I FLEW BACK TO Boulder, gave notice at my job at the halfway house, and began to pack. On the long afternoon walks Eugene and I took, he would stick his face in the blooming lilac bushes. “So you’re going to be married?”
I slept with him my last night in Boulder. The next day he shook my hand before I stepped into the car, then touched my cheek. “Take care of yourself, Nell. I forgot to tell you, I love you. You are a great being.” I threw my eyes down to his chest. I couldn’t bear looking into his dark crow’s gaze. I took his hand in both of mine. “I will write,” I said.
Eugene leaned into the car and wrapped a red wool scarf around my neck. “I think it will be getting cold.” I nodded, not sure what he meant. I pulled away from the curb and headed toward Fort Collins.
A half-hour into my drive north, it began to snow. The snow fell hard. The full spring leaves caught the flakes and were weighed down by them. I could no longer see out my car window, so I pulled to the side of the road and walked two miles in my sneakers to a motel. The wind blew steadily, and above me I heard cawing. I looked up and saw a crow. It circled twice over my head and then disappeared, swallowed up in this great spring snowstorm. I knew the crow was Eugene.
The next morning, the hills outside the window of my rented room glistened. I read magazines in the motel lobby all morning until the roads were cleared, wrapped in Eugene’s red scarf. As I ate my lunch of scrambled eggs and English muffins, I felt the gaze of his crow eyes. “You are a great being.” What had Eugene meant by that?
At about two in the afternoon, I was able to get back on the road. The sun felt good as I walked to the car. The car was cold, but it started right up. I had trouble getting the clutch in second and had to let it warm up before I took off into the white spring.
I drove across the northern part of Colorado and was in Ogallala, Nebraska, when I stopped in a Howard Johnson’s for the night. I’d rarely stayed in a motel—mostly I slept on friends’ floors. Now I was staying in one two nights in a row. They gave me room 211. My eyes were red from driving, and I called Gauguin for the first time in two weeks.
“Gauguin, I’m tired. I’m scared. You should have flown in and driven back to Minneapolis with me,” I cried.
“Nell, don’t start,” he said.
We were on the edge of an argument. Instead we hung up quickly. When I got off the phone, I went down to the cocktail lounge.
“Can I have a scoop—no, make it two scoops of coffee ice cream with bittersweet hot fudge?” I asked.
“Ma’am, we don’t serve ice cream in the cocktail lounge,” the waiter explained to me.
“Well, is the luncheon counter open?” I asked.
“No, ma’am, not at this hour,” he said.
“Well, then, how am I going to get my coffee ice cream?” I asked.
“I’m sorry. We serve drinks here.” He began to get rigid. I paid it no mind.
“Could you sneak into the fountain area and get me some ice cream? Please—I’ll pay extra,” I cajoled.
The waiter, who looked eleven but, I was sure, had already studied geometry in high school, sighed. I looked at his large Adam’s apple. I waited.
He did it! He proudly brought me two scoops in a silver dish. The hot fudge was cold, but it was the best sundae I ever had. I ate it slowly with a silver spoon. I wanted to make it last.