"Oh how I want to know what this is," she says with a faint smile and an undetectable sigh.

He doesn't say anything but just watches her. Her face, her quiet hair and her loud smile. He doesn't smoke but now, for some reason, he wishes he did.

"Do you know," she goes on, with the dim light under her brows, "what this is?"

"I don't know." He wants to sing her a song but can't think of a song that he finds appropriate. "Sometimes I think you've got all the answers in the universe so maybe you asked the wrong person."

She plays with his short hair and smiles again, "Great answer."

But they still don't know why they're here and what they're doing here.

The neighbor next door seems to be throwing a tantrum - they can hear dishes smashed, loud speaker blasting "So What". Miles has always been wonderful for any occasion.

"What the heck is this music?" He finally says.

She lets out another sigh but this one is even more subtle than the one earlier. All the same, too subtle to be heard. The too-bad-you-don't-know-Miles sigh. The we're-still-so-different-despite-all-the-fun-we-have sigh.

The he asks, "I wonder what triggered you today."

"I like the word 'trigger'. Don't you?"

"Don't change the subject, young lady."

Her head is swimming in between the bars Miles plays; at this moment the music sounds so lilting to her. However, at the same time it carries itself like a sullen prelude. Looking at his smiling wife in the picture nervously tucked behind a pile of books, it suddenly strikes her that she knows exactly what makes her act like a gun today. It's something she cannot name.

Leaning over to kiss his forehead for perhaps one last time, she shrugs and says, "Maybe it's Liz Phair."