“Hope it’s not a bad time,” he says.
AS KELLER CHANGES into dry clothes, I walk Nick to the back door, handing him the wine. The introductions had been quick and awkward.
“At least now I know he exists,” Nick says. He attempts a smile and reaches down to pick up Gatsby from his spot on the chair. I watch Nick walk across the yard and into his house; Gatsby looks back at me from over Nick’s shoulder. I’m still staring out the window when I hear Keller’s voice.
“Did I interrupt something?” he asks.
Keller’s tone holds no jealousy, no reproach, as if he knows there couldn’t be anyone else for me but him. Still, I almost can’t believe the sight of Keller in my living room, a vision I’ve imagined for so long but have given up on ever seeing.
He’s looking around, as if scanning a penguin rookery, searching for clues about its welfare, its status, its future. He glimpses the emperor skull I keep on one of my bookshelves, and steps over for a closer look.
I’d salvaged the skull from the lab when a professor heading to another university was planning to toss it out. It’s one of the few possessions I treasure, as morbid as that might seem. While a penguin’s bones are solid, and the skull is heavier than you’d expect, there’s something graceful and delicate about it: the narrow, three-inch-long beak, the wide eye sockets, the gentle curve of the head.
Keller picks it up, running a finger along the fine bones of the penguin’s head. He seems lost in thought, and I’m silent until I can’t take it anymore.
“I’d given up hope of ever seeing you on my doorstep,” I say.
He puts the penguin skull down and comes over to me. He gives me a tentative kiss, then pulls me close, holding me far longer than he ever does, and he whispers in my ear, “Sorry I didn’t warn you. I didn’t know I was coming myself until I went to the airport and got on standby.”
“What’s going on? I thought you’d be teaching.”
He rests his chin on the top of my head. “Summer term was it. My contract didn’t get renewed.”
I pull back and look at him. “Antarctica’s only a couple months away. Just stay here until then.”
He releases me and says, “I’m going to Seattle, actually. See a friend who teaches at UW.”
He doesn’t look me in the eye when he says this, and I think back to what I’d said during our last voyage, after he got into trouble with Glenn. We’d never really talked about it, but it had only been Keller’s second season on board the Cormorant, and I worried it would hurt his chances of having a third.
“Keller, about last season—” I begin.
“Let’s forget about that,” he says, meeting my eyes. “More important, I hope Glenn can.”
“So do I.”
He gives a half laugh and shakes his head. “I’m having bad luck all around. Soon I’ll be back to dishwashing at McMurdo, if I’m lucky.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’ll have a spot on the boat. Glenn needs you.”
“I hope so,” he says.
Suddenly I have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. While we don’t usually know when or where we’ll see each other next, it’s been understood that we’ll meet in the Southern Hemisphere if nowhere else. Filling a cruise with knowledgeable and reliable naturalists, with a diversity of skills and expertise, can be a challenge—some, like Thom, have families; others have tenure-track jobs and teaching commitments. I’m assuming that people like Keller and me, for whom Antarctica comes first, will be guaranteed spots on the Cormorant. Perhaps I’ve assumed too much.
I try to put my thoughts aside as I toss Keller’s wet clothes into the dryer. We order Thai food, and as we wait for it to arrive, I watch him open a bottle of wine, thinking that I’ve seen his hands do many things before, but never this. Never something so ordinary and domestic.
I think about Nick—Don’t you worry you’ll have regrets?—and try to imagine Antarctica without Keller, or both of us here instead. How much I’d be willing to sacrifice if I needed to.
Keller twists the cork from the corkscrew and lays it on the kitchen table. He fills our glasses. We talk about the APP staff, the other researchers we know. We talk about the next phase of our study, which we’ll begin during this upcoming trip, after the Cormorant drops us off at Petermann. As usual, we don’t talk about us.
But later, when I lead him to the bedroom, he follows as if he’s glad to leave everything else behind. It’s the first time we’ve been together so far north of the equator, so far away from what first brought us together, and even as I feel his hands on my body, as I become immersed in the full presence of his skin, I also feel an absence, as though he is not entirely here, as I suppose he’s never entirely anywhere anymore—as maybe I’m not either.