The Night We Had No Heat

The February night I helped her move into the new apartment on the North side of Chicago we found there was no heat. The apartment was as cold as the street had been, without the insulated warmth of snow, but there was nowhere else to go. We unpacked boxes and drank wine until our eyes grew smaller and shiny. We read poetry aloud and drank more. The wine stayed cold no matter how long it was cradled in our hands and we continued talking, sitting on the hardwood, kissing between phrases, pretending I wasn’t flying home in a handful of hours.

I could see The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as it swam through the crisp air from my parted lips, floated around the built-in bookshelves we were slowly filling with her memories, and gently sank down over her face like a warm spring mist. I wrapped myself in those words to stay warm. I’m sure I spilled my Riesling. Her smile sparkled as she laughed and we snapped photographs commemorating The Night We Had No Heat.

The little cat ran from room to room hopping in and out of emptied packing boxes demonstrating the dexterity of kittenhood, making her own heat and making us coo and laugh. Finally, when morning neared, drunk on white wine and stiff with cold, we slid into bed fully dressed and held each other. We squeezed in tight under the heaviness of the down comforter. The way our legs lay layered like a twisted bread loaf we clicked and stayed warm as the digital clock ticked away the hours of night.

In what felt like minutes the alarm ripped us from the safe womb of our drunken sleep. We had slept too well. We had slept too late. My flight across the country was leaving in an hour. I silently searched for my shoes in the freezing darkness, unable to imagine sleeping again without her. I did not miss my warm apartment. I would have chosen her over heat but the flight was booked and I was headed back to DC. My plane took off, and she stayed in Chicago. Her heat didn’t come back on for weeks.