Velvet Undertow

The plastic rustled when I shifted my weight on the mattress. It's a sound I've learned to hate over these past three weeks, that crinkle of something that shouldn't be there, announcing itself every time I move. I froze, hoping João hadn't heard it from the other side of the bed. The fan hummed in the corner, pushing warm air around the room, and I listened to his breathing. Slow. Steady. Maybe he was asleep.

Maybe.

I stared at the ceiling and counted the water stains I'd been meaning to paint over for two years now. There are four. One looks like Portugal, if you squint. My husband used to say that, back when he was alive, back when I could still laugh at silly things without wanting to cry afterward. He's been gone six years. You'd think I'd be used to sleeping alone by now.

But here's the thing about being fifty-seven and wearing a diaper to bed. You don't get used to anything. You just get better at pretending.

João rolled over, and his hand found my hip under the thin sheet. His fingers were warm and certain, the way they always are, the way a twenty-six-year-old's fingers can afford to be. He doesn't know yet that I've been lying here for an hour, wide awake, rehearsing how to tell him that I want him to go home.

Not because I don't want him here. God, that's not it at all.

"Amélia." His voice was thick with sleep. "You're thinking too loud."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize." He moved closer, his chest against my back, and I felt the heat of him through my nightgown. "What time is it?"

"Almost three."

He kissed the back of my neck, and I closed my eyes. Three weeks ago, when I asked him to stay, I told myself it would just be for a few days. His landlord had raised the rent on that cramped studio in Alcântara, and he needed somewhere to land while he figured things out. I had a spare room. I had a house that felt too big and too quiet. It made sense.

It made sense for about four days. Then he kissed me in the kitchen while I was washing dishes, and I dropped a glass in the sink, and we both stood there staring at the pieces like they might spell out an answer. They didn't. He kissed me again, and I let him, and that was that.

"Come here," he said now, tugging gently at my waist.

"I need to use the bathroom."

The lie came out smooth. I've gotten good at it. I slipped out of bed before he could respond and padded down the hallway to the bathroom, closing the door behind me and leaning against it. The tiles were cold under my feet. I looked at myself in the mirror: gray hair pulled back in a loose braid, lines around my mouth that used to be laugh lines and now just look tired, a body that has done its job for five decades and is starting to send memos about early retirement.

The diaper was wet. Not soaked, but enough. I cleaned myself up, disposed of it in the little bin I keep hidden behind the toilet, and put on a fresh one. The routine takes four minutes. I've timed it.

When I came back to the bedroom, João was sitting up, the sheet pooled around his waist. The moonlight through the window caught the curve of his shoulder, the dip of his collarbone. He's beautiful in a way that makes my chest ache, not because I want to possess it but because I know I can't. Not forever. Probably not even for much longer.

"Amélia." He said my name like it was a question.

"I'm here."

I climbed back into bed, and he pulled me against him, and I let myself have this one thing. His hand moved up my arm, slow, tracing the soft skin above my elbow. He always does that. Finds the places I've forgotten are sensitive. Makes me remember I'm still made of nerve endings and blood.

"I talked to my cousin today," he said. "He might have a room for me. In Almada. Cheap."

"Okay."

"He said I could move in next month."

"Okay."

He was quiet for a moment. His fingers stopped moving. "You're not going to ask me not to go?"

I turned in his arms to face him. In the dim light, I could see the worry crease between his eyebrows, the one that shows up whenever he's trying to read me and failing. Three years of friendship, and he still can't always tell what I'm thinking. Maybe that's why I like him. Maybe that's why I'm terrified.

"Do you want me to ask you not to go?" I said.

"I want you to tell me what you want."

That's the problem with young people. They think wanting is simple. They think you can just say the words and the world rearranges itself to accommodate them. At twenty-six, João still believes that honesty is always the best policy, that feelings should be spoken aloud, that love is something you declare and defend.

At fifty-seven, I know that love is mostly a series of accommodations. It's figuring out how to fit into the spaces someone else has left, and hoping they'll do the same for you. It's deciding which truths are worth the damage they'll cause.

"I want you to sleep," I said. "You have work in the morning."

He studied my face for a long moment. Then he kissed my forehead, soft, and settled back against the pillows, pulling me with him. His arm stayed around my waist, heavy and warm. I listened to his breathing slow again, felt his body relax into sleep, and I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, counting water stains.

Four. One looks like Portugal.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I reached for it carefully, not wanting to wake João. A message from my daughter: *Mom, are you okay? You didn't answer earlier.*

I typed back: *I'm fine. Just tired. Talk tomorrow.*

Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again. Finally: *Is he still there?*

I didn't answer. I put the phone face down and closed my eyes, and I thought about the first time I met João, three years ago at the café where he worked. He'd made my coffee wrong, too much milk, and when he brought it to my table to apologize, he'd been so earnest, so genuinely sorry, that I'd laughed. He'd looked surprised, then pleased, then he'd pulled up a chair and sat with me for twenty minutes, telling me about his degree in graphic design and his dreams of opening his own studio.

I'd gone back to that café every Tuesday after that. Not because the coffee was good. Because he made me feel like I was still someone worth talking to.

Now he was in my bed, and my daughter was texting me questions I didn't want to answer, and I was wearing a diaper because my body had betrayed me in ways I never expected. And I didn't know which of these things was the real problem.

João murmured something in his sleep and pulled me closer. I let him. Tomorrow I would tell him about the room in Almada, about how it was probably a good idea, about how he should take it. Tomorrow I would be practical and sensible and do the right thing. Tomorrow I would be the adult in the room, because that's what I am. That's what I've always been.

But tonight, I lay in the dark and let myself feel the weight of his arm, the warmth of his breath on my shoulder, the impossible fact of being wanted by someone who still had his whole life ahead of him. And I wondered, not for the first time, if I was being kind or cruel. If I was protecting him or using him. If there was even a difference anymore.

The fan hummed. The water stains watched from above. And somewhere in the house, a clock ticked toward morning, toward the moment when I'd have to decide what kind of woman I was going to be.