The Other Way

     Too much coffee, not enough toast described his breakfast perfectly. His daily menu left a hole in his  stomach, a caffeinated black brew that sloshed when he stood up, and dissolved the crumbs of toast, white toast, before it reached his gut.

    "Too much coffee," he said aloud. "That's what's wrong with me."

    "Nothing wrong with you," the young doctor had said. "Heart sounds good, lungs doing their job. You're going to live to be a hundred," he'd said, and then laughed as if that would be a good thing. Who wouldn't want to be a hundred, get your picture in the paper, and a birthday card from the president?

    He did not want to be a hundred, did not want another 12 years sloshing around his flat. She'd always called their apartment their "flat" although he'd pointed out, more than once, that there was nothing flat about it. The walls were a glossy hue of undulating golds and greens--her choice; the table was round and the backs of the chairs, curved--his handiwork.

    "And," he said, always the clincher, "We don't live in England."

    "But we could," she would say. "Or should. Even ought."

    "But we don't," he'd thunder. He knew now that his voice was too loud, especially when he was irritated or adamant. "We don't!" he'd said more than once.

    "But we could!" Her come back, always, not as loudly as his, but just as sure. "We could."

    A silly argument, one of those pointless back and forths they'd practiced for years, almost a call and response: I'm right and you're wrong. Or maybe it was just I'm me and you're you. Not really the game they pretended it was, but a statement of the obvious: he was he and she was she.

    Now he was alone and could do whatever he wanted.

    Yippee!

    But...

    (There's always a "but.")

    But it was so much better the other way.