I stood up to go put the tool bag back in the closet; then I washed my hands with dish soap in the kitchen, listening to my mother talking with her grandkids. Maybe, I thought, my father had realized that I was leading a life with Barbara lately that was based on frugal pleasures, dedication, and community, ideals he’d passed on to me.

On Saturdays, Barbara and I would drive to the nursery to buy plants. That spring we put a leadwort into a long, deep planter outside the dining room, and in the morning, we’d take our coffee outside and look at the sky-blue discs of petals. Up by the rooftop terrace, we were training a duranta plant to climb the wooden posts of the structure supporting the solar panels. We’d bought two wooden lounge chairs, a bench, two armchairs, and a small table. I’d go up there before nightfall and have a drink and watch the duranta grow, the small leaves and the lilac petals bordered by white.

In the courtyard below, the flowering sandeville fuchsia spread at a slant over the white wall, escaping the jasmine vines. A wisteria grew outside our bedroom. And for the courtyard, we’d just bought a lantana, red, yellow, and orange, covered in clusters of tiny flowers like fly eyes. This was the idyllic good life that my father believed in.

Of course, Barbara and I got there with plenty of turbulence. I’ve said in the past that my relationship with Barbara had a parallel dimension where we were already happy: if we fought and I threw a book of hers over the courtyard wall, into the rocks, it was as if I were reshelving it in a beautiful bookcase in a home where we already felt the plenitude of time and things. When Barbara left for the night with her red roller bag, she was actually headed off to stay in a place where our love was already complete. Now, though, I was beginning to sense a continuity between these two dimensions, as though certain situations didn’t have to reach their limit for me to start feeling close to her.

We threw glasses, the ashtray, heavy photography books, handfuls of ice. Right when I saw these things go flying, slamming into the walls or the floor, I felt connected to her; I didn’t need for her to run to the closet anymore, to pull down her roller bag and spend the night someplace else.

Once, she was so enraged, she tore loose the bedroom door, which didn’t have the usual two hinges but one very long hinge held in place with rows of small screws. I saw that white slab at an unnatural tilt, impossible to close, and could feel time itself inside me and how every existing thing contained its own ending, and my whole being desired this unfamiliar form of Barbara, this vector constantly hurled at objects, unable to control herself, to not react to the world, this vector condemned to hurtle into the future, if not handled with care.