Page 21 of Devilish Ink

I imagined her so caught up in the song, swaying her body in the kitchen, that she wouldn’t hear me come in from work.

I’d lean against the doorframe, admiring her with a contented smile and chuckling a little. She was so damn adorable.

It wouldn’t frighten her when I came up behind her and slid my hands over her hips; we’d done this more times than we could count.

She’d turn around in my arms and we’d begin to slow dance as she continued to sing.

When the song ended she’d ask,“When did you get home?”

“Just now,”I’d tell her.

A little white lie neither of us minded.

Alan didn’t believe it was possible to find something like that in the city.

But even in that bitter cold, I knew it was no farther than Ry’s kitchen just across a small stretch of darkness. It was so close I could almost reach out and grab it.

Ry began tearing up as she chopped an onion beside a stainless-steel pan shimmering with olive oil. Despite the tattoos covering her neck and the piercings dotting her face, she looked like a little girl as she bundled up the extra-long sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe her eyes. I could just make out her sniffling.

I wanted nothing more than to wrap her into my arms and hold her tight.

“It’s just the onion,”I imagined her saying, looking at me with red-rimmed eyes.

I didn’t care. I wanted nothing to make her cry. Nothing at all in the world.

I’d take up the knife and cut it for her.

She’d laugh when it brought stinging tears to my own eyes and I sniffled.

I’d cherish that laughter more than she’d ever know.

When Ry struggled to pry open the lid of a jar of pasta, Ithought how nice it would be to open it for her. To hear her little grunts and extend my hand toward her without a word.

“No, no, I’ve got it,”she’d say, stubborn as ever, adorable as ever.

My palm was laced through with the deep cold of the rooftop, but I imagined it warm from the stove as I just held it there. Waiting.

There in the dark I smiled, imagining her giving up and finally slapping the jar into my hand. I could almost hear the satisfying pop as I twisted the lid.

In real life, Ry banged the edge of the jar against the kitchen corner.

I didn’t want Ry to have to fight that hard. I wanted to take her burdens. And I knew from the look she sometimes got in her eye that they were far heavier than a jar of pasta sauce.

But it was a place to start. And that’s all I wanted: to start.

To start with her.

After the lid finally relented, the onions cooked down, and the pasta softened to her liking, Ry plated a heaping serving and carried her meal to the little dining table. This coincided with the end of The Untouchable’s album and the sudden silence was overwhelming.

The merry kitchen scene seemed like just another figment of my imagination. I almost couldn’t remember the sound of the music or the water boiling or the sizzle of onions hitting the pan.

As Ry stared down at her plate, it seemed there was only ever silence. Horrible, invasive, all-consumingsilence.

I recognised it all too well. I’d experienced the same for most of my adult life. After Rian left, I had Alan and then Anna, Alan’s wife, and eventually their kids, but they were never reallymine.

When I was alone in my room, that was the very sound I heard. A silence deeper than just a lack of sound. A silence inside of yourself.

It was the soundtrack of loneliness.

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