Bergenost

I can hear the rain outside my window. There's only a few inches between the pane and the brick, but it's enough for some things to get through. Rain, a handful of light, the scrambling of vermin. I don't know how two houses can be build so close together, but they are. I close my door and the cave is complete. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, find my way back to the bed. I reach out with my hand so as not to hit the post and it grabs a foot. She stirs and I try to climb over her.

"Babe?"

"Go back to sleep."

"Are you just now getting into bed? What time is it?" I wanted her to sleep through the night. "What are you doing going to bed at five?"

"Sleep."

"Don't you have to be up soon?" I want badly to open the window, have the rain come pouring in, have some kind of noise other than this. There is a wind and it has such violent tranquility. Why can't we listen to that?

"I couldn't sleep." I face away from her, try not to rouse her suspicions, try not to breathe in her direction. I don't really want to talk about it which is why I haven't and I'm not.

"What's that smell?"

Bergenost. The entire wedge sliced up with a knife on a wooden cutting board, chewed and swallowed and in my stomach. Delicious buttery triple-cream cheese and now it was all gone, and I didn't feel any better. I didn't feel worse, but I didn't feel any better. I tell her I couldn't sleep so I've been up reading, watching TV, and I had a small snack, that must be what she smelled. It's based in truth and that's close enough. It's a conversation we're not meant to have yet. There are certain things you can't say until later, not this soon, not when it's this new. I'd learned that the hard way. My compulsions always get the better of me. They are not great and they are not terrible, but when they come they come on strong and there's little I can do. Little I want to do. So tonight I took up the knife.

The answer satisfies her and she resumes her side position. I lie beside her, she takes my arm and wraps it around her, clutching my hand. She doesn't know it now, but when she wakes her hand will have the faint aroma of Norwegian cultures.

I wake two hours later, a gut punch. I never threw away the casing. I peeled the green wax as I ate and left it on the den table. I had set it aside and meant to throw it away. She's out of bed. I get up and calmly, directly, go to the table. But the casing is gone. It's not in the kitchen. I look in the trash and see it there. She wasn't supposed to find out like this.

I go back to bed and close the door and for a moment it is the darkest it's ever been. I hear her leave the shower. Her silhouette enters. She knows I'm awake and I can tell. But before she turns on the light, before she dresses, she comes to me, bending over, and kisses me lightly. It's still raining. The wind, it's whistling now. It's tapping on my window, asking to be let in.