Page 7 of Slanting Towards the Sea

SEVEN

VLAHO AND MARINA’S APARTMENT is on the fourth floor of one of the so-called TIZ buildings, built on the former textile factory lot near the town’s center.

Their building is shaped like a long sail sprawling along the ground.

It’s only fitting, given that Marina is all about the sea: a scuba diving instructor, a spear fisherman, a sailor, a surfer.

It’s as if her mother had known this would be the case when she decided on her name, or maybe Marina lived up to the name she’d been given.

I climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator because I need the extra time to gather myself before entering their home, filled with cheer and children. Such a vast difference from where I live with my dad, the land of the scowling and perpetually disgruntled.

On the third-floor landing, I slow my pace further.

The apartment Vlaho and I lived in when we moved back to Zadar after graduation was different from where we each live now.

It was a tiny one-bedroom ground-floor rental in the suburb.

Our room could barely fit a queen-sized bed, two nightstands, and a closet, but we managed to squeeze in his Jackson guitar, an amplifier, and a stack of my books, sans bookshelf.

Back then, we used to complain about needing a bigger room, with a larger bed, but really, we were happy to be forced into close proximity.

We’d fall asleep in the middle of the mattress, concave from the weight of our embraced bodies.

We were so happy there, until we weren’t.

I resume my climb and stop at the door that says “Oberan.” It’s like standing outside my own door.

After we’d divorced, I took back my maiden name, figured it would be simpler for Vlaho, for when he decided to start a family with someone else.

But going back to my maiden name felt like trying to wriggle myself into my old high school jeans.

It didn’t fit anymore, and suddenly I was a stranger to all my identities.

I press the buzzer.

Marina opens the door, towering over me with a wide smile. “Hey, lovely.” She gives me a hug before she ushers me inside. “Come on in, you’re missing all the fun. Let me take your coat.”

The thing about Marina is that she makes it nearly impossible for me to be jealous.

She’s one of those people who have only one face to offer to the world.

If people like it, fine. If they don’t, fine as well.

With her, there are no hidden agendas, no ulterior motives.

She shares her opinions unaffectedly and plainly, and while she is respectful of others, she doesn’t seem to need other people’s appreciation or respect in return.

So instead of being envious, I always end up trying to emulate her attitude.

I follow her through the hallway and into the living room filled with blue balloons and kids scurrying around.

The adults are crowding around the kitchen island at the center of the open floor plan.

The children don’t take notice of me, but a few grown-ups sure do.

Both Vlaho’s and Marina’s mothers glare at me from across the room, as if they expect me to throw a temper tantrum or pick a catfight with Marina.

Instead of focusing on them, I search the room for Maro and notice him using the couch as a trampoline.

“Hey, birthday boy!” I say.

“Hey, Aunt Ivona,” he says, still moving up and down as if his ankles were made of springs. Maro is always jumping, or running, or tumbling. His energy is exhaustless, though he often wears out everyone around him.

I wave my present in front of him. “This is for you.”

He leaps off the couch and grabs the gift.

A part of me wishes he’d hug me the way he sometimes does when he’s sleepy or in the mood for snuggling, to show the audience that I’m not here by accident.

I know this kid. I love this kid. But he’s candy-fueled, and he just grabs the present out of my hands and rips the paper off. “Pirate ship Legos!” he screams. “Yay!”

Then he’s back to his mischief on the couch, and I’m all alone, straightening up before the gun squad on the other side of the room.

They look at me with their condemning eyes, no doubt wondering how Marina’s instincts have failed to such an epic degree when she’s allowing me into her home like this.

I approach Vlaho’s mother first. We were family, after all, until we weren’t. Her lips are colorless, pinched in a tight smile. “Hi, Aunt Frana,” I say, and we kiss each other’s cheeks. She gives me a limp hug, releasing me quickly.

“Hi, Ivona. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

She says this every time. It’s not that she doesn’t expect me here, it’s that she wishes I weren’t.

We share a secret, Frana and I. She is the only person who knows the real reason why I left Vlaho all those years ago, the truth not even Vlaho knows, and I’m the only one who knows the role she played in it.

We’re each other’s liability, and even though we’re both best served not talking about it, we act as if the other one is a loaded gun about to go off.

The front door opens. Vlaho’s footsteps fill the hallway.

“Here we go, more juice and snacks,” he says as he enters the living room, then stops.

His gaze travels over the crowd, clearly trying to discern what caused the shift in the atmosphere, until it lands on me.

Ah. He kicks his lips up in what’s meant to be an easy, comfortable smile, but I see the small patch of red igniting high on his cheek.

It always fires up when he’s feeling insecure.

In moments like this, I ask myself, Why we do this?

Why do Marina, Vlaho, and I subject ourselves to this discomfort and judgment?

But the answer is always fast and clear—because my being here is the truth of our relationship.

Because on ordinary days I’m often the only guest in their home, and we sit at their table or on their carpet talking, and Tena lies in my arms, heavy and half-asleep, rolling a strand of my hair around her finger, her cheek glued to my chest with baby sweat.

This is the truth, and none of us is willing to deny it just to make someone else feel more comfortable.

We start the well-trained dance we’ve perfected over time.

Marina, taking every chance to pat my shoulder, or squeeze my arm to show she is okay with me being here.

Vlaho, extra engrossed in conversations, keeping things running smoothly.

Me, smiling a bit too openly, keeping my voice peppy, averting my eyes whenever they land on him, the love of my life who now belongs to someone else.

But it’s tiring, and the first chance I get, I take my beer by the neck and head out to the balcony where the smokers gather. I don’t smoke, but the place offers a temporary reprieve, people unwilling to subject themselves to the winter air for longer than it takes to finish a cigarette.

Out there, a couple of mothers complain about their kids’ eating habits.

“Which one is yours?” the shorter woman with the pixie haircut asks me, nodding toward the inside of the apartment.

I follow her gaze and realize she means kids.

“Oh! None of them.” I try to state this as a mere fact, but each time I speak some version of this truth, an essential, pivotal part of me gets chipped away.

“I’m Tena’s godmother, though.” I say this because it’s easier to explain than being Vlaho’s ex-wife.

“Great,” the woman says, then blows soft smoke sideways, and by the way her eyelids drop a millimeter, I know she’s lost interest. I can’t be included in her mom talks, so why bother with me?

“Want one?” She flicks a pack of cigarettes open and holds it to me.

“No, thanks. I just came out for some air.”

“And quiet,” the other woman adds. “Just listening to all that rumble…” She doesn’t finish.

The two of them go on to discuss the best onesies for babies, and which brands use organic cotton, and if buying organic cotton is worth the extra price.

After a while, they go in, but I notice it only when they’re gone.

The night air is whetted, it scrapes against the inside of my nose.

The sallow lights delineating the old town peninsula shimmer ahead, dampened by the February mist.

The town is always so vacant in the evenings this time of year, when tourists are gone.

When we moved back from Zagreb, Vlaho and I spent countless afternoons strolling the empty streets, fingertips warmed and charcoaled by roasted chestnuts we’d buy from a vendor near the town bridge. The memory makes me languid, sleepy.

“You all right out here?” Vlaho peers in from behind the glass door, then joins me on the balcony.

He only has a short-sleeved T-shirt on, and I resist the urge to tell him to grab a jacket.

He doesn’t mind the cold, I remind myself, his body always so warm, as if the molten core of the Earth itself purls beneath his skin.

“Actually, I have to leave early. Dad is… He has—” I stop talking.

He knows my leaving has nothing to do with Dad.

“I need to pack. I’m leaving in a few days.

There’s an olive oil fair I’m attending, the Olive Oil Manifestation, in Split.

” It’s the first thing I can think of to give as an excuse, having received an invitation in a newsletter earlier today.

Another speck of dishonesty falls between us.

Vlaho nods. “Good. It will be good for you to get away for a couple of days. Take your mind off Lovorun.”

The word aches behind my breastbone. “It’ll be fine, won’t it?

Even if I have to sell?” It feels so natural to ask him for reassurance.

He was the one I went to for so long. But as we’re facing each other on his balcony, the coldness working its frosty fingers up my spine, the audience no doubt on its toes behind the glass, I’ve never been more aware of the chasm between us.

He’s staring at me with nothing to say. Nothing at all.

Only dead things, skeletons, and I want to weep. “I should go.”

I’ve wept over our breakup more times than I’d like to admit.

I cried over every first thing that happened after the fact.

The first Christmas without him, the first New Year’s Eve.

The first birthday, mine and his. Then the less consequential things.

The time I found a fly-specked moon snail that we were both obsessed with finding in the shallows, but that kept eluding us.

The first movie night in the theater alone, sitting with my popcorn in a chair for one, instead of the love seat we used to share.

The first Saturday when I had no one to go to the Saturday ?pica with to drink coffee and roll our eyes at the over-the-top outfits people wear as they run their errands.

I cried rivers, then streams, then rivulets, until finally I managed to harden myself.

But tonight it got to me, the simple fact that I needed his hug, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew and he wanted to give me one, but for some reason, because of other people’s rules, it is now wrong for Vlaho to hug me, so instead, I’m sitting in my car outside my house, unable to go in and face my father, who would never understand, and do the best I can to hug myself.