May 04, 2023
FICTION BY JENNIFER FERNANDEZ
ClosetOne February evening when the trees were still bare and shivering, my husband disappeared into a closet. His cold feet had stung mine the night before so I suggested he find an extra blanket. The house where we were staying was old and the nighttime chill snuck its way indoors through imperceivable cracks, presumably in the walls or windowsills, though who knows. The owners of the house had left us a binder explaining its various quirks—the hot and cold taps are reversed, the light in the entryway does not turn off—but we would soon find that they’d left off an important detail about the closet in the upstairs hall.
Earlier that day I’d watched my husband stand on the back lawn as he took in the saltwater air. He held his hands at his hips and stared up into the sky like a sunflower. I observed this from a second story bedroom window where I’d been changing the sheets. I wondered again how it was that he could spend such long stretches of time without speaking. Entire days could pass without him saying a word and after seven years together, I still found this to be one of the most curious things about him. He seemed to have very little need to share his thoughts or feelings. Fleeting inconsequential ramblings that others might share, he kept to himself. This all changed of course the night he went into the closet.
I watched as he climbed out of bed and made his way down the dark corridor to find one of the extra blankets. From my side of the bed I had a perfect view. My husband who always slept in the nude, made his way toward the closet completely exposed, his bright pale pink flesh glowing in the darkness. I watched as he extended a hand, turned the knob, and opened the small closet door which he had to crouch to enter. Once inside the door shut behind him. I closed my eyes but did not fall asleep right away and after a minute or so I said, “Are you okay? Did you find one?,” to which I thought I heard him say, “Yeah! It’s pretty big for a closet!” I chuckled, the sleep behind my eyes swelling.
It wasn’t long at all before I woke. I had expected to find his toasty body laying next to mine but when I opened my eyes he was absent. No blanket had been added to the bed. I called out to him but there was no answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
I took the same steps to the closet door, turned the knob and found a small room which contained some shelving holding blankets and sheets. Beyond the shelves there was a vacuum cleaner, an old dresser, a stack of printer toner, and a dried up cactus in a terracotta pot which appeared to have been sitting in the dark waiting for someone to put it out of its misery. But no husband. Figuring he must have made his way downstairs, I began to shut the door. It was then I heard his voice say, “Sometimes there are no words.”
His voice was clear and had a present quality, not dream-like or fuzzy, nor far away but as if he was standing in front of me. “What did you say? Where are you?,” but there was no answer. I looked into the closet thinking I’d missed something. But again, no naked husband. I closed the door and walked the entirety of the house checking every room. I stood out on the porch calling his name first in an urgent whisper then louder still but again, but there was only emptiness.
The long and the short of it is that it was only when I opened the closet door that I could hear his voice. It was in this way that I learned the quiet murmurings that he spoke inwardly, the scandalous secrets and inane nothings he’d always kept to himself, things big and small that I’d longed to hear for so long.
In the third grade he looked up his teacher’s skirt when she sat down at a low bench in the school cafeteria. The glimpse of her inner thigh both rattled and excited him.
He didn’t like the one-pan chicken and broccoli dish I made on Tuesday nights. Neither did he like the brand of fizzy water I bought but didn’t want to hurt my feelings since I enjoyed both so much.
He loved the look of my body when I emerged from the shower and would purposely linger in the bathroom pretending to groom himself so he could watch the beads of water glide down my back and breasts.
He enjoyed otters, highland cattle calves, and nuthatches but found anything that slithered or jumped without warning repulsive.
I found myself sitting in the hallway for long stretches with the closet door wide open. I asked him questions and told him about my days. He responded with great interest and opened up to me in a way he never had. I knew that soon I would have to leave the house, it wasn’t ours after all, we were only housesitting. I explained this to him on a Sunday as the sun was setting, a gold hue soft and warm filled the hallway.
“What if you didn’t leave?”
“What do you mean? We don’t live here.”
“Well, I don’t know about that now.”
He had a point. He’d gone into the closet and now seemed to exist as part of the house. We considered the options. He said I could just explain what had happened to the owners. “Maybe they’ll be understanding and let you live with them. Then we wouldn’t need to be apart.” I told him I wasn’t sure that would work.
I lay awake that night grieving the loss of the new intimacy we’d discovered. I imagined returning to our apartment alone, the long empty silence no longer occupied by my husband’s undisclosed thoughts but pregnant with an unbearable solitude. I considered what my life would be like knowing that he existed somewhere without me and ached at the thought that the owners of the vacation home might come to regard him as a confidant and intimate friend. For his part he was silent that night, presumably considering similar possibilities, though again who knows.
The next day I awoke and made breakfast catching myself as I put a second slice of bread in the toaster for him. I stood over the blooming coils and said aloud, “Only one slice from now on.”
It was involuntary. It didn’t even register that I’d said anything at all except that afterward I heard him say, “You always made mine just the way I liked it — extra brown almost black.”
In an instant I remembered our first morning together when we’d only started dating. I’d made my way to the kitchen to find some breakfast wearing his t-shirt from the night before. The fridge was empty save for a few condiments and a puckered lime. Scanning the counter I spotted a loaf of bread, slipped the last two slices into the machine, and pulled down lever. As I stood staring into the orange glow of the heating elements, he came up behind me. Wrapping his arms around my waist he whispered, “It’ll burn it if you leave it. I like it that way but you might want to take yours out before it’s done.”
I recalled his sweet sticky musk nuzzling my nose as he reached around me. I remembered the warmth of his breath on my neck and the sound of his old toaster clicking and tapping our day into being. We spent every morning together after that, that is until he walked into the upstairs closet.
The slapping completion of the toaster brought me back to the forlorn present. I painted the bread with butter then sprinkled it with coarse salt. After eating I cleaned my dishes, wiped the counter, and climbed the stairs. The floorboards before the closet had warmed in the morning light. Without a word I extended a hand, turned the knob, and stepped inside letting the small door shut behind me.
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