Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

“No,” Faulk said. “Not really.”

The other man had a beer and a plate of chicken wings on a small portable table. He held out a wing. “Want one?”

“No, thank you.”

“Settled on a place?”

“I think I’ve found something, yes.”

“Donald Baines never gets in the way of anybody’s happiness if he can help it. And you’re about to be married .”

Faulk thought he heard a note of sarcasm in the voice. Baines, chewing on a wing, gazed at him with a jovial expression and asked, through his chewing, if the younger man would like a cold beer. Barbecue sauce was smeared all over the wide mouth. He looked like a big kid in need of his mother to wipe his face.

“No, thanks anyway,” Faulk said, wanting to feel kindly toward him. “Of course I’ll pay the rent on the place until I can find someone to sublet.”

“Well,” said Baines, noisily slurping the beer. “Of course I’ll have to insist on that. Will you bring your bride here this evening?”

“That depends on how she feels.”

Baines seemed to urge him with a look, as if to say, Go on, there’s more to tell .

“Probably tomorrow,” Faulk said.

“Ah,” said Baines, leaning back. “Tomorrow your life begins.”

10

She had put her head back and closed her eyes, still feeling nearly choked with fright and rage, and her exhaustion took over. Briefly she was in a blankness that, when there was a touch on her arm, she relinquished almost with grief, sitting forward a little and opening her eyes.

Duego was standing over her with that pleading look, the eyes sorrowful, wider and darker than she remembered them.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and pushing herself against the seat back. “Get away. Get away from me or I’ll scream.”

“I cannot bear this,” he said, taking a step away. “This trouble between us.”

Natasha shouted. “Get away from me!”

“Is he bothering you, honey?” Priscilla said, rising out of her own sleep. Others had looked up from what they were doing.

The blond flight attendant approached. “Go back to your seat, sir.”

Duego returned quickly to his row. He looked back at Natasha before stepping into his seat. The expression on his face was distressed and full of entreaty. She kept her gaze on him, glaring, as full of hatred and fury as she could make it.

The flight attendant said, “You okay?”

Natasha nodded.

“What’s his story,” Priscilla murmured after the attendant had gone.

“He thinks I’m someone else,” Natasha told her. She had begun to cry, and the other woman reached over and took her hand.

“Anything I can do?”

“He was bothering me in the airport. He — he wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“I think we should get them to do something about him.”

Natasha touched the wrist of the hand that held hers and pulled away softly. “Thanks, you’re so kind.” She sniffled. “I just want him to stay away from me.” Reaching into her purse, she brought out the packet of Kleenex, took one, and held it over her eyes.

“Well, it’s good the flight attendants are aware of the situation,” Priscilla said.

“Can you stay close to me when we get off the plane?”

“Where am I gonna go, right? I’m here.”

When the plane landed in Miami, he rose, pulled his bag down from the overhead bin, faced front, and waited for the door to open, without looking back. And when the people around and before him moved, he followed and was gone. Natasha walked behind Priscilla and her son to the opening and out, and along the tunnel to the gate area. Priscilla made a show of being wary. They entered the open area, and she stopped, and Natasha stood at her side. Others moved past them.

There was no sign of him during the wait in the long lines at customs.

“I have to get to my connection,” Priscilla said after they had passed through.

Natasha hugged her, fighting tears. “Thank you.”

“I hope you make it okay.”

“You’ve been so kind. I can’t tell you—”

“Hey, if we can’t protect each other.”

After another quick embrace, Natasha watched her hurry on, pulling her boy along with her. In the other direction was her own gate. She went there, keeping to the wall, and took her seat. The flight for Memphis would board in an hour.

She looked around her and was abruptly aware of a bizarre, painful sense of loss, almost of yearning — a perverse wish, like something floating loose in her soul, that he would be there, that he would make another effort to speak to her. It filled her with shame. She rose and moved to where she could see the long prospect of the row of gates, going back to the exit from customs. Where could he have gone? He would have had to go through customs.

Finally, she went back to her seat. People moved by, and the sounds of the place rattled in the walls, and she sensed the eerie longing for him, the wanting — yes, that was it, that must be it — to finish things somehow. To have it answered and done with. Over. But there was something else, too, that pulled and nagged, and she looked at it inside, this cowering element of her being, while she kept still, watching the others cross and recross in their clamor and hurry, their insular worlds of will and worry, around her.

1

Late that afternoon, in a stifling swale of heat, he drove to the airport to pick her up. He wasn’t allowed to go to the gate. A security guard stopped him. He waited beside the escalator leading down to baggage claim. Watching the people come one by one into the narrow hall, he kept thinking she would be the next person and felt new disappointment each time it was someone else. When she came into view, he felt a thrill and realized again how lovely she was. He could not quite believe in this happiness, his own.

For her part, there was the shock of seeing him unchanged. She experienced as a kind of release the calming familiarity of his features, as though being able at last, after many confined hours, to spread out her arms; and, wanting the feeling to stay, she hurried into his embrace. “I’ve missed you so, so much.” She brushed the tears from her eyes and smiled, and stood back to gaze at him. “Oh, you don’t know,” she went on. “My darling.” Her whole body was trembling.

He said, “It’s over, now. It’s done. We’re home.”

They made their way down to baggage claim, holding hands. He was aware that they were both in some zone of fragility.

When they reached the baggage carousel, she came close again and put her arms around his neck. She saw herself on the beach in the early moonlight with the other, and she held tighter, eyes squeezed shut against the uneasiness that was rising like a cold chemical in her blood. She held on to the first good feeling of release at the sight of him, sensing his consternation but unable to let go.

He had to take her forearms and gently break her hold to look at her. “You okay?”

“Now, yes.”

“You made it home,” he said. “You’re home, darling. We’re home.”

She saw his hands, the bones of his wrists, the sinews of his forearms, as the flesh of a man, separate from her as that of any other man. And her shaking resumed.

He said, as tenderly as he could, “I was never in any danger,” and it was as if he were talking to a child. Gripping her arms soothingly above the elbows, he made an effort to strike a less condescending note. “You look so wonderful.”

“I feel beaten up,” she got out, but smiled back.

When they had the bags, three of them, he put them on a cart, and they started out of the building, to the parking lot. Outside it was even hotter than before. To her, the air seemed cooked. She kept her hand on his, where he held the cart handle. They got to the car, and he put the bags in the trunk while she watched, and then she walked into his arms again. “Oh, Michael,” she said. But his name on her lips was just noise to her. She repeated it: “Michael.” And felt the simple goodness of this moment. He was her love; she was home.