The Leftovers

told her all about it, in a lot more detail than she required. She did her best to look alert and interested, nodding at what seemed like the appropriate junctures, supplying the occasional comment or question to keep things moving along.
    A good girlfriend is a good listener , she reminded herself.
    But she was just pretending, and she knew it. In her former life, Doug used to sit across this very table and try her patience in a similar way, with long-winded soliloquies about whatever deal he happened to be working on at the moment, filling her in on the arcane legal and financial details of the transaction, thinking out loud about the various stumbling blocks that might arise, and what he might do to overcome them. But no matter how bored she was, she always understood that Doug’s work mattered to her on a personal level, that it would have consequences for their family, and that she needed to pay attention. As much as she appreciated Kevin’s company, she couldn’t quite convince herself that she needed to care about the intricacies of the building code or a deadline extension for pet licenses.
    “Is that just for dogs?” she wondered.
    “Cats, too.”
    “So you’re waiving the late fee?”
    “Technically, we’re extending the registration period.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “We’d rather encourage compliance,” he explained.
    *   *   *
    THEY SAT together in front of the flat-screen TV, Kevin’s arm around Nora’s shoulder, his fingers toying with her fine dark hair. She didn’t object to being touched like that, but she gave no sign of enjoying it, either. Her attention was riveted to the screen, which she studied with an air of brooding intensity, as if SpongeBob were a Swedish art film from the 1960s.
    He was happy enough to watch it with her, not because he enjoyed the show—he found it shrill and peculiar—but because it gave him an excuse to finally stop talking. He’d been babbling for too long about the council meeting—going on and on about overruns in the snow removal budget, the wisdom of replacing downtown parking meters with a ticket machine, etcetera, etcetera—just to spare them the awkwardness of sitting in prolonged silence like an old married couple with nothing left to say.
    What made it so maddening was that they barely knew each other, even after all the time they’d spent together on vacation. There was still so much left to discover, so many questions he wanted to ask, if only she would let him. But she’d made it clear in Florida that the personal stuff was off-limits. She wouldn’t talk about her husband or her kids, or even about her life before that. And he’d seen how she’d tensed up the few times he’d tried telling her about his own family, the way she’d winced and looked away, as if a cop were shining a flashlight in her eyes.
    At least in Florida they’d been in an unfamiliar environment, spending most of their time outdoors, where it was easy to break the silence with a simple exchange about the temperature of the ocean, or the beauty of the sunset, or the fact that a pelican had just flown by. Back here in Mapleton, there was none of that. They were always inside, always at her house. Nora wouldn’t go to the movies, to a restaurant, or even to the Carpe Diem for a nightcap. All they ever did was make labored small talk and watch SpongeBob .
    She wouldn’t even tell him about that. He understood that it was a rite of remembrance, and was touched that she let him be part of it, but he would’ve liked to know a little more about what the show meant to her, and what she wrote in her notebook when it was over. But apparently SpongeBob was none of his business, either.
    *   *   *
    NORA DIDN’T want to be like this, distant and shut down. She wanted to be the way she’d been in Florida, openhearted and alive, free with her body and spirit. Those five days had passed like a dream, both of them drunk on sunshine and adrenaline, perpetually amazed to find themselves together in the unfamiliar heat, liberated from the prison of their daily routines. They walked and they biked and they flirted and they swam in the ocean, and when they ran out of things to talk about, they had another drink, or sat in the Jacuzzi, or read a few pages of the thrillers they’d bought at the airport bookstore. In the late afternoons, they split up for a few hours, retiring to their separate rooms for a shower and a nap before reconvening for