Douglas Kennedy - Five Days

Again Richard seemed to be reading my thoughts as he stopped and took my hands and, looking directly at me, said:

‘You know and I know we’re still figuring each other out, still wondering if this can be actually happening, and if we can truly create this life together we so want. But the truth is, absolutely. I have no doubt about it. None at all.’

‘Nor do I.’

And we kissed again.

Half an hour later we were in a restaurant on Newbury Street, having a late brunch, discussing how we would negotiate the next few complex days with our respective spouses.

‘My desire is to simply tell Dan the truth when I get home tomorrow night,’ I said. ‘As I said earlier, I know it will hit him hard. I know he will be stunned by the news, then furious. I want to just get it over with — because I don’t want to have to go through the motions of pretending that all is normal when I am longing all the time for you. But there is one major consideration here — the fact that he starts this new job tomorrow and will be exhausted from his first early-morning shift. Mind you, he will be working a four-day-on, three-day-off week, so—’

‘So why don’t you wait until Thursday evening — when he can absorb the news without having to then face work a few hours later?’

‘It’s the kinder option — not that there’s anything kind at all about this. Still, given that I work until five-thirty Tuesday through Friday of this week, and he’ll be going to bed around eight to get up at four a.m., we will be ships passing through the night for the next few days — which is a blessing. The few days means I can see my friend Lucy and start quietly moving some basic things into the apartment over her garage. So when I give him the news Friday after I come home from work I can sleep that night at Lucy’s. It also means I can tell Sally that afternoon — and not have her reeling and having to go to school the next day. If she wants to come over with me that night to Lucy’s, that’s an option. But knowing her she’ll run to her boyfriend. Which might not be a bad thing. Then I have to do the early shift on Saturday at the hospital, but plan to meet Ben late Saturday afternoon in Portland for dinner — which means I can then tell him directly. I’m pretty certain he’ll take the news a lot better than his sister. and I’m really thinking out loud here, aren’t I?’

Richard smiled and reached for my hand (we were always reaching for each other’s hand, always there to reassure each other).

‘It’s huge what we’re about to do,’ he said. ‘And it is going to hurt people with whom we’ve lived for years. So, of course you have to be considering how best to break the news in a way where it can be absorbed as best as possible. Part of me thinks that Muriel, even if she is privately knocked sideways by the news, will probably come on all cold and vindictive — which is, I’m afraid, her usual style. But that will be no bad thing. Better arctic chill than a wildfire. And if you plan to tell Dan on Friday I’ll do it the same night.’

‘Then maybe we should meet somewhere afterwards. I mean, the idea of not seeing you from tomorrow morning until Thursday. ’

‘Could you sneak away maybe Tuesday evening?’

‘Actually, that would work fine. I could tell Dan I’m having dinner with Lucy, and could meet you.?’

‘Could we meet at Lucy’s apartment?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And then, on Thursday. ’

‘Come straight up to Lucy’s after you’ve broken the news.’

‘Unless Sally wants to spend the evening with you there.’

‘As I said before the chances of that happening—’

‘Just in case I can always give Dwight a call. He knows how difficult things have been with Muriel, and his wife is also very sympathetic and kind, and they will let me stay in their guest room for a few days—’

‘Anyway, we’ll first be seeing each other on Tuesday night.’

‘So there will just be a night apart.’

‘Which is a night too long.’

‘But as of Friday we will officially be a couple.’

‘We’re a couple already, my love.’

‘That we are. That we are.’

Richard’s phone binged several times during lunch. But he ignored it.

‘I know who it is — that awful man in Lewiston who may have hired a proxy arsonist. And he can wait until after this lunch for me to return his damn calls.’

My phone binged once as well: a text from Ben, telling me he’d spoken to Norm at the art supply store, and he’d be expecting me at three p.m., but he told me that he needs thirty minutes to mix the paints, and won’t begin mixing them until money has exchanged hands. So you really can’t show up later than three-thirty. I so appreciate this, Mom. Hope your good mood is even better this afternoon.

While Richard headed off to use the washroom I texted back:

Tell Mr Norm I’m a prompt person — especially when it involves my son and his work. Will definitely be there in just under half an hour. (My watch read two-forty.) And yes, my good mood is augmenting by the moment right now. I’ll text when I have the paints. Love — Mom.

As I hit the ‘send’ button Richard was back at the table.

‘Everything OK?’ he asked as I put my phone down. I explained the text from Ben and the fact that I really needed to get to the Fenway within the next fifteen minutes.

‘I’ll put you in a taxi,’ he said.

‘But Fenway Park is just seven or eight minutes away by foot.’

‘Then I’ll go with you.’

‘And have to wait nearly an hour while this guy does his prestidigitation thing with his paints? You jump the T to the airport, my love, get our bags. I’ll get my son his magic acrylics, then meet you back at the hotel by five at the latest, and promise to drag you back to bed.’

‘That sounds like a plan,’ he said, all smiles.

A few minutes later we were standing in front of the T-station at the intersection of Newbury Street and Mass Ave. I put my arms around Richard’s neck.

‘Now the idea of letting you go for two hours is not the most pleasing of prospects,’ I said.

‘Then let me come to the paint store.’

‘The faster you get to the airport and get back with our bags the faster we can be making love again.’

We began to kiss. A long, intense kiss.

‘I don’t want to let you go,’ he eventually whispered.

‘Two hours tops and we’re back in each other’s arms.’

‘Hurry back to me.’

‘I will.’

We kissed again.

‘How did we get so lucky?’ he asked.

‘We just did. And do you know what? We deserve it.’

One final long kiss, then I gently disentangled myself from his arms.

‘I really want to get there in ten minutes. If the guy is as finicky as Ben makes him out to be. ’

‘OK then,’ Richard said. ‘Two hours. I love you.’

‘I love you.’

He headed down the stairs of the T-station, turning back to blow me a kiss. For a moment — pulling up the collar of his brown leather Air Force jacket — he looked like a throwback to another era, and had suddenly lost around three and a half decades. He was a twenty-year-old, looking back with poignant wistfulness in his eyes at the woman he loved, as he was about to be shipped out somewhere potentially jeopardous. Then, with a sad smile, he was gone.

I headed out in the direction of Fenway Park, the sun beginning its afternoon slump towards the dark, but still bathing the street in a copper glow. The fall. A season whose peerless beauty — especially in New England — usually provoked a certain melancholy in me. Because after the kaleidoscopic crimson-and-gold hued wonders of the season, darkness then falls. With it the descent into the brumous shadow of winter, and the end of another year. Yet another twelve becalmed months behind me.