Douglas Kennedy: A Special Relationship

'You know, I always end up cutting and running out of these things', I told Tony around a month after we started seeing each other.

'Oh, so that's what this is - a thing'.

'You know what I'm saying'.

'That I shouldn't get down on one knee and propose - because you're planning to break my heart?'

I laughed and said, 'I really am not planning to do that'.

'Then your point is... what?'

'My point is...'

I broke off, feeling profoundly silly.

'You were about to say?' Tony asked, all smiles.

'The point is...' I continued, hesitant as hell. 'I think I sometimes suffer from "foot in mouth" disease. And I should never have made such a dumb comment'.

'No need to apologize', he said.

'I'm not apologizing', I said, sounding a little cross, then suddenly said, 'Actually I am. Because...'

God, I really was sounding tongue-tied and awkward. Once again, Tony just continued smiling an amused smile. Then said, 'So you're not planning to cut-and-run?'

'Hardly. Because... uh... oh, will you listen to me...'

'I'm all ears'.

'Because... I'm so damn happy with you, and the very fact that I feel this way is surprising the hell out of me, because I really haven't felt this way for a long time, and I'm just hoping to hell you feel this way, because I don't want to waste my time on someone who doesn't feel this way, because...'

He cut me off by leaning over and kissing me deeply. When he finished, he said, 'Does that answer your question?'

'Well...'

I suppose actions speak louder than words - but I still wanted to hear him say what I had just said. Then again, if I wasn't very good at outwardly articulating matters of the heart, I'd come to realize that Tony was even more taciturn on such subjects. Which is why I was genuinely surprised when he said, 'I'm very pleased you're not cutting and running'.

Was that a declaration of love? I certainly hoped so. At that moment, I knew I was in love with him. Just as I also knew that my bumbling admission of happiness was about as far as I'd go in confessing such a major emotional truth. Such admissions have always been difficult for me. Just as they were also difficult for my schoolteacher parents - who couldn't have been more supportive and encouraging when it came to their two children, but who also were deeply buttoned-down and reserved when it came to public displays of affection.

'You know, I can only once remember seeing our parents kiss each other', my older sister Sandy told me shortly after they were killed in an automobile accident. 'And they certainly didn't score big points on the tactile front. But that really didn't matter, did it?'

'No', I said. 'It didn't at all'.

At which point Sandy broke down completely and wept so loudly that her grief sounded something like keening. My own displays of raw public grief were few in the wake of their death. Perhaps because I was too numb from the shock of it all to cry. The year was 1988. I was twenty-one. I had just finished my senior year at Mount Holyoke College - and was due to start a job at the Boston Post in a few weeks. I'd just found an apartment with two friends in the Back Bay area of the city. I'd just bought my first car (a beat-up VW Beetle for a thousand bucks), and had just found out that I was going to graduate magna cum laude. My parents couldn't have been more pleased. When they drove up to the college to see me get my degree that weekend, they were in such unusually ebullient form that they actually went to a big post-commencement party on campus. I wanted them to spend the night, but they had to get back to Worcester that evening for some big church event the next day (like many liberal New Englanders, they were serious Unitarians). Just before they got into the car, my father gave me a big uncharacteristic hug and said that he loved me.

Two hours later, while driving south, he nodded off at the wheel on the Interstate. The car veered out of control, crashed through the centre guard rail and careened right into the ongoing path of another car - a Ford station wagon. It was carrying a family of five. Two of the occupants - a young mother and her baby son - were killed. So too were my parents.

In the wake of their death, Sandy kept expecting me to fall apart (as she was doing constantly). I know that it both upset and worried her that I wasn't succumbing to loud, outward heartbreak (even though anyone who saw me at the time could tell that I was in the throes of major trauma). Then again, Sandy has always been the emotional roller coaster in the family. Just as she's also been the one fixed geographic point in my life - someone to watch over me (as I have watched over her). But we couldn't be more disparate characters. Whereas I was always asserting my independence, Sandy was very much a homebody. She followed my parents into high-school teaching, married a phys ed teacher, moved to the Boston suburbs and had three children by the time she was thirty. She'd also allowed herself to get a little chunky in the process - to the point where she was crowding one hundred and seventy pounds (not a good look on a woman who only stood five foot three), and seemed to have this predilection for eating all the time. Though I occasionally hinted that she might consider padlocking the refrigerator, I didn't push the point too hard. It wasn't my style to remonstrate with Sandy - she was so vulnerable to all criticism, so heart-on-her-sleeve, and so damn nice.

She's also been the one person with whom I've always been open about everything going on with me - with the exception of the period directly after the death of my parents, when I shut down and couldn't be reached by anybody. The new job at the Post helped. Though my boss on the City Desk didn't expect me to begin work immediately I insisted on starting at the paper just ten days after my parents were buried. I dived right in. Twelve-hour days were my specialty. I also volunteered for additional assignments, covering every damn story I could - and quickly got a name for myself as a completely reliable workaholic.

Then, around four months into the job, I was on my way home one evening, when I passed by a couple around my parents' age, walking hand-in-hand down Bolyston Street. There wasn't anything unusual about this couple. They didn't resemble my mom or dad. They were just an ordinary-looking husband-and-wife in their mid-fifties, holding hands. Maybe that's what undid me - the fact that, unlike many couples at that stage of a marriage, they seemed pleased to be together... just as my parents always seemed pleased to be in each other's company. Whatever the reason, the next thing I knew, I was leaning against a lamppost, crying wildly. I couldn't stop myself, couldn't dodge the desperate wave of grief with which I had finally collided. I didn't move for a long time, clinging on to the lamppost for ballast, the depth of my sorrow suddenly fathomless, immeasurable. A cop showed up. He placed his big hand on my shoulder, and asked me if I needed help.

'I just want my mommy and daddy', I felt like screaming, reverting back to the six-year-old self we all carry with us, eternally desperate for parental sheltering at life's most fearful moments. Instead, I managed to explain that I was simply coping with a bereavement, and all I needed was a cab home. The cop flagged one down (no easy thing in Boston - but then again, he was a policeman). He helped me into it, telling me (in his own faltering, gruff, kind way) that 'cryin' was the only way outta grief'. I thanked him, and kept myself in check on the drive back. But when I got to my apartment I fell on my bed, and surrendered once again to grief's wild ride. I couldn't remember how long I spent crying, except that it was suddenly two in the morning, and I was curled up on the bed in a foetal position, completely spent, and hugely grateful that my two roommates had been out that evening. I wanted no one to see me in this condition.