Jeremiah Healy - Right To Die

Cold in more ways than one.

Nancy said, "I cooked, so you clean."

I corked the wine and cleared the table of the remains of a pretty good meal of lamb chops with mushroom-and-sausage rice. My praising the food, even its color and arrangement on the plate, hadn't done much to warm Nancy up.

From the kitchen I said, "We can talk about it, or we can brood about it."

No reply.

I loaded the dishwasher and sponged down the sink and counter. Back in the living room, Nancy was sitting stiffly on the burlappy sofa, using her index finger to swipe tears angrily from the sides of her eyes.

"Nancy – "

"Just shut up, okay?"

I stopped dead.

She said, "I hate to cry."

I believed that. As an assistant district attorney, Nancy had seen an awful lot. A person who cried easily wouldn't get through one of her typical days, much less the couple of years she'd put in.

I said, "Is it one of your cases?"

Shake of the head.

"Medical? Physical?"

"No, dammit, it's you."

"Me?"

"Yes."

"My face? My breath? My – "

"Goddammit, John. It's…"

I walked toward her. Not told to stop, I sat next to her.

Nancy turned sideways to me, took a breath. "Look, it's not easy for me to talk about my emotions. It never has been."

"Hasn't affected-"

"Don't interrupt, okay?"

"Okay."

She took another breath. "My dad died when I was little, John. Three years old. They didn't have a tree-lighting ceremony in Southie, but even if they had, I didn't have him to swing me up onto his shoulders to watch it. I really don't remember him, not from real life. Just his face in photos, the pictures Mom kept. Holidays, especially Christmas, were hard on her because she did remember him from real life."

I thought back to my holidays with Beth, then to the period after I'd lost her to cancer.

"Once Mom died, my last year of law school, I didn't like the holidays anymore. All I'd had of the early ones was Mom, trying her best to be both parents at once. The later ones, I was always kind of propping her up, keeping her in the spirit of the season. When I rented the Lynches' top floor, they tried to include me in their stuff, but it was awkward, you know? I wasn't anybody's niece or girlfriend or anything. I was just the poor tenant with no place else to go."

"And then?"

"I met you. And for the first time, I thought I had somebody to share the holidays with. Really enjoy them, equal to equal, nobody making up for anything. I've been looking forward to the tree-lighting for weeks, then you behave like a freshman on his first trip to the big city."

I thought she was overreacting, but I said, "I'm sorry, Nance."

"No. No, you're not. You don't even understand what I mean, do you'?"

"I understand. I guess what happened in my life just turned me a different direction as far as the holidays go."

She sniffled.

I said, "Maybe you just got under my skin a little over the marathon."

A sour face. "You big turd."

"Finally, a term of endearment."

She punched me on the arm. A little hard, but now playfully. "That rugby shirt doesn't even fit anymore."

Standing, I pulled it over my head, whirling it by a sleeve and letting it fly across the room.

Nancy looked at my pants. "Never cared much for those corduroys, either."

Leaning forward, I braced my hands on the back of the sofa to either side of her head. "Lady, are you trying to get me into bed?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On how much harder I have to try."

Afterward, we lay in the dark under just a sheet. The window was open a crack, the wind whistling through. I was on my back, Nancy on her side, cuddled up against me.

"John, you ever think it's odd, the way we talk about it?"

"Can't be helped. Catholic upbringing."

"No. I don't mean us us. I mean people in general. We call it 'making love'."

"As opposed to…?"

"I mean, it just sounds so mechanical, almost like a label for some manufacturing process."

"It's worse than that, Nance."

"Why?"

"We tend to say, 'I want to make love to you.' "

"Yes?"

"Using 'to you' makes it sound like a one-way street. Provider to customer."

"How does 'I want to make love with you' sound'?"

"Pretty good, except we'll have to wait a while."

She snuggled closer. "Why?"

"Well, a man my age takes two, three weeks to recharge."

Another punch to the arm. "You're still sore from the marathon remark."

"I'm still sore from where you punched me before."

"Man your age, decides to run the marathon, he'd better get used to pain."

I shifted my face to Nancy even though I couldn't see her in the dark. "What makes you think I'm going to run the marathon?"

"The look you gave me after I almost kept from saying you were too old for it."

"What kind of look was it?"

"A stupid look."

I shifted again, about to talk to the ceiling, when the telephone rang.

That started the rest of it.

"JOHN! GEE, HOW LONG'T IT BTEN?"

Tommy Kramer forgot to take the napkin off his lap as he rose to greet me. It fell straight and true to the floor. Only heavy cloth for Sunday brunch at Joe's American Bar & Grill.

"Tommy, good to see you."

He sat back, crushing a filterless cigarette in an ashtray but not noticing the napkin between his penny loafers. Moving upward, the flannel slacks were gray, the oxford shirt pale blue, the tie a Silk Regent with red background, and the blazer navy blue. Dressing down, for Tommy.

I took in the room's detailed ceilings and mahogany wainscoting, pausing for a moment on the bay window overlooking Newbury Street. The shoppers below bustled around half an hour before the boutiques would open for Christmas-season high rollers. We had a corner all to ourselves, the yuppies holding off until after twelve, when the booze could start to flow.

Tommy's rounded face seemed to lift a little, making him look younger. "You know, my old law firm used to own this place."

"I didn't know. The Boston one, you mean?"

"Right, right. Firm got started before the turn of the century, one of the first in the city to decide to make a Jew a partner. When word leaked out about that, the downtown eating clubs very politely told the firm's established partners, 'Well, you understand, of course, that we can't serve him here.' At which point the partners basically looked at each other, said 'fuck you' to the clubs, and bought a restaurant downtown for lunch meetings and this one here in Back Bay for dinner."

"So they could eat where they wanted."

"With whoever they wanted, including the new Jewish partner."

"The firm still run the place'?"

"No, no. Sometime after I went out on my own in Dedham, they sold it. Back then, though, it was heady stuff for a young lawyer like me to be able to walk into one of the finest restaurants in Boston and be treated like the king of Siam."

"Your practice going well?"

"The practice? Oh, yeah, yeah. Couldn't be better. We're at eight attorneys now with the associate we brought in last week. Evening grad from New England."

Nancy's alma mater. "Kathy and the kids?"

"Terrific. She's gone and got her real estate ticket. Salesman, not broker yet, but that'll come in time. She's showing real estate all over town and having a ball. Slow market, like everywhere, but she knows the neighborhoods and the schools. Jason's on the wrestling team, Kit's doing indoor – oh, I get it. If everything's okay on the practice and home fronts, how come I drag you in here on ten hours notice?"

"Something like that."

A waitress in a tux came to the table and asked if we'd like to order. Both of us went with orange juice, eggs Benedict, and a basket of muffins.