Дуглас Кеннеди - Five Days

The highway was clear all the way north. I blared the radio, trying to lose myself in that evening’s NPR programing, to keep the anguish at bay, occasionally wiping tears from my eyes, keeping my foot down on the pedal, making it to Lucy’s front door just before ten-thirty. All the way up to Maine, one supposition kept dogging and unnerving me: had I been more attune to the subtext of the moment — had I said to him, ‘Yeah, let’s do the art supply shop together, then get our suitcases at the airport’ — would we be in bed at the hotel right now, telling each other yet again how lucky we were to have found such love at this juncture in life?

This question got raised around an hour after I arrived at Lucy’s house. When I reached her door she took one look at me and put her arms around me, saying:

‘You need a very large drink.’

She produced a bottle of something French and red. We sat down in the two overstuffed armchairs by her fireplace. The whole story was recounted by me in the sort of hushed, emotionless tone of someone who has just witnessed a terrible accident and is reiterating her account without realizing that the calmness she is displaying is a byproduct of the trauma suffered. When I finished, Lucy said nothing for a very long time. But I could see her trying to keep her own emotions in check. I looked at her, bemused.

‘You’re crying,’ I said.

‘Does that surprise you?’

‘I’m. ’

Words were suddenly beyond my reach. It was as if I had lost all my bearings, my way in the world. Whatever small reserves of equilibrium had gotten me through the past few hours had just run dry. I was truly lost.

That’s when I found myself letting go again. As the crying escalated Lucy came over and held me for the many minutes it took me to subside, never once trying to soothe me with any kind words or the sort of specious bromides that well-meaning people often invoke when faced with someone in the throes of grief. Instead she just let me cling to her until I was cried out. Then I staggered off to her bathroom to wash my face and attempt to do something with makeup that would lose the terrible darkness that had formed around my eyes. When I returned she handed me my refilled glass of wine and the following smart observation:

‘I won’t say something stupid like, “You’ll get over it.” Because I don’t think you will. But what I will say is this — that man has already realized he’s made the mistake of his life. Though part of me despises him for his cowardice — and most especially for causing you such horrendous anguish — part of me pities the sad bastard. Because even if it will always hurt you in some way — as I know it probably will — the truth is you will find some sort of accommodation with this heartbreak. And as to your earlier question, would the two of you still be together if he hadn’t gone off to fetch your suitcases—’

‘If I hadn’t been clueless to what he was actually telling me,’ I said, cutting her off.

‘Clueless? Oh, please. Even if you were together now, his doubts, panic, whatever, would have started the moment he was away from you.’

‘But had we been together tonight, perhaps he would have—’

‘What? Had the Pauline conversion that would have kept the two of you together?’

‘It was love, Lucy. Real love.’

‘From everything you reported, I believe you. And that’s why he too will be broken by this. But still too frightened, too cowed, to get back in touch with you.’

Silence. Then Lucy said:

‘Do you know why I cried earlier? In part, because of the hurt rendered on you. But also — and I hate to admit this — because of sheer, sad envy. How I have longed to feel what you’ve felt for the last few days. To be wanted that way by someone. To find actual love — even if it just lasted a weekend. To think: I’m no longer alone in the world.’

I shut my eyes and felt tears.

‘You have your children, you have your friends,’ Lucy said.

‘And I’m still alone.’

Another silence.

‘We’re all alone,’ she finally said.

We talked until well after midnight, finishing the bottle of wine. I managed to avoid another bout of tears. Then exhaustion hit. Lucy pointed me in the direction of her guest room, telling me that I should sleep as late as I wanted. If I woke and she was gone, I should make breakfast and coffee and loiter here as long as needed.

‘And if you don’t want to go home, the garage apartment is yours,’ she said.

‘I’m going home,’ I said.

‘I hope that’s the right decision.’

‘Whether it’s right or wrongheadedly wrong, it’s the decision I’m making.’

‘Fine,’ Lucy said, her tone lightly hinting at a disapproval she would never actually articulate, but which she clearly felt.

Lucy’s guest room had a double bed with the sort of ancient mattress that seemed to have caved in around the time of the first Kennedy assassination.

At three-thirty in the morning I admitted defeat when it came to surrendering to sleep. Getting up, getting dressed, I left a note on Lucy’s kitchen counter:

Going home. To what? Well, there’s the rub. Thank you for being, as always, the best friend imaginable. And please know that you too are not alone.

Ten minutes later, I pulled up in front of our house. Dan was sitting on the swing bench on our front porch, smoking a cigarette. As soon as I pulled up he tossed the cigarette away, his face all schoolboy guilt.

‘Hey,’ I said, getting out of the car.

‘Hey,’ he said back. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be staying in Boston tonight?’

‘Couldn’t sleep. Decided I should come home and be in time to see you off on your new job.’

He looked at me carefully.

‘You really drove all the way back here in the middle of the night just to do that?’

There wasn’t suspicion in his voice, just the usual quiet, world-weary disdain.

‘How long have you been awake?’ I asked.

‘All night. You weren’t the only person who couldn’t sleep.’

‘Dan, you don’t have to do this job.’

‘Yes, I do. And we both know why. But thank you for coming back in time to see me off to my new role as stockroom clerk.’

I blinked and felt tears.

‘You’re crying,’ he said.

‘Yes. You’ve made me cry.’

‘And now I feel like an asshole.’

‘I don’t want an apology. I want love.’

Silence. He stood up, reaching for his car keys, clearly thrown by what I had just said.

‘See you tonight,’ he said.

Silence.

He headed off. Then, with a quick about-face, he turned back to me and gave me a fast kiss on the lips.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry for so much.’

I searched high and low within me for a retort. But all that came to me was the loneliest of replies:

‘Aren’t we all.’

Dan got into his car and drove off to his new job. I sat rooted to the garden chair, staring up at that big black infinite sky, the limitless possibilities of the cosmos. Thinking one thought:

The death of hope.

Thursday

SUNRISE. I USED to get up after it. Now I wake well before the dawn. A readjustment of my body clock that also arrived with my ability to again sleep through the night. Sunrise. I usually have had the second cup of coffee by the time those initial tentative shafts of light have found their way into my kitchen. On fine clear mornings — and there have been a string of them this week — the early-morning light, especially at this time of year, can be like copper filament; a luminous braiding that always seems to target the little counter where I sip the Italian roast that I make in a cafetiиre, and which I now get specially ground for me.

The interplay of the light, the heavy aromatics of the coffee, the fact that I have just woken up from a reasonable night’s sleep without (for the past six weeks) the aid of medication. Significant small details to celebrate at the beginning of another day of life.