Taking Inventory

Iván had wiped down the zinc counter, but the yellow sponge remained wet in the stainless basin. He sat at the pine table with his drafting tablet plugged into the baseboard, drawing black cross-sections of a stairwell. The morning coffee smelled burned.

Natalia did not take off her damp coat. She walked to the edge of the table and placed four items beside his hand.

First was the thermal receipt from the market on the corner, dated three weeks back on the Saturday she had taken the early train to Bilbao. Beside it went the bottle of almond oil, the ceramic mug she had taken down from the top shelf, and the bergamot towel from the bathroom radiator.

Iván did not look at the objects right away. He clicked a vector line into place, his gaze fixed on the white grid.

“What is this?” he asked.

“An inventory,” Natalia said.

Iván reached for the top button of his linen shirt. He worked it loose from the frayed hole, then pushed it back through.

“Natalia, Natalia,” he said in his lowered, even cadence. “You’re doing that thing where you build a case out of thin air.”

“She was in this kitchen three weeks ago.”

“She watered the ferns on the balcony,” he said. “The heat wave was drying the pots out.”

“The receipt lists two ribeye steaks and an expensive bottle of red wine.”

Iván let go of the button and tugged his right earlobe. He looked past her shoulder toward the courtyard window, where the gray rain ran down the pane in crooked lines.

“We had dinner,” he said. “She was having a rough month with the gallery director. Friends eat dinner.”

“She slept in our bed.”

“On the sofa,” he said. “She had two glasses of wine and I didn’t want her driving to the north district after midnight.”

“She washed her hair in our shower.”

“Her building had no hot water for three days,” Iván said. He rested both palms flat against the pine grain. “I offered a hot shower. That is basic human decency.”

Natalia touched the hollow between her collarbones with two fingers. The skin there was cold from the walk back from the bakery.

“You told me you changed the cylinder when you moved your drafting tables in,” she said.

“I swapped the deadbolt,” he said.

“You didn’t swap anything.”

“The locksmith told me the old brass cylinder was fine,” he said. “It didn’t need replacing.”

“You lied to me eighteen months ago.”

Iván folded the laptop lid down with a sharp plastic snap. The screen light vanished from his face.

“Verónica was in my life for four years,” he said, his voice rising a notch. “You can’t expect me to treat her like a stranger on a subway car just to flatter your ego.”

“This flat belongs to me,” Natalia said.

“I pay half the rent,” he said.

“You transfer four hundred and seventy-five euros into my bank account on the tenth,” she said. “My signature is the only one on the blue folder in the cabinet.”

Iván pushed his chair back. The wood legs screeched against the parquet floor. He walked to the entry pegs, pulled his wool coat down, and shoved his arms into the sleeves.

“I am not going to stand here while you cross-examine me like a criminal,” he said. “You’re spiraling over a bottle of soap.”

“Leave her key on the table.”

“I don’t have her key,” he said, wrenching the brass handle down. “It’s on her own red loop. I’ll be at the studio until six. Calm down before I come back.”

He pulled the door shut behind him. The brass latch clicked into the frame, leaving the flat silent.