DIED 1995
ONE OF THE ASSETS of the man I dated after I was widowed—that green-eyed food writer—was his best friend, an old college roommate and colleague in the food section. He was the youngest of three boys raised in the swamps of East Texas by a Jewish salesman of women’s clothing, and all three emerged from that thicket with elegant Southern manners, true modesty, and rare taste.
Despite his unassuming demeanor, our friend could perform miracles with a foie gras or a pan of Brussels sprouts; he could patiently explain the history of cinema, the work of Philip Roth, Patrick O’Brian, or Belva Plain. He sat at the table with the wine enthusiasts as the St. Émilion swirled in the glass and the adjectives flew. Leather, barnyard, tobacco, soil. He waited. Sipped again. Grapes, he said thoughtfully. I’m getting . . . grapes.
He and my old boyfriend would face the night with a bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey and a pack of Camels and make it all disappear. You wouldn’t think there was that much to say about cauliflower. Oh, but there was.
Then on the morning of his thirty-ninth birthday, when we were away in San Francisco, he got up, fed his dog, laid out some clothes, and wrote a quick note. He called the police to alert them so they’d be the first to arrive. Then he went into his backyard and shot himself.
We had been trying to pin him down for weeks on how he wanted to celebrate; finally we understood why he’d been so vague. So how long had he been planning this? Since the morning in Port Arthur thirty years earlier when he’d found his mother’s body on the floor of the living room?
As a parent, you mark out the limits of the possible. As a gentleman, you do not complain. When he left us, it was like taking Saturday out of the week or May off the calendar, and yet somehow we had to get used to it. If anyone knew this, it was our friend from Port Arthur. I am sure he was counting on it.