The two of us bought a cabin up in New Hampshire and decided to stay there whenever things got bitter and bad. Every so often in town, Jeanie collecting unemployment and I only going into the shop when needed but mostly deferring to younger and less arthritic hands, there reached points where our conversations took on the shape of a tired competition. Anytime our tones got semi-cold, or our conversations had a flavor of aggression with statements like “I didn’t touch your bodywash” or “well why didn’t you call him a week ago like I asked” we would pack up the Range Rover and drive three hours north to our square acre of property. For the four days of our usual stay, we would watch the finches and make a point to talk kindly. We made breakfast every day side by side, and would be so gentle and in sync with each other, so that by the time we got back to town we would carry on in affection and gentleness with one another. A couple years ago, during a particularly bad November for the two of us, I told her she needed to kick her junkie brother to the curb so to speak, because he only ever called her when he needed to borrow money, and he talked out the side of his mouth when he started speaking affectionately. She then called me a meddler and a loudmouth and told me she could make her own decisions, to which I said I’m not sure you can because look at the cabinet drawers and how crooked they are. After two long and slent nights where I mostly worked on digitizing some old movies, we both agreed to go to the cabin and see if that wouldn’t bring us back to normal. Well the first day, we were in such the same rut that we questioned going right back to town in the morning. On the next day, I tried really hard to be sweet and act silly the way she likes, but i think she smelled me trying too much. On the third day, we went to a burger bar in town and had a really optimistic conversation about renewing our passports so we could finally visit London, and spent some time looking at nice restaurants we could try while there. On the fourth day, her brother called her while she was in the shower, and I told him in plain english to never call again because I knew what he was after. He called me some terrible names and told me he was only calling to say hello. When she got out of the shower and heard what I did, she kept muttering “twisted” while she packed her bag really carelessly. She took a car to the train station a day early. I sat on the porch alone and watched the finches, wondering if people have any ability to arrange their own lives or if they’re only drug along for the ride. I tried to imagine what a creature would look like if it could enact its every desire on the world, a creature with pure free will. I knew only that it would be able to fly. I watched the smattering of finches and I thought about how quickly flying too would become a chore, and I figured it would only take a month or two for the motions of flight to become another tedious responsibility to be avoided at all costs. I thought if I were a bird, I’d hide away forever in the tall grass. When Jeanie and I separated I sold the cabin to an overly smiley couple in puffy vests and now they rent it online for a couple hundred dollars a night.