When we were finally back at the house—at Kathleen’s house—Olivia yawned dramatically and announced she was going to bed. Since the confrontation in Kathleen’s store, I’d been on the alert for a major blow-up, but instead, Olivia had been operating on a slow simmer, like a teakettle not quite coming to a boil.
“Hey,” I said, catching her arm as she started up the staircase. “I want to say good-night.”
Kathleen had walked ahead of us with a Tupperware container of leftovers, and I could hear her boots clack on the kitchen tile.
Olivia squirmed out of my grasp. “That’s all you want to say?”
I swallowed. “I want to say that I’m sorry I haven’t done a better job of things.”
She stared at me, and I waited for the apology that didn’t come. I don’t really hate you, Dad. Would I have apologized if the tables were turned? Was she waiting for me to apologize?
I reached for her again and gave her a quick, tight hug. “I love you,” I whispered.
“Yup. Night, Dad,” she said, breaking free again.
I watched her walk upstairs, steadying herself with a skinny arm on the banister. It wasn’t a real goodbye, but I hoped she would remember the hug, the I love you. Someday, I hoped at least she would remember the moment.
I found Kathleen in the kitchen, taking our breakfast dishes out of the dishwasher. “Ready for that talk?” I asked.
She nodded, surprised.
By mutual, tacit consent we went down to the basement and sat down on the mattress of the pull-out couch, pushing aside my rumpled bedding.
I ran my palms over my thighs, suddenly nervous as a teenager.
Kathleen said, “I need to know why you’re here.”
This was the moment. I don’t know how I’d envisioned it—maybe over a glass of wine, a toast to old times’ sake. I still felt somewhat waterlogged from the wine at dinner, although its warm effects had worn off.
“Kathleen.” I looked at her, really looked at her—this woman I’d met all those years ago, when she was still a girl, really, when I’d been so fascinated by her. She had saved me; she’d taught me to believe that another life was possible, a good one. She’d had our children; I’d loved the feel of her pregnant body, so lovely and round, her belly reverberating with tiny movements as the baby shifted and stretched. If I could go back and do the same things again with the guarantee of different results, I would have.
“Curtis,” she said, pleading now. “Tell me.”
All the anger was gone, all the reproach, all the long silences that had grown between us, that I had allowed to grow. We were just two people, the same two we’d been all those years ago. I took her hand. “Kathleen, I want you to take Olivia.”
“Of course,” she said, not even hesitating. She didn’t say I told you so. She didn’t remind me that this was what she’d wanted from the beginning, that she had known it would be for the best. “But why, Curtis? What is it?”
She didn’t say: What the hell is wrong with you? But it would have been a fair question.
I only told her what she already knew, in whole or in part, things that were true enough without being the real truth. I told her that I was barely making it through the school day, could hardly juggle work and home. I said that Olivia needed a female influence in her life more than ever. She needed to be challenged and pushed and encouraged, and I wasn’t sure I was up to the job.
Kathleen listened to me ramble, watching closely. She had always been a good listener, silent when silence was called for, but ready to speak—to pronounce a verdict, to share sympathy—when needed. When I finished, she cleared her throat and said, “Maybe both of you need to move out here.”
I blinked.
“I’m serious. Maybe that’s what needs to happen.”
“That’s not what I was suggesting.” I’d tried to say it gently enough, but she flinched. I could see her trying to rally, trying not to be hurt. Since Daniel, she’d had to keep her guard up. I’d caused that. I’d pretended she was brittle, a hard shell of the woman I loved, someone who could put one foot in front of the other and move right on with life, as if a chasm hadn’t opened up between us. But it wasn’t fair; I was the one who had been brittle, not allowing myself to feel anything but hate. Kathleen had been waiting, warm to the touch, for me to reach out to her. It was my fault for not reaching.
Her voice trembled. “I would love to—”
I cut her off. I knew what it must have taken, for her to make the offer. “Not now,” I said, heart pounding. Not ever. I laced her fingers with mine, brought her hand to my lips.
I thought I had forgotten about beautiful things, but what happened next was the most beautiful déjà vu in the world, the most perfect goodbye.
We had followed a dutiful protocol, those long ago summers when I had stayed at her house. I’d worked construction jobs by day and come back, exhausted, to find Kathleen waiting for me. But we were rarely alone; Owen and Barbara were there, or Jeff, who was out of college and engaged to Judy but still living at home to save for their wedding. All day long, on top of the roof I was helping to shingle, the sun burning against the back of my neck, I’d thought of Kathleen—the nearness of her when we sat side by side in front of the television, her parents in the next room; the coy rub of her calf against mine under the kitchen table.
Every night I had spent on the pull-out couch in that basement, I’d imagined sneaking up two flights of stairs to her bedroom, sliding beneath her sheets to where she was waiting. Out of respect for her parents, in her parents’ house, I had never done more than entertain the idea. At Northwestern, we’d tumbled in and out of each other’s beds, leaving notes for roommates or hanging scarves on our doorknobs, telltale, shameless signs. In Omaha, the waiting became unbearable. When we couldn’t stand it, we’d take my Datsun out on the pretext of shopping for one thing or another, complete the errand in warp speed and drive down to a spot Kathleen knew near the river, where my car was hidden from the road. Usually we made it out to the blanket I kept in my trunk, but sometimes we just slid into the backseat, all hands and elbows, half-clothed, laughing and fumbling. Once, we’d stopped at a McDonald’s afterward to cool off, and I ordered us soft-serve vanilla cones. Sitting across from each other in a booth, I’d asked her to marry me, and she’d said yes. There wouldn’t be a ring for another six months or so, and I’d be teased relentlessly for my lack of romance—In a McDonald’s, Curt? And she still said yes?—but I knew I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t asked her, and she hadn’t said yes, right at that moment.
But once—only once, the summer of our impulsive engagement—we had made love inside the house. She had appeared at the bottom of the basement stairs, whispering, “Shhh, Curtis.” Until she pulled the nightgown over her head and stood in front of me naked, I’d thought I was in a dream. She straddled me, her body creamy-white and so beautiful I moaned into her throat. We were quiet, but we didn’t rush. Afterward, we lay side by side, smiling, our bodies coated with a sheen of sweat. It will always be like this, I had promised myself. This will be our forever.
But it was even better this time, maybe because it had a final quality for both of us, maybe because we were both people who liked closure, who wanted to bring things full circle. The mattress on the pull-out bed was as bad as it had been back then, and creaky, too. I thought once of Olivia all the way up on the second floor, but we weren’t as quiet as we’d been when we were twenty.
Kathleen was still beautiful, would always be. I ran my hands slowly over her, neck to toe, her body waiting and welcoming. We had changed in all the expected ways in thirty years, but we came together more gently, weighted down with everything that had happened between us. It was an underwater reverie, a fearless exploration. We fell asleep wrapped in each other’s limbs, Kathleen’s head on my chest. I dreamed that I was tangled in her hair and didn’t want to find my way out.
When I woke, Kathleen was gone and the house was quiet. I fumbled for my cell phone. Four-thirty. Maybe she had wanted to sleep upstairs, to be close in case Olivia needed her, or maybe she was bound by that old sense of propriety, of what could and couldn’t be done under this roof. Or maybe it was something else entirely—she’d gone upstairs because we were done with each other, and that was the gentlest way to say so.
From my suitcase, I removed the box of Daniel’s cremains and held it for a long moment. It was only right that he stay here—not alone in our house in Sacramento, not at the mercy of whatever happened to me in Oberlin. I looked around the basement for the right place, somewhere it wouldn’t be discovered right away. And then I took out the letter I’d written in Lyman and left that, too.
I hadn’t really unpacked, so it was easy to zip my bag and carry it upstairs in a single trip. I winced at the sound of the engine starting in the driveway, but no lights came on upstairs from where Kathleen and Olivia were asleep, and there was no movement behind any curtains. Nevertheless, I waited for a long moment before raising my hand in a grateful goodbye.