When she breathed, it felt like she was sucking air through a straw. A little bit of oxygen flowing into her lungs. Their slight expansion. The release of that oxygen. Contraction of lungs.

Always a little bit of air, but never enough. No deep sighs, no panting. Just the constant expectation of more and the continual inefficiency.

“It’s the altitude,” Jack said. “Thinner air up here.” But all these words didn’t make breathing any easier. Jack’s words fell to the kitchen floor. Gently, like snowflakes. They melted into the warped linoleum. She had been coming to the Catskills all her life, and she had never felt like this.

She poured coffee into his mug and then into her own. She liked the act of pouring out the little cup of half-and-half. The white cream suspended in the black coffee, made bright in contrast. It swirled around, slithered slowly like a beautiful snake until she dipped her spoon into her mug and destroyed its dance. Then it was familiar again, and warm between her palms.

Jack drank his black. “Like a cowboy,” he always told her. Now he picked up his mug, took a gulp, and looked at her pensively. She knew that look. The muscles in her back tightened, like springs under a sudden weight.

“I’ve been looking at the market up here, you know,” he said. “Property value is going way up.”

“Really? I wonder how come.”

“Well, it’s economics, sweetheart. All the bigwigs in Manhattan want their little summer getaways, you know? Fishing, hiking, no suits or cell phone service. The simple life.”

“That’s interesting.” She tapped her spoon against the deep brown surface of the table. “My parents bought it for the same reasons, I guess. Except they wanted to escape the heat, mostly. Back then there wasn’t any air conditioning. The city was like a gigantic oven from June through August. Can you imagine?” She smiled at him and then past him, at the yard outside of the window.

“Mmm.” He sat back in his chair, rubbed his jawbone with his hand. “You know, honey, we just don’t come here often enough.”

“I know. I’d like to come more, honestly. I’d like to talk to Josie about it. Since she inherited it too, and she’s like me. She really loves it up here. I was thinking we could all come up here together some weekend. Josie and Rich and us. It’d be so nice.”

“Mmm,” he said again. He placed his elbows on the table now, straightened his back.

“Josie, eh? When Josie comes up here she doesn’t do a goddamn thing. Ever notice that? The woman doesn’t even make the bed when they leave.”

“Oh, Josie’s always been like that,” she laughed. “I don’t know, that’s just the way she is.”

“Yeah?” Jack frowned. “And what about Rich? He doesn’t come up here, turn off the water in November so that the pipes don’t freeze. He doesn’t mow the lawn when the snow melts. He doesn’t do that, does he? Damn it, sweetheart, you know I love you. But when I asked you to marry me, I didn’t ask this goddamn house to marry me. I didn’t ask to marry your sister or her husband or your fuckin’ dead parents.”

The silence was heavy in the air, like mist. She felt the need to move so she jumped up and walked over to the fridge, opened the door and took out the pie she had baked earlier that morning. She cut a thick slice and concentrated on the crust and the soft brown chunks of apple. She was cautious, careful that it didn’t fall apart when she placed it on a plate.

Jack ate quickly, spearing the pie with his fork while he spoke. “It’s for the best, really. My friend Bill is a realtor, you ever met Bill, honey? He said he’d do an appraisal for us. Why don’t you eat something?”

“I’ve got a headache.”

“It’s just the altitude. You’ll feel better in a little while. But you know, this place is old but it was built to last. We should be able to sell it for triple what it sold for originally, by now…”

And then she stopped listening. She smoked a cigarette, studied the shape of her fingernails. And even when Jack got up and left she stayed at the table, staring at the dishes he had left at his place. The white mug, the white plate. She wondered if they could break the way an eggshell breaks—shatter but stay in one piece at the same, held together by a thin membrane. She thought she might try it. Smash them on the floor and against the wall, just to see.

But she didn’t. She sat and watched the shadows grow until the crickets began singing to the night sky.