James Sallis - Eye of the Cricket

I sip the tea. Supposed to stay off caffeine. Supposed to stay off damn near eveiything. As though I'd had enough of it. I haven't. Haven't had enough of any thing yet, however long and hard the siege has been. Some nights I sit on the bench outside and I'm rendered mute, absolutely mute, by the touch of the wind on my face, by lights inside the house, how beautiful the world can be.

I loved you, Vicky, and you, La Verne, and yes, you, Clare. Loved you all and still do. All so much a part of me now.

Like Deborah.

Home from theflower shop she stands just past the window, tall and willowy and swaying slightly (or so I will always imagine her), calling, Does Lew want to come out and play.

She showed up at the door one morning days after I came back from Nighttown.

"If it's okay with you, I thought I'd just drop my things off here and go on to work."

She handed a suitcase through the door.

"I'm running late, though-what else is new? See you tonight, Lew."

"You sure about this?"

She looked at me for a moment and nodded, then turned and broke for her car. We never spoke about it again. It's her home now as much as it's mine, David's or Zeke's.

There's another as well.

I was in the slave quarters working on this extraordinary thing, this book or whatever it turns out to be, almost done with it in fact, when David came to the door. One of those drawling New Orleans afternoons that looks to go on forever. I had door and windows propped open, a glass of iced tea close by. Flies were doing head-ons all around.

"Someone to see you, Dad."

I waved my hand, a little impatiently, I'm sure, to indicate that I was working and didn't care to be bothered.

"I know. You'll want to see her. I wouldn't interrupt you otherwise. She's in the front room."

I read the last couple of paragraphs, hit Save. Got up and went in through the kitchen. Bat appeared from nowhere, buzzed first my feet, then his nearly full bowl, urgently remonstrating. When I stepped into the front room, just past the sill, her face turned to me, and for a moment irrational fear flooded me.

It could have been, for that moment I almost believed it was, her mother watching me.

Then teal's welled behind my eyes.

"Hi, Lewis," she said. "Looking pretty good for an old fart."

She stepped towards me on the bare wood floor, one step, then another. Had her mother's easy grace.

"Probably I should have called. But these days I've got in the habit of doing things on a little more personal level. If you want me to leave, I will."

I shook my head.

"I've been straight a year now. That's what I promised myself: once I made it a year, I'd see you again. I've never forgotten what you did for me, Lewis. I could use a friend. Difference is, now I can be a friend, too. You say the word, though, I'm out of here. I'd understand."

Mute with the beauty of the world again, with its simple pleasures, I took those three necessary steps and took Alouette in my arms.

Neither of us spoke for a while.

"When I was in the hospital, on the breathing machine, you sat beside me, for hours it seemed, and you told me about when you first met my mom, how much you loved her, and how you'd never been able to tell her that.

"Once I was off crack, then, later, off alcohol, whenever things started getting bad, I'drememberyour sitting there by me, telling me all that. That's what kept me going. I just hoped someone, someday, might love me like that, that I'd be worth it. I saw the way your pain, your sorrow, your sense ofregret got all mixed up with the love you had for her, with your tenderness, all those complicated memories, and I'd think: That's what I've cut myself off from. More than anything else I just wanted to feel again, Lewis."

"Whatever the cost?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Welcome back," I said to Alouette. "Welcome home."