early Saturday morning

He'd been hoping for a lazy sleep in kind of Saturday morning. Berenice had jumped out of bed as the first light crept through the crack of their bedroom curtains, but he'd rolled over, put a pillow over his head and succeeded in descending again into sleep.

It was a sleep pockmarked with stress and anxiety, featuring an army of English invaders, each with long red hair and battle fatigues, clacking in unison on their black high heels. But it was sleep nonetheless, and he badly needed it. So, he was understandably annoyed when a high whining phreeeeeeeeeeee sound wormed its way under his pillow and yanked him gracelessly back into wakefulness. There was a moment of silence, and then it went again. Phreeeeeeee! Berry angrily threw his pillow off and checked his phone for the time.

9:15! Unbelievable, he grumbled, cross with whichever neighbour it was that had the nerve to kick off construction at such an unneighbourly time of the morning.

He tried one last time, screwing his eyes shut under the darkness of the duvet.

Phreeeeeeeeeeee! And then, additionally, there came a loud thumping sound. Like a rubber mallet being struck against wood.

Thoroughly enraged, Berry threw the bedding off and angrily pulled on his forest green terry cloth robe, cinching it as he thundered out into the hallway and down the stairs to the main floor.

"What in the hell is that racket?" he asked Berenice, who was not there. The girls were there, though, pulling the living room apart and draping blankets across furniture in a construction project of their own, so he asked the question of them instead. "What is all that bloody racket?"

Noemi shrugged her small shoulders in response and pointed toward the backyard. Right. Berenice's landscapers. He'd forgotten about them. Still, they were here to give an estimate, not take chainsaws to the house. Berry turned toward the kitchen, deciding if he wanted to confront tradespeople in his cold backyard while wearing only an old robe. On arriving in the kitchen, he decided that he did not want such a showdown, so he opted instead to pour a cup of coffee and stand moodily, mostly hidden, beside the large bay window that overlooked the yard.

He could see Berenice out there with two hale and hearty looking men. She was bright and pulled together in her weekend jeans, plaid shirt hanging below her short coat, hair swept up into a ponytail that made her look decades younger than he knew she was. Her cheeks were red, either from the brisk cold or the excitement of discussing her dream yard with the two men. She was holding a clipboard and gesturing animatedly, drawing invisible lines in the ground, her tall rain boots squelching through the wet grass and old garden beds.

He watched her with interest, finding himself reminded of the woman his wife used to be. Or, the woman she still was, he supposed. Just with such infrequency in his presence that he could be excused for thinking that she was entirely, permanently changed. But there she was again, in evidence, out there.

He held his mug against his chest and remembered her in university, where they'd met — an introductory course in philosophy. For him, a throwaway credit toward a general degree in the humanities with which he would do god knows what. For her, the first step on a long and deliberate path toward a Ph.D. in sociology and, later, a career in academia.

He had been so entranced by her confidence and the fashionable French other-ness of her that he'd been too terrified to speak to her. Months of being hyper-aware of her in the rows ahead or behind him during lectures. Finally, as exams were looming and he worried that he might not cross paths with her again, he'd taken the risk of introducing himself out in the hall. She'd listened to his awkward self-introduction, then smiled widely. She reached out to touch his arm and said, "This is funny, but do you know, we have the same name? I'm Berenice, but my family calls me Berry, just like you!"

And just like that, they were twinned by coincidence.

In the years that followed, he had claimed the shortened name, while she had reverted to her given name. This was inevitable — you need to be distinguishable from your partner. Going around sharing a name would indicate an unhealthy level of dependency. So, while they started off twinned, they had purposely grown to be distinct, a process by which they had, 20 years later, overshot the mark somewhat and become complete strangers to each other.

But here was a way back to that, he thought. A temporary condition allowed by the safety of being separated by the double glazing of their kitchen window. He suspected that his enjoyment of her in this moment was dependent on him remaining inside and her remaining outside. If one or the other were to come in or go out, the spell would inevitably evaporate. They would be just themselves again. Lumpy, 40, tired and, most of all, annoyed with each other for having changed.

Just as that thought was emerging for examination, one of the burly men started sledgehammering at the old wooden deck again. Berry put his coffee down and rapped annoyedly on the window pane to get Berenice's attention.

"Hey!" he shouted uselessly through the glass. Her bright eyes dimmed just slightly as she clocked his irritation. She gestured at the men to keep going, but clambered up to the backdoor and came in, bringing a rush of cold air with her that went straight up Berry's robe.

"Why are they knocking the deck off?" he demanded. "I thought they were here to give an estimate, not start work. We agreed to get three quotes."

She waved his concern away. "They're not starting. Vlad is checking the exterior of the foundation. Some bricks looked broken just behind the deck. He doesn't want any surprises, that's all."

"But they're using a chainsaw! Suppose we decide it's too expensive and want to keep the deck as it is?" Berry posited, reasonably.

"Pah. The deck is not the expensive thing." Berenice explained with impatience. "That's going to be the stonework. They'll have to regrade and level the ground before the flagstones can be put down. The deck has to come off anyway."

There was a moment of silence while Berry looked from his wife to the small pile of deck boards that were piling up beside the fence.

Berenice pouted her lips and crinkled her brow in a look meant to convey understanding. "Don't worry, Berry. It's all in hand." And with that, she pulled his robe tighter around his waist and returned to the yard.