See the Cat? See the Cradle?

I am sitting at a café reading Cat’s Cradle. I take a moment to sip my coffee and when I do, I lock eyes with him across the room. He is looking at me above his laptop and while I have never really believed the truth of the statement that the world can fade away with the right person, that is exactly what happened. The world disappeared and all I could see was his face. And beyond the attraction, beyond the instant pull I felt looking at this man, there was something else. The feeling of looking into a mirror. Of seeing myself. And when he told me that his name was Jose, I laughed, believing for the first time in my life that fate might exist.

Jose y Josefina.

A love written in the stars.

But I sometimes wonder if everyone feels that way. When the courting is really good. The beginnings of what could be a new relationship. Where everything is exciting. When you feel like you’ve invented love and sex and the entire idea of coupling. When that first kiss feels like a life-changing experience. Like nothing will ever be as good. Like your whole life was just a series of steps guiding you to this single moment. Like it was always only ever meant to be.

We moved quickly. Jose and I. Dating. Relationship. Spending almost every single day together. I didn’t even realize how fast we were moving until a friend commented on the fact that Jose and I planned to move in together only two months after we started dating. It felt longer. It felt like I had known him forever. This was a man who seemed to know my every thought. Who completed my sentences. Who seemed to complete me, even though I had always loathed the idea that a person needed someone else to complete them. Yet here I was. Feeling completed. And I didn’t want to spend another day going to sleep without him. Waking up without him. And I believed that the speed of it all didn’t matter. That there was nothing he could do that would make me love or want him less.

Jose convinces me that we shouldn’t rent. We should buy. Start a real life together and I one hundred percent agree. The problem is there isn’t a home in LA that we can afford, so we search further and further and further away until Jose convinces me that Fresno is a good idea. We both work remotely so it doesn’t matter. Our friends will visit and we’ll find the time to go back to LA when we want to. So, it’s fine. And it is fine. It is more than fine. It’s wonderful. Since we will be together.

When I walk into our new home I am overwhelmed with love and hope and the feeling of starting the next phase in my life. I go slowly through each room, savoring the moment as much as possible, imprinting it on my mind.

This is the beginning of forever.

Our first argument happens over Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. The book I was reading when we first met. He had told me then that he loved it. That it was one of his favorites. But as we are unpacking and I hold it up to him and say, “Should we put this on the coffee table as a memento of our beginnings?” he looks at me as if he has no idea what I’m talking about. “Why that book?” he asks. I stare at him dumbfounded. How could he not remember? It was one of the first things that attracted me to him. Aside from his face, of course. “This was what I was reading when we met,” I say, “You told me you loved it.” He shakes his head, “I’ve never read that book.” My mouth drops. “What?” he asks. I insist that he told me that he had read it. That it was our very first in-depth conversation. But he insists that I’m wrong. That that never happened. When I try to get him to tell me what we talked about, he says he doesn’t remember. That he was too focused on how pretty I was. When I ask him if he remembers what I was reading he shakes his head again. He changes the subject and asks me where I think we should put the coffee table.

I am replaying the Cat’s Cradle incident over and over again in my mind. I keep going back to that first encounter and wondering if I made a mistake. Was it Cat’s Cradle? Did he say that he had never read it and I made up a whole conversation in my head? Was I that determined to like him that my brain changed the facts of what had actually happened? But it can’t be. I remember being floored because I had never met someone who loved the book as much as I did. And I remember thinking that I was so lucky that this beautiful man loved what I loved. That it would be a wonderful story to tell our future children. I can’t sleep so I get up to go to get a glass of water. When I reach the kitchen, my foot goes through the floor. I scream. Jose comes running. “Josefina!” He turns on the light, and we see that the patch of floor my foot went through is covered in mold. A rotten patch of floor.

I don’t know how we missed the mold. I don’t know how I missed that he had never read Cat’s Cradle.

Jose leaves things around the house. Socks. Glasses of water that are half-full. I am constantly picking up his things. And because we both work from home we are always together. The house is a small one bedroom. And the bedroom is too small to have a desk. So, we both work in the living room. Jose says we’ll expand and build a second room, but who knows when that will be? And I am discovering that Jose has no sense of volume. He is loud. And when I have a Zoom meeting, I am forced to go outside where the Wi-Fi constantly goes in and out. I tried to talk to him about it. About his volume. And he got immediately defensive. He told me that he was only being that loud because of me. Because I’m the one who’s loud. He said that if I kept my voice down, we wouldn’t have a problem. And then it began to rain. And we discovered that we have cracks in our roof because water is coming through the ceiling in the bathroom.

I cannot stop thinking about Cat’s Cradle. I am certain that he told me it was one of his favorites. We talked about how the philosophy in the book almost perfectly aligns with our own. That having both come from Catholic backgrounds but having stepped away from Catholicism at an early age, it was the first book that articulated how we really felt and our ideas about the world. How could I be wrong about this? Was I the one doing all the talking and never realized it? Am I really that delusional? If I am, what does that say about me? About Jose? About us?

We are eating dinner. With no television set up yet, the only sounds are the utensils on plates and Jose’s loud chewing. I stare at his mouth moving like a cow. I wonder if he’s always eaten this way and I just never noticed. He tells me that my chicken needs more salt. I tell him that I’m positive that he told me he had read Cat’s Cradle when we first met. At my mention of the book, Jose throws his fork on the table and turns to me, “Why the hell do you keep bringing up that stupid book?” I tell him that it’s not a stupid book. It’s my favorite book. One that he said he’d READ. And that this is only the second time I’ve brought it up. I don’t tell him that I’ve been thinking about it since we moved in. Jose laughs and stands. He stares at me and for a moment we are just looking at each other. And before he says what he says I feel my soul float up to the ceiling. I am looking down at myself watching me react when Jose says, “Ok. Yes. You were reading Cat’s Cradle. I only said what I said because I wanted you to like me.” I ask him why he lied to me and he shrugs. He sits down again and continues to eat, not looking at me. After a few moments of silence, he tells me that he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. That we’re together now and should just move forward. Isn’t it fine, he asks. Aren’t I happy that we’re together? I tell him that I need space. That I need to go for a walk. I go to the front door and when I try to open it, the doorknob comes off in my hands.

The door is locked.

We are stuck.

Jose calls a repairman but I’m not really listening to what he says.

I am staring at the doorknob cradled in my hands.

And then I hear it.

A shaking from somewhere below the earth, and I watch as the walls slowly begin to crumble.