You Were Late in Every Life

He brought roses when I needed chairs.

I let him in. Roses weren’t the worst thing Ardu had brought me, across this life and the two others we could remember. But the dance hall opened in half an hour, and I had promised the floor would be clear.

“My lovely Sareth,” he said.

“Veya.”

“I know. I only meant—”

“Sareth didn’t like that name much either.”

In that life, before I sold grain, it had belonged to the lady I worked for. People called me by it because they couldn’t be bothered learning mine. Ardu knew that. At sixty-three, he still thought an old name could do the work of a present conversation.

I took the roses to the cloakroom and found a vase. When I came back, he was telling my nephew about the last time he had danced in this hall. A stack of chairs stood beside them.

“Those go along the wall,” I said.

Ardu lifted two. He used to lift four at a time. I used to like watching him do it. At sixty-one, I liked watching him lift two, though I wasn’t ready to say so.

We had ended our marriage twelve years ago. We had not stopped remembering the others.

It happened when we first met in this life: a crowded boat landing, a painted room, the sound of a song both of us knew and neither had learned. Later meetings brought more. Now there were two past lives we could piece together, with holes everywhere. No visiting the past, no changing it. Just finding that the same person could make your heart jump for a very long time.

The first life we remembered

We swam in the river behind the grain market. I sold grain; he worked a ferry. There were hours when neither of us had to carry anything, and we spent them in the water.

He challenged me to reach the old wall first. I cheated by pushing off his shoulder. He splashed me until I forgot which of us had won.

When I left the city, I wanted him to meet me before the boat sailed. I was going to marry someone else. It was my choice, but it hadn’t made my feelings for Ardu disappear.

He could have come. Instead, he entered a race upriver because he thought I would like hearing he’d won.

I watched the landing shrink behind the boat. He was not there.

He told me later, in this life, that he had won. Neither of us remembered the prize.

The second life we remembered

We had lived together above a shop. He sang for money. I liked his singing, especially when he stopped before the last verse and waited for me to finish it.

We had been happy in that room. I won’t change that now just because we were unhappy there, too.

When my mother grew ill, I asked him to come home after his first set. She liked him and wanted to hear a song. I wanted help sitting with her.

He stayed for an encore. He thought the audience might lead him to better work.

By the time he came home, my mother was asleep and I had been awake for hours. He sang quietly in the kitchen while I washed the cups. I told him to stop. He thought I meant stop singing.

This afternoon

The chairs were nearly cleared when the delivery came to the back door. My nephew was setting up the music. I had coats to take and two customers who wanted to argue about the entry price.

Ardu went to answer the delivery bell. I heard him ask where the boxes belonged, then ask the driver to wait while he checked with my nephew.

He did not put everything in the cloakroom because it looked empty. Once, he would have. He would have been pleased that he had found the space nobody else had noticed.

The driver had brought the drinks to the wrong entrance. Ardu carried them around the building to the little store room. When he returned, the dancing had begun.

“You’re late,” I said.

“Those boxes were heavier than they looked.”

“I saw.”

He glanced toward the dancers. A couple had already begun arguing about whether the tune was too fast. He smiled, and I remembered why I had liked sitting beside him when people talked. He enjoyed them without needing them to behave well.

In the break, we sat outside the cloakroom. He loosened the collar of his shirt. I drank water from a cup with a crack that never leaked.

“I’d like to come home,” he said.

The flowers had been its bright wrapping.

“No.”

He looked down at his hands.

“Not because you carried the boxes badly,” I said. “You carried them well.”

“I could do the other things.”

“You could. An afternoon doesn’t tell me how we would live. And I like my house as it is.”

He nodded once, too quickly. Then he waited and nodded again.

“Do you think we keep finding each other for nothing?” he asked.

“I don’t think this is nothing.”

He looked up.

“I want to dance with you tonight. I don’t want you moving in. Those are both true.”

“I was going to say something about forever.” He rubbed his face. “It sounded good on the way here.”

“I’m glad you left it on the way.”

He laughed. I had not needed any recovered memory to know that laugh. I had heard it over breakfast for nineteen years.

My nephew offered to watch the coats for a tune. Ardu held out his hand, and I took it.

We danced until I was warm enough to wish I’d worn something lighter. He knew when I wanted a bigger step and when I wanted to stay close. I enjoyed being in his arms. When the music ended, I did not pretend that liking it had been a mistake.

At closing time, I washed the vase and wrapped the roses for the walk home. Ardu stood among the scattered chairs.

“Would you help with these?” my nephew asked him.

“I said I would,” Ardu answered. “Show me where the trolley is.”

I kissed his cheek at the door. He started to say something, stopped, and said good night.

Outside, the river was dark. I carried the flowers toward my own house. Behind me, a chair scraped, then another.