James Hynes: Next

Kevin’s crying, too, but tearlessly, because the wind of his descent is sandblasting his face. I love you! he wants to shout, but the wind’s also pummeling his lungs, he’s dizzy and lightheaded and he might even pass out before he hits the pavement, which would be a blessing, but he desperately wants her to know this one thing, he wants it to wing through the ether via some sort of telepathic wormhole, he wants to tell her that he loves her, that he always did and he always will, though the future tense doesn’t mean much at the moment and is losing value fast, at fifty-five meters per second. But I want you to know that, Stella, I want you to remember that I loved you when you hear the news, I want you to remember that I loved you when you realize I went to Austin without telling you, I want you to remember that I loved you when you understand what I was doing there, I want you to remember that I loved you when you realize that I was thinking of leaving you — I want you to know that I loved you and was thinking of you at the very last moment of my life.

Will she forgive him? Is there time for that? Maybe not, that’ll have to come later, if at all, and Kevin hasn’t got any more time. What’s he got to look forward to now? He won’t be there when she comes home on Tuesday to an empty house, he won’t be there when she gets a call from his sister, Kathleen, because when they pull his driver’s license from his pulped remains, Kathleen’s his emergency contact, he never got around to changing it to Stella, and Kathleen and Stella don’t get along — Stella sets my teeth on edge, Kathleen told him in a rare moment of candor, and Stella’s always offering to help Kathleen lose some weight, if, you know, she really wants to make the effort — Stella’s going to have to hear it from her, maybe even off the answering machine or voice mail, as she stands in Kevin’s empty house, carrying his child. Oh, she’s gonna hate me, she’s gonna despise me, she’s going to be mortally wounded, well, maybe not mortally, since Kevin is getting a sudden, instantaneous tutorial in what “mortally” really means, and in this last, infinitesimal moment of his life, as the litter in the street and the grain of the pavement rush at him, he’s hoping that she takes it in stride, and he’s pretty sure she will, Stella is nothing if not a survivor, Stella’s a fighter, Stella has an uncanny way of landing on her feet, Stella keeps her sunny-side up, Stella makes lemonade. Stella’s going to be okay, Stella will get another man, even though that might be harder to do if she has a kid, and not just a kid, but a kid by a man who died in some spectacularly public and horrible fashion, who’s even a kind of minor celebrity now, one of the two jumpers from the tower in Austin. Look at the mess I’m making, and I’m not even dead yet. But even if she doesn’t get another man, she’ll raise the kid all by herself, she’ll buy every baby book in the baby book section and she’ll clean out Baby Gap and Ikea and stuff the house to the rafters with kid paraphernalia — no, it’s the kid he ought to be worried about at the very last, the son or daughter who right now is only pee on a stick and few thousand cells in Stella’s belly, it’s the kid who’s going to have to face life without a father, it’s the kid who’s going to learn at a tender age that his father died before he even got the news that he was going to be a father, it’s the kid who’s going learn that her father’s death will have been seen by millions before she was even born. Deal with that, munchkin, it’s bad enough to lose your dad at a young age, and I ought to know, but my own kid will have to live with the knowledge that the most important fact he’ll know about me is the way I died.

I’m sorry, thinks Kevin, please forgive me, winging that through the ether, too, and into the future, to a kid who won’t understand any of the circumstances of her birth for years yet, and who may never understand them at all, because who does, really? But I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry you’ll never know me and I’m sorry I’ll never know you, it’s all my fault, I should have stayed in Ann Arbor where I had it good, where I had a woman who loved me, where I had friends and a history, where I had a job I was good at, where I didn’t realize just how good I had it until it was gone. I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you, even before you’re born, but I want you to be happy, I want you to be strong, I want you to love your mother even if she gets a little frantic and needy at times, I want you to understand that you’re the center of her life, you’re all she ever wanted, and I know it’s asking a lot, but I want you to live up to that responsibility, though of course if you do live up to it, you won’t have gotten that from me, but that’s the nature of fatherhood, isn’t it, that you want your kids to be better than you were? I wish I believed that I’ll be looking over you and your mother, but I don’t, though who knows, I could be wrong, perhaps I’ll come to you in a dream, looking younger and fitter, perhaps, without the hair in my ears and the laugh lines and the enlarged prostate, perhaps I’ll come to you both, I’ll hover over your crib wearing a white linen suit, smiling down as your mother tucks you in, saying, sleep tight, your daddy loves you, he’s watching over you, he’ll keep you safe, that’s just the sort of thing Stella will believe, a little anxiously, perhaps, but that’s what she’ll tell herself. And she’ll never, ever tell you I was planning to leave her, that I was, without knowing it, planning to leave you both, instead she’ll tell you that I was in Austin because I knew you were coming and I wanted to be prepared with a better-paying job, I wanted to do the right thing, and you’ll believe every word of it, because Stella’s your mother and a good saleswoman, besides, and because there’s no reason for you not to believe it, and anyway, it’s true, I would have adored you if I’d known you were coming, I would have stepped up and done the right thing, I would have made you the center of my life and happily paid for clothes and shoes and tennis lessons and ballet classes and baseball camp and orthodonture and trips to Europe and college tuition, and I’d gladly have given up all the pointless things I stupidly thought made my life worth living, because I’d realize that you made my life worth living, and I’d have laughed with you and lost my temper at you and burst into tears at the sight of you and begged fate or God or the universe to deal you a better hand than they’re dealing me, and I’d have done my best to make sure you turn out okay, that you had a good start in life, because I’m here to tell you, kiddo, there’s nothing certain about it, and you make all the preparation you can and then hope for the best. It’s a little late for me to be doing “My Boy Bill”—the way my dad, your grandfather, whom you’ll never know, either, used to sing it in the shower — but I’d have laid down my life for you, and who knows, maybe that’s what I’m doing right now, but it’s not so bad, it’s not so hopeless, I’m not so far gone that I can’t wish you every good thing, every happiness, and all the love in the world with my dying breath.

And as the ground rushes up to meet him, Kevin Quinn, for the first time in a long time, for the first time in years, and maybe even for the first time in his life, is looking forward to what comes next.

James Hynes is the author of The Wild Colonial Boy, Publish and Perish, The Lecturer’s Tale, and Kings of Infinite Space. He lives in Austin, Texas.