I had it all planned. I didn’t know if she would go, but she went out there with me to the river. It was strange, driving up, parking the car, walking down the trail, holding her hand. But it felt good too. The cops hadn’t cleaned up after themselves. I pulled down as many of their little plastic flags as I could. Once we got the fire going, I cut some sticks for the hot dogs and loosened up a little.
The river felt alive, the current rippling, the surface moving and changing in the reflected sunlight. There was a kingfisher working an eddy on the other side, hovering above it in that distinct, fluttery way, then dropping hard with a splash and coming up again and flying to a limb to rest and eat. There’s a myth about kingfishers. They mate for life, and when this ancient Greek lady’s husband got killed in a shipwreck, the gods turned her into a kingfisher and brought him back to life as one too, in honor of their deep love for each other. I asked Kristen if she remembered the story and she didn’t, but she wasn’t in that class with me. Maybe the reason I remembered it was because of the husband’s name. It was Ceyx, and we made jokes in class by pronouncing it “sex.”
Then she told me how sorry she was about them blaming me for killing her and I kissed her.
Maybe I would have blamed her if things had turned out differently. If I had just seen her there with her mom when I was looking for Harold, I don’t know what I would have done. I was pretty much over the edge, and the surprise might have had a different effect. But she came to me, touched me and apologized. Her need for my forgiveness was part of the package, part of what I had to take in with the fact of her presence, the end of her absence.
There was nothing fake about it. She wouldn’t let go of my hands, like she really wanted to understand the place I was in and be connected to it, even if it was dangerous, which it was. She was willing to come out to the edge with me. And I remembered the trust I felt in her hands, walking out here that other night. And she had pulled off the vanishing act, like my uncle, only smarter and better, which made me an accomplice, a partner in something I thought you could only dream about. So instead of being tragic, something I could feel sorry for myself about, them blaming me became funny and absurd because the whole thing is funny and absurd. And tragic. But in the end more funny and absurd than tragic.
And she kissed me back.
She trusted me. What happened that night, or didn’t, would become part of my baggage, one of the things I carry with me, like Smith offering me his boat money, believing in me when no one else did. It has become part of my truth now, something I have to live up to. Now someone else I care about, trust and respect, believes that I’m worthy of her trust and respect, so I have to live up to it too. It’s pretty heavy stuff.
So if we did it, had sex, it means I took on the responsibility for being enough of a man to be worthy of her, and if I can’t do that, if I’m not ready to do that, I’m a loser. If we didn’t do it, maybe I passed up my big chance. Or, maybe I saved myself from becoming a loser. I will say this. She makes me want to be worthy of her friendship. That connection, the one that involves trust and honesty, is what’s most important. It’s new to me and I don’t want to lose it.
What happened is private.