Davor opened the shutters before Marija had taken her bag from the car. His aunt's house smelled of closed rooms and dried apples. He had inherited it the previous autumn, and now brought the woman with whom he had spent two happy years for the first time. Showing her the garden, he described where they would put a table, where she could read, and how good things would be once they stopped paying for a city flat.
Marija loved the house. That was not the problem. She also loved lunch beneath the pear tree, the neighbour's dog arriving uninvited, and the fact that Davor did not check his phone every ten minutes here. Towards evening they sat on the doorstep. Nothing surrounded them except a distant tractor and the sound of someone washing plates in another house. Davor said he could live like this forever. Marija felt a small knot tighten in her stomach.
In the city she had work she could not move to a kitchen table, a sister three tram stops away, and choir on Thursdays. She did not want all that to become a journey requiring planning. She asked whether he had considered keeping the house for weekends. His smile diminished. He said he could finally breathe here. She looked at the pear tree, wishing her need for the city did not sound like opposition to his breathing.
The following morning they walked for a long time without talking. Davor tried listing the advantages of moving, then stopped midway through a sentence about heating costs. He noticed he was selling her a future like property. Marija said she did not want to spend the coming years waiting for this to become enough. She did not ask him to give up the house. Nor did she promise that her love would someday change what she knew about herself.
They returned earlier than planned. For a week they were unusually polite to each other. Then Davor suggested spending longer periods at the house during summer, with her visiting when she wanted. That did not settle the next ten years. For the first time both let the question remain unsettled. Marija bought a ticket for his first free weekend instead of packing boxes.
He met her at the little station. He carried a bag of pears, though there was an entire tree at the house. She laughed while he explained that gifts were not measured by need. They kissed beside the bus. In her bag lay a return ticket. In his pocket was a spare key for her.