Дуглас Кеннеди - Five Days

Everything is possible. Everything.

We finally succumbed to sleep around two in the morning, his arm enfolded around me, the aura of security, of safety, of invulnerability so pronounced. When I woke before dawn and sat up and reached out and stroked the head of my beloved, all the miraculous discombobulation of the last twenty-four hours was overshadowed by one simple, overmastering observation: my life had irrevocably changed.

Richard stirred awake.

‘Hello, my love,’ he whispered.

‘Hello, my love,’ I whispered back.

And he was deep within me moments later.

Afterward we both nodded off again, waking sometime after nine. I stood up, fetched a bathrobe, found a coffee maker in the living room of this vast suite — and returned some minutes later to the bedroom with two cups of freshly brewed Java. Richard was up, having just opened the curtains.

‘I don’t know how you take your coffee,’ I said.

‘Black works.’

‘Great minds think alike. and prefer black coffee.’

We kissed. I handed Richard a cup and we both slid back under the covers. The coffee was surprisingly good. Sun was streaming through the window.

‘It looks to be another perfect day,’ I said.

‘And I’m not returning to Maine tonight.’

‘Nor am I,’ I said, immediately considering my work schedule tomorrow — and how there were, as of Thursday, only two scans scheduled for Monday morning. Which meant if I could call my colleague Gertie this afternoon she could probably cover for me in the morning. And as for having to explain to Dan why I wouldn’t be home tonight.

No, I didn’t want to consider all that just now. I wanted to think about something I never thought I would be considering two days ago: a future in which happiness played a central role. And Richard — again uncannily reading my thoughts — took my hand in his and said:

‘Let’s talk about how and when we’ll move to Boston.’

A future. The future. Our future.

Love. An actual concrete reality.

Two

PLANS. WE NOW had plans.

Over breakfast, we could not stop talking about the project that was our life together. The more we discussed — throwing out ideas about how this huge change would be put into motion, the practical details, the larger overreaching personal concerns — I couldn’t help but marvel at the way we so easily bounced ideas off each other; the sheer inventive energy that existed between us; the way we were so much on the same emotional page.

Inventive energy. That was what was lacking within me for years. I was diligent at work, diligent at home, always engaged with my children, always trying to put a brave face on things with Dan, and using the world of books as my imaginative escape hatch from the humdrum. But there was never a sense of passionate engagement with life’s larger possibilities.

And now.

Plans. We now had definitive plans.

‘Say I call the realtor in around fifteen minutes?’ Richard asked me.

‘Ten o’clock on a Sunday morning? Won’t he mind?’

‘Like all salesmen, he always needs to be closing. The apartment is currently vacant. I know I can get my builder guy in Dorchester to do a structural survey on it this week. All going well we can close on the apartment in about three weeks. A new kitchen, bathroom, paint job, and the stripping and re-staining of the floors. that should take about two months tops. So we could probably move in sometime in January, or February at the outside.’

‘Well, I will get onto this medical employment service group I heard about here in Boston,’ I said. ‘They seem to be able to usually find placements for radiographic technicians in the area. Once I have secured something I’ll probably have to give at minimum one month’s notice at the hospital in Damariscotta. They won’t be happy — because there is actually a shortage of technologists in Maine. Still, they’ve had eighteen years of my life. I will be due around five months’ salary when I leave, as I haven’t taken enough vacation time over the years. Imagine that. I only allowed myself two of the three weeks’ vacation I was granted every year. What was I thinking?’

‘We feel guilty about vacations in this country. Something to do with our Puritan roots — and our fear that, while we’re away, someone will come along and replace us. Or, in my case, that the business will go elsewhere.’

‘Well, I am determined in the future to actually take proper vacations and go to interesting places with you. Just as I’d like to propose that I use half of that five months’ back pay from the hospital to buy furniture for our apartment. ’

‘Our apartment. I like that. But I can certainly cover the furniture. Anyway, you’ll still have Ben’s college tuition to pay, then Sally will also be starting college next year. ’

He was right, of course — especially since Dan would now be having to get by on his salary alone, which, at $15K per year after taxes, would barely cover his daily living expenses. At least the house was virtually paid off. If I could get around $85K per year in Boston — that’s the usual salary for technologists at big city hospitals — I could cover Ben and Sally’s day-to-day needs, with their tuitions being covered (as Ben’s was now) by financial aid from the U Maine system. Once I found a job at a Boston area hospital I was pretty sure I could negotiate a four/three working week deal — in which I put in four ten-hour days in a row, then took the next three off. I’d move out of the family home and probably ask Lucy if I could take over the apartment she has over her garage — which she usually rents out, but which is conveniently empty right now, and which she would probably let me have for a reasonable sum from now until next August. Then what I’d propose to Dan would be — Sally spends four days per week with him, then three days with me. Lucy’s apartment has two bedrooms. If Sally was insistent about returning to her room at the family home every night I’d still be around Damariscotta half the week for her.

I mentioned all this to Richard — and also noted that, per usual, my head was focussed on practicalities.

‘But a momentous change like this involves vast numbers of practicalities,’ he said. ‘And naturally you are going to have to be back and forth to Maine for Sally and to see Ben. Just as I will need to find an apartment in Bath. I’ll have to be there for business a few days a week. In fact, if Sally decides she doesn’t want to spend half the time at your apartment, you can stay in my new place in Bath.’

‘But then where would I see Sally?’ I said, knowing that Dan would not want me around the house after I moved out to live with another man.

‘You’re right. You’ll still need a place of your own in Damariscotta until she goes to college. My hope is that I can find a buyer in the next year for my insurance company, sell up, and try to write full-time. I also know of a guy who teaches business at Babson College here in Boston, and who told me they’re always on the lookout for adjunct professors. I might throw my rйsumй his way. Maybe they’ll need someone to teach actuarial science. It could bring in a little extra income, though I think I can get a good price for my company. And if I give Muriel the house outright I think she’ll have a hard time demanding a share of the company.’

‘How will she take you leaving her?’ I asked, knowing that I was venturing into complex territory.

‘I think she’ll be shocked, furious. But she knows that the marriage has been moribund for years, that we have been living very separate lives. Still, that’s been the status quo. I am about to change all that. And she will not be happy. But I’ll be happy.’

I reached for his hand.