el tecolote

What, she said, not who. What time is it.

He was always asking questions.
Who was calling?
Who—if she could travel back in time—would she want to take a long walk with?
Who was she most afraid of bumping into in the dark?

But also:
Who time is it?
Who was she hoping for?
Who did she just say?

And:
Who did she smell of eucalyptus?
Who was she coughing?
Who was she so recklessly moving her queen around the board?

He cared. And it was true that she used to say to her girlfriends, the ones he now asked after, that she wanted someone who cared about her everything. The phrase was cute in a way that she later hated, but what she meant was something big. There were places in her, places that, were she to color them, would require black. Or, okay, maybe not black. But definitely midnight blue. They were dark. Whoever he was would need to be brave.

And he did know the places. He was a wonderful, nocturnal lover with night vision. He could see into the midnight blue. Or the black. He seemed to care about everything. The dark spaces, how she knew when to rub that spot between his scapulae, why she consistently mispronounced the word library, the reason she preferred port to any of the drinks he concocted, the reason she wore a dress over her pants.

But.

Who? Who? Who-who? Who?