WILSON LEFT his house earlier than required and drove around Emily’s block, past her house four times, taking some solace in the fact that Emily did not yet know his car and would not think him odd, or slightly deranged, for arriving seventeen minutes early for their “date.”
“People my age don’t date,” he’d explained to Thurman as he’d dressed that evening. Thurman had sat in his bedroom, watching intently, smiling, as he’d put on a light blue shirt and debated over wearing a tie.
“People my age ‘see’ people. We have dinner. We don’t date. Dating is for teenagers.”
He’d held two ties up for Thurman to look at. Thurman had sniffed at each, then had shaken his head, perhaps trying to say no, or perhaps shaking some manner of lint from his sensitive nose.
Wilson had taken it as a no and had decided on just wearing a blue sports coat instead.
“Dressy, but not in an overcompensating way, right, Thurman?”
Thurman had looked as if he wanted to shrug again and was trying to figure out a way to do that, given his canine physiology.
Now in front of her house only a few miles from his own, Wilson pulled to the curb, finally, and switched off the engine. He took several deep breaths. He knew he couldn’t just sit in the car until his nerves quieted down. That might take hours, or days, and he did not have hours, let alone days.
“Why did I agree to this?” he said aloud as he exited the car and walked up to the house.
The porch lights were on, and he could see a blue glow from inside; someone was watching TV. He could hear the pleasant chatter…
“A sitcom,” he decided, “and not the news.”
He did not see a doorbell, so he rapped at the door three times, trying not to sound insistent or aggressive.
The door swung open almost immediately, as if someone was waiting within arm’s reach.
Emily stood in the doorway, wearing a…Wilson was not sure what it was, exactly, but a dress of some sort, with long sleeves, and a regular neckline, if women’s dresses could be described as having a “regular” neckline.
Wilson had been a solitary creature for a long time, with not much of a feminine influence on his existence, or human influence, for that matter.
“Hi. I’m ready.”
Wilson found himself nodding and thinking that he shouldn’t be.
“Okay, then. We can go, right?” he said, unsure of doorway protocol among adults who weren’t really on a “date.”
Emily, who Wilson thought would be calm and composed about all of this “dating” or “seeing” someone, appeared to him to be as nervous as he was—perhaps even more so. She put her hand on the doorknob, turned, and, facing inside, called out, “I’m leaving now. Please lock the door.”
She turned back to him, smiled, and pulled the door shut.
Wilson had no idea if she was supposed to take his arm going down the walk or if they should walk side by side, or if he should lead the way, just in case of Indian attack or the threat of being set upon by highwaymen.
Emily solved his quandary by slipping her hand into the crook of his arm as they headed to his car.
When they got to the car, which was not all that distant, Wilson pulled out his keys and unlocked her door.
“I have to tell you, Emily…” he said.
“Yes?” she replied, as if wanting to not be accused of not upholding her end of their conversation.
“…I am so far out of practice being with someone…anyone…that I’m going to apologize right now for any social blunders I make this evening.”
Emily smiled in reply, then reached out and put her hand on his forearm.
“I’ll forgive you if you forgive me. It has been a very long time. And regardless of what they say, it is not like riding a bicycle.”
“No. It is not. It is definitely not.”
Hazel took a single canvas duffel bag, a small one, with her into the Embassy Suites.
If I always had access to a washing machine, I could get by with only a satchel. It’s boring wearing the same clothes all the time, but it would solve a lot of what-to-wear problems.
She placed her bag at the foot of the bed.
Not that I really worry that much about what I’m wearing.
She looked out the window over downtown Portland.
Am I going to miss anything…or anyone here?
Growing up, she had friends. Not a lot of friends, but friends. After high school, some of them moved, some of them married and moved, some of them stayed and grew distant. They stayed in touch, sort of, on Facebook. She liked some of the people she worked with…well, a few of them. But she would place none of them into the “good friend” category.
Maybe it’s because I never had a father.
Some of her high school friends came from “broken” homes, as they called them back then, and they seemed normal.
Maybe it’s because my mother was sort of strange.
A few of her high school friends had mothers or fathers who were strange individually, or together, so that wasn’t it either.
Maybe it’s because I felt as if I never really belonged.
She took one of the chocolate chip cookies off the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed, thinking about Pastor Coggins’s prayer and the start of her life after Portland.
Plays are good, because you don’t have to talk.
During the single intermission, most of the time was taken up by Wilson struggling through the crowd to get a drink for both of them, all the while thinking of what he might say after the play was over and they were once again alone.
The thought of normal conversation unnerved him.
Why am I doing this? She doesn’t want to be here. Does she? And if she does, what does that say about her?
The house lights came up, the cast took their multiple bows, and the applause ebbed and slowed and stopped. Emily and Wilson stood and slowly shuffled their way out of the theater building and back onto the street into a mild, nearly warm late spring evening.
“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, thinking that was one of the more innocuous questions he could ask, or should ask, following a performance.
“It was good. It has been a while since I have been at a play, let alone a Shakespeare play. The language is so poetic, I guess. You have to develop an ear for it.”
Wilson nodded. He did not like old plays, plays hundreds of years old, because no one talked that way and the impact and import of the dialogue—much of it at any rate—was lost on contemporary audiences. Even though he had studied Elizabethan literature in college, it had never been a field that he enjoyed.
“They were all so earnest about it,” he said.
“Youth, right?”
Wilson nodded. “The bane of every old cynic.”
She laughed, not a lot, but politely, as if she was not exactly sure of what response was expected, so a laugh was a safe reply.
“Would you like to get something to eat? It’s not that late, is it? Or do you have to get back…you know. I mean, are people waiting up for you?”
Wilson knew she had children, of course. He did not know ages or the requirements of babysitting relief times, or expenses, or any of that, but he did want to be sensitive.
She looked at her watch, then held it closer.
“Women’s watches are too small for anyone to read,” she said, trying to catch the watch face in the light of a streetlamp.
Wilson slipped out his cell phone and tapped at it.
“Nine forty-eight.”
“Thanks.”
She looked over at him, as if she was making a decision of some import.
“No. I mean, yes. Something to eat would be fine. I said late. They’ll be okay.”
Wilson navigated them back toward his car, which he had parked in the faculty parking lot nearby.
One of the few privileges of a tenured professor. Glad there was an open spot.
He opened her car door and she slid in.
This is going okay, he thought as he hurried around to the other side.
But where do I go from here? I should have planned ahead.
He started the engine.
“Any place you have in mind?”
She turned to him. The streetlight lit her face in silhouette.
A classic profile.
“No. Not really, Wilson. I…it has been so long since I’ve been to anyplace that doesn’t focus on hamburgers or pizza. Teenagers have a very narrow dietary range. I am afraid I don’t really know any…adult sort of restaurants. There were a few…from before…you know. But that was a long time ago.”
Wilson did not put the car in gear. He was not one to drive about aimlessly. Aimless made him anxious. It reminded him too much of…other times.
He turned to her, a half-turn.
“How old are your…kids? Is it okay to say ‘kids’? Or is it ‘children’?”
“‘Kids’ is fine. Are fine. Whatever. I guess I should be careful when talking to an English professor. But…there are three. The oldest is twenty-two and a senior now at Penn. Business major. Whip-smart. Like his dad.”
Her voice caught, just a little.
“The next, Audrey, is nineteen. She is between colleges, she tells people. Went to Pitt for a year and didn’t ‘find’ herself. She’s applied to several others. And to nursing school. And the youngest is Sam. He’s fifteen. Still in high school. And a champ at nihilism and eye-rolling.”
She appeared to catch herself.
“Is this too much? I don’t know anymore. What’s the limit on sharing? Too much?”
“No. It’s not.”
They both looked away from each other, looking forward, out into the darkness.
“And I have Thurman, who will be waiting up for me and will expect a full report on this evening.”
Emily grinned, and she put her hand on Wilson’s arm again.
“Pick a place, Wilson. It won’t matter where. The kids are fine at home. They have my cell phone in case the place catches on fire. I just want to forget for a little while.”
Wilson nodded and put the car in gear, then headed out of the lot and away from the theater.
At that moment, Thurman was pacing back and forth between the back door and the front door, with stops at the stairs and the big window in the front of the house with the soft thing in front. To this point in their living arrangement, Wilson had never been gone from daylight to when it got dark, and it was obvious that Thurman was concerned. There were no lights left on in the house—not that Thurman needed lights to see his way about. There was the streetlight down the block that provided more than enough illumination for him to avoid running into things. And there was the little light that was always on by the box that got hot and where food came out. But that was always on. Thurman looked upstairs to the darkened second floor, perhaps thinking that Wilson should have left lights on for him, since the sun was down and he was here all by himself.
But there were no lights. And there was no food left. Thurman had eaten when Wilson left, but that was a long time ago, and much before he normally ate dinner, and now he wondered if that had not been an early half-dinner like he thought, but his entire evening meal, which if it were true would have disappointed him greatly.
He climbed up onto the soft thing by the front window and stared out. Cars drove past on the street—they always did that—but not one of them stopped and not one of them contained Wilson.
Then Thurman brightened a little.
Wilson had told him something before he left…something important.
Then Thurman smiled, and he placed his chin on the back of the soft thing by the window, so he could keep a watchful eye out for Wilson.
He softly whisper-growled to himself, Emily.
Gretna sat in the rocking chair near her television set and rocked slowly back and forth in a steady rhythm, nearly matching the pace of her breathing. She did not sit in that chair often. “Rockers are for old people,” she had once explained. “A rocking chair makes them think they are being active.”
The TV was on and muted, as usual. Some manner of police investigation show was on, the lead characters peering into microscopes and holding fuzz-filled tweezers up to the light.
Gretna disliked those shows.
“Nobody is that smart. Especially policemen.”
Gretna had developed a distrust of virtually all manner of authority figures over the years.
She had been unsettled all evening.
Of course, she knew that Wilson and Emily were out together this evening, but “not on a date,” her son had explained.
“I know what it is, even if they’re not calling it a date,” Gretna said to herself. “I don’t see the need to hide from the truth.”
Then she stopped rocking and began to worry, just a little. She closed her eyes.
“I know hiding from the truth. And so does Wilson.”
She rocked, then planted her feet on the ground and stopped.
“But Thurman doesn’t lie. He doesn’t hide from the truth. Does he?”
And she sat there for a long time, worrying about Wilson and his ability to face the truth, and was not willing herself to face certain truths as well.
“And I don’t want to bother God with this. Since I’ve already asked him so many times. He doesn’t want to hear me complain about it anymore.”
She started rocking again.
Then she stopped to smile, if only to herself.
“And that’s why he sent Thurman to us.”
Thurman spent five minutes totally apoplectic upon Wilson’s arrival back home, unable to curb his enthusiasm long enough to go outside to complete his necessary evening constitutional.
Wilson waited at the back door, the door half-open, Thurman bouncing and wiggling and yipping and nudging his head against his legs.
After a long, forced bout of remaining patient, Wilson pretended to close the door. Still, Thurman bounded about.
“I am not going to tell you a word about Emily until you go outside, Thurman.”
At that, Thurman snorted, appeared to take in a deep breath, and pulled himself together—at least together enough to run outside in a rush. He spent only a moment or two out there, not worried, for once, about locating the perfect spot and attempting to determine who else had visited the yard in the past few hours, a process that could take upwards of twenty minutes, on a good night.
A very cursory run around the perimeter of the yard was all Thurman required that night, and then he was back inside, bounding and half-jumping again. His half-jumps were characterized by him pushing off with his front paws, and he would balance a moment on his back legs, even taking a few steps. He looked like a semi-inebriated amateur stilt-walker, if there was such a character, teetering on two uncertain legs that were not accustomed to bearing the full weight and balance of an adult canine.
Wilson took off his sports coat and carefully placed it over the back of a kitchen chair. Then he switched on the electric kettle and found the jar of instant coffee in the pantry. He considered using the pod coffeemaker, but it took too long to warm up and he really wanted a third cup of coffee that evening, this one at home, in addition to the two he’d had at the restaurant.
Thurman snorked at his empty food dish while Wilson puttered about getting a spoon and cup.
“No more food, Thurman. You ate. Early, but you ate.”
Thurman growled, Bunkum.
That appeared to be one of his favorite words.
Wilson measured out the coffee, water, cream, and sugar and stirred it, standing next to the sink. Then he sat down at the chair closest to the counter.
Thurman stared at him, a most curious look on his face.
Move, the dog growled.
“Thurman, I can sit at any chair in the kitchen. Just because I always sit over there, that doesn’t mean I can’t sit here on occasion.”
Thurman growled Bunkum again, then readjusted his spot so he had a clear look at Wilson’s face. Then he grinned and waited.
“You really want to hear about tonight?”
Thurman wagged his head up and down.
“Before I begin, I simply want to say that this is ridiculous—me thinking you want me to talk to you. Like you understand.”
Thurman appeared at first confused, then hurt.
“But it seems to help, Thurman. I mean, it seems to help me. To talk about things. Talking out loud is different than just thinking. The words feel different when you say them out loud. The meanings change when you add sound to thoughts. And emotion. Thoughts stay relatively unemotional. At least in my head, they do. So…that’s why I’m talking to you. Not because you are some super-sentient dog creature that really understands.”
Bunkum.
“Well, regardless. Or as most of my students say, irregardless.”
Thurman smiled and waited.
“The play was fine…for Shakespeare. Never liked any of them. His plays, I mean. Pretentious, now. And a little elitist, if you ask me. The play was written for the masses, but now only the educated get him, the Bard. Or overeducated, I would say. But it was tolerable. They cut a lot out. Otherwise we would still be there. The actors were most energetic.”
Thurman nodded, attempting to appear sage and wise, but Wilson knew that he had no idea of what a play was, let alone a Shakespearean play.
He sipped at his coffee.
Thurman growled, some nonsense growl, as if he was impatient for the story to go on.
“She said she enjoyed it. Emily. I think she did. And then we went to the Elbow Room for food.”
Thurman perked up at the word “food.”
“No, I did not bring any home with me, Thurman. And besides, we just had a few appetizers. No bones in anything.”
Wilson turned and looked out the window for a moment.
“Now I remember why I sit over there. So I don’t have a window at my back. Bad luck…but you don’t know about bad luck, do you, Thurman. Bad luck and death and stray bullets and a split second between being alive and being not alive.”
Wilson stopped talking and closed his eyes for a long moment. Thurman sat, silent and still, and let the memory happen, and almost overtake Wilson. Wilson opened his eyes, a faraway, lost look in them for a second or two. Then he looked over to Thurman with a fading smile.
“I haven’t thought of all this in…well, decades now. Having my back to an open window. In the dark.”
Thurman did not grow impatient. He just sat and listened.
The kitchen grew quiet, save for the rhythmic hum of the refrigerator.
“He killed himself.”
Thurman looked up. His eyes appeared to comprehend the words, a sad look edging onto Thurman’s usually happy face.
“Emily’s husband. He killed himself. After he got back.”
Thurman stood and walked to Wilson and put his head against his leg, then rested his chin just above his knee, his eyes focused on Wilson’s face.
“She didn’t say a lot more than that. I didn’t ask. I said I understood—as much as anyone can, really. She nodded at that, and it looked like she was trying not to cry.”
Thurman rose up and placed his front paws on Wilson’s thighs.
“I know, Thurman. No one can really know what that is like. And I don’t. But then…well, I do. I know. How close it can come. How hard it is. To never feel normal again. To know that you will never find ‘normal’ again. That’s paralyzing, Thurman. You’re always different. Broken. But no one can see. And no one can help.”
Wilson took a deep breath.
“Don’t you see, Thurman? The fact that it’s me…and her…that fact…that death, his death, will always be right in front of us. Because it’s me and not someone else who never knew what all that is like firsthand. How could it not be? With what I saw and did and lived through. She would look at me and there would be a reflection of her dead husband in that. I could tell that she saw that in my eyes. What happened to me…back then. I didn’t want her to see that, but she did. I know that she did.”
He put his hand on Thurman’s head.
“I don’t think I can do that to her, Thurman. I don’t think I can do it to myself. I don’t want to remember. It took too long to bury it all.”
He stood up and left the half-filled coffee cup on the table and walked toward the stairs.
“I just can’t do it, Thurman. I can’t.”