Habit

We moved, now by habit, and I found myself waking up to Ecuadorian mornings, going out to the bakery at sunrise, my first words of the day in Spanish with the baker’s boys. The elevator door opening into the living room, and in the kitchen, I set two cups of coffee and warm pan de yucca on the glass table. The sound of your hairdryer down the hall. I cut pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, any fruit at hand, into a bowl with yogurt and brown sugar. A cigarette by the window, the tile floor in the sun. Then you’re gone, and it’s the traffic on Republica del Salvador while I write at the empty table. Reading instead of looking for a job. Meeting you after work for canelazo on the terrace of Café Guapulo, watching the sunset in the valley, the cathedral hung out over acres of empty space. We’d take a cab to dinner in Plaza Fosch. Go dancing. You felt like an actor, right? Pretending not to notice what was missing. Hiding resentment, feigning interest.

That’s why I sometimes got into fights.

And I’d wake up with a black eye and go to the bakery. When I came back, there’d be two cups of coffee on the glass table. Our peaceful morning routine.