Craig Smith - Cold Rain

Lucy was proof of that, and I think she was almost relieved when we finally made contact.

For a long time, Molly wouldn’t tell Lucy the whole story. She said simply that things had not worked out.

In a world of broken families this was something Lucy could understand. Lucy of course wanted to know everything about her father. Molly could satisfy her to a point, but as she got older she asked more penetrating questions. Shortly after Lucy’s twelfth birthday, Molly told her everything. She made no apologies for Lucy’s father. She said only that he was a kid, seventeen years old. They didn’t have any money. They didn’t have a place to stay. It was cold and it had been raining for four days in a row. ‘Luke went home,’ she said, ‘because he could. Anyone would have.’

But of course Molly hadn’t.

I think Molly had always wanted to believe I wouldn’t have either. That was important to her. Molly didn’t love by half-measures. She loved with all of her heart and expected the same. When things got really bad, she knew most men would just turn back and go home. But not the man she loved.

That was the deal in Molly’s world. No matter how safe things got for her, she still understood love in this way: in a you were either there or you weren’t.

Walt showed up at his apartment around eight that evening. I met him in the parking lot. He seemed surprised to see me, but helped me bring my gear in.

Once inside, he caught a good look at my face. The way his expression changed, the mix of perplexity and concern, was almost touching. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t come back last night?’

‘Last night? What was last night?’

Such are the joys of a good bottle of Scotch. I went through the whole thing again. When I had finished my narrative, executed with a gentle soft-shoe, I got it all a second time. ‘You and Molly breaking up?’

Around ten o’clock, I set my sleeping bag in Walt’s bedroom and went to sleep. As near as I could tell, he came ‘to bed’ around one o’clock and was still reading at four.

The next morning Walt suggested I go to the hospital.

I couldn’t look that bad and not have some kind internal damage, broken bones, ruptured spleen, some damn thing. I asked him where the spleen was and we went off on that for a while.

On Sunday I gave the hospital serious consideration. The bruise in my side was tender and hot. My face looked almost as bad as it felt. Walt’s home-remedy medicine helped, though, and by midnight I slept without pain.

I got to the university around eight-fifteen on Monday, quite a bit earlier than usual, and I was feeling very satisfied with myself until I found a note on my office door from Dean Lintz. My presence was required in his office immediately. The nastiness of phrase was no accident. As a tenured professor I decided I could ignore the note, claim I hadn’t seen it when he finally caught up with me, and that’s what I would have done, except that the lock to my office had been changed.

When I entered his office, Dean Lintz told me Leslie Blackwell in Affirmative Action had called him Friday afternoon. Apparently, I had not only attempted to discuss the investigation with one of the witnesses, I had actually assaulted him. That was not true, I said.

I’d been arrested for assault, but the judge dropped the charges. As far as talking, I hadn’t spoken so much as a single phrase to Buddy Elder Thursday evening.

Dean Lintz sighed and shook his head sadly. He liked me, he said, but he had no choice. He was going to have to suspend me.

‘What about my classes?’

‘I’ve already instructed your chair to find replacements. We’ll need your grade book and syllabi, David.

As soon as you’ve taken care of that, I want you off campus. I have no idea if the vice president will want to bring additional disciplinary action against you for this, but I do know it’s likely you’ll be looking at additional charges once Dr Blackwell has finished her investigation.’

I was confused. ‘What kind of charges?’

Dean Lintz grimaced. ‘Sexual misconduct. According to Leslie Blackwell you’ve been having sex with one of your freshmen students in your office. I mean really, David! Couldn’t you at least have taken her off campus?’

‘Is it against the rules to have sex in our offices?’

‘Smoking in your office is against the rules, David!

Of course it’s against the rules! You know that, as well as I do! Tenure can only protect you so far. This kind of behaviour… it’s an embarrassment for the whole university.’

The dean ended our meeting on a more conciliatory note. The suspension was with pay and benefits.

I still had options. I was free to appeal any action taken against me. I was entitled to a faculty adviser and of course free to hire an attorney if I thought I needed one. ‘The thing is Affirmative Action has let too much of this kind of crap get by for too long.

Leslie Blackwell was brought in to change that, and you just happened to be her first. She needs to let everyone know there’s a new sheriff in town, David.

I tried to warn you!’

I cleared out my desk under the supervision of the department secretary. She was close to tears the whole time. I left most of my books in my office, as I had for my sabbatical. I had every intention of returning.

On the last trip to my truck, I met Buddy Elder in the hallway. He made a show of making room for me.

I had a box in my arms. He understood what it meant.

Not a word from him, of course, just the same lazy smile and sleepy brown eyes.

I called Molly to tell her I had been suspended and was bringing some stuff from my office out to the farm. ‘Sorry to do it,’ I said to her answering machine, ‘but I can’t unload this in Walt’s apartment.’

I hesitated at the end of my message. I wanted to tell her that Buddy Elder had delivered a copy of the diary to Leslie Blackwell Friday morning, but I realized that would not seem especially diabolical to her. I was banging a stripper in my office. Maybe the university should know about it. After several seconds of dead space on the tape, I said, ‘I’d like to see you, Molly.’

I finished by saying I loved her.

I don’t know anyone who enjoys talking to a machine. Emotional pitches are especially difficult.

You make the speech in the belief that you’re talking to a person. After you hang up you are haunted by your own words. You imagine you have said too much or that you sounded as mechanical as the machine you have spoken to. I didn’t remember the drive out to the farm. I was too busy imagining what I should have said and worrying about the words I had actually delivered. I was rolling along an empty pavement doubting everything, looking at cornfields and patches of woods here and there, and suddenly I was home.

Except it was not home. Not anymore. The horses were in the pasture. The dogs circled my legs howling and growling, a few of them even wagging their tails.

Molly leaned out the window from the third floor.

But her tone left no doubt: I was not welcome. ‘Put everything in your office,’ she called. She retreated at once. I guess she could still see me looking up at the place where she had been, because after a moment she appeared again. ‘I’m sorry about the suspension, David. I really am.’ And that was it. A couple of minutes later I heard the familiar whine of her table saw.

My life is a ratty piece of string stretching out behind me in silly, dull serpentine twists. There are little knots and tangles, those points in my existence I know I should have marked as sacred time, but to be honest they did not seem worth the effort. I suppose it was my natural stubbornness. People said your first is unforgettable, so I remembered them all dutifully, but I cherished nothing. My first sexual encounter had transpired with the town tramp in the backseat of my old man’s Ford Ltd. demo, an awkward and embarrassing piece of business. My first job as a man had been walking out and shaking hands with strangers and trying to convince them to buy one of my cars. My first diploma came at age eighteen, college graduation four years later.