A moist breeze blew in through the window I had opened after bursting into a sweat. I work too hard, I think that’s it.
“Was wondering if you want to go for a walk.”
“Sweetie, can’t you see I’m working here? Do I have to spell it out every time?”
“You’re always working.”
“That’s right. I’m always working.”
But that was hardly true. There were times when I allowed myself the luxury of relaxation. She knew about those moments. She knew. And I wasn’t much of a dancer, if that’s what she had wanted, to go dancing, and it has been my experience that women enjoy dancing more than men do. Perhaps that is not altogether true. But for men like me who cannot dance without drawing stares and guffaws, I imagine that most women enjoy it infinitely more than I do.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“How does that enter the equation? I love you.”
“Yeah yeah. Maybe you love me. But you don’t like me.”
“Is that important?”
“It is.”
“What if I told you that I like you plenty, sweetie, but I don’t really love you?”
The air left the room.
“You—you don’t love me?”
A noise erupted out in the hall just as she was about to shed tears. Sounded like a drunkard bawling out his wife and the wife responding with hell-bent violence. I don’t like these moments any more than anyone else, but sometimes they are unavoidable.
“Listen to that, eh.”
“Yeah.”
“Should we call the police?”
“Yeah. Call the love police.”
is the author of Mean Season, his first novel (Mansfield Press, 2015), and Black Rabbit & Other Stories (Anvil Press, 2007), his second collection of short fiction. His short stories, essays, book reviews, and poker columns have appeared in publications across Canada and the USA. Difalco has worked many jobs including Counsellor at the maximum security Peninsula Youth Centre. Formerly an editor and regular contributor at Toro Magazine, he currently resides in Toronto and works as an Italian translator.