchen and the light and smell were just like this. And if he remembered the other nights where the light and smell were different? I remembered. I remembered braiding his ponytail and smoking the joint and cooking breakfast. And I remembered when the Pontiac still ran. I remembered it all. And so all I could say was, "Stay."

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