The Way Here [2:3]

Part 2: Chapter 3

“What will we be reading this time ‘round?” one asked.

“Are you happy to be back?” asked another.

“We’re glad your back safe,” a woman said.

“We were sorry to hear…”

“We haven’t seen you since…” said another.

Jonathan, wearing houndstooth blazer and penny loafers, shook hands with those there before sitting down with Helen at his one side. He kissed cheeks and one man rose to hug his friend.

Bald heads and gray hairs. Pinned hair on the women, dyed or gray. A cashmere sweater on one. Button-down oxfords and corduroys. Gold watches, gold rings. Diamonds. A bottle of wine already poured.

The friends sat at a large round table in the room’s center. The amber light and high-backed chairs gave a rich air. The pressed group gave a rich air. Their laughter, proud and open, gave a rich air.

The doctor or businessman was there, one an attorney. Retired. The women. Jerry doesn’t know what to do with himself still. He just futzes and tells me I do things wrong. The pantry isn’t in good order or I left the clothes in the dryer too long. Laughter. I’ll kill him in his retirement or he’s going back to work. More laughter.

Jonathan sat with his wife at his side, she with her still blond hair. Gold earrings.

“I can’t believe you’re still doing it,” one said.

And Jonathan, “No?”

“No. When we were kids, college you know, I never would have guessed.”

The man was holding Jonathan’s elbow and talking in his ear. Confidence. The silent and moving sincerities. On Jonathan’s other side, Helen was speaking with a woman about children or grandchildren.

There was the sound of dishes being set around them. The tidal flows of conversation and laughter and the warm smells met them. A waiter with an apron fastened passed them by and another took the order of a table near them. How’s the lamb. Jonathan and the one man spoke their separate conversation or the table bandied the floor, tossing topics and talking points from one side to the next.

White table cloth, white napkins. Glass of water glass of wine. One man held a drink, elbow squared against the table’s edge.

It’s been some time, they said. It’s been too long. And one, it’s too hard to keep up. Laughter and grins.

“Did you here about Nancy?” one asked.

Some hadn’t.

“Did you know she…”

Most didn’t.

“Her sister too?”

“Right.”

“How long ago?”

Not long.

Years were between them and years were behind them. Years shown on their faces and in their hair. Thinning scalps and grays.

“What’s he doing anymore?” Jonathan asked.

“Who?”

“Joe.”

“Retired.”

“Already?”

“He’s had some trouble too.”

“Has he?”

“He has. And you know who else?”

“No.”

“Reverend.”

“Billy too?”

“Prostate.”

“What’s happening to us?” Jonathan asked.

“We’re getting old.”

“We’ve been old,” one said over the table.

“Not this old,” said another.

Laughter.

“When’d it happen?”

“I’m too old to remember.”

And more laughter.

“I mean Billy.”

“Oh. Year and a half ago.”

Jonathan rested against the high-backed chair. The amber light a wash on things. He leaned away from the table and the din and discussion followed him. A waiter placed knives while one at the table reached for bread. Olive oil and balsamic.

The conversation ebbed and flowed. Plates came and went. A glass of wine spilled at a table near them and a drunk man howled with laughter. A blushing woman slurred. Beneath it all a music played. More laughter.

“Do you remember…”

“I didn’t say…”

“When?”

“You were there when…”

“What about…”

“Don’t bring that up…”

“I remember the time…”

“You were in…”

“That was later.”

“Then you were…”

“I wasn’t there.”

“You were here?”

“Which is more than…”

(What do you remember? When? When you look back? Lots of things.)

Inertia is one of the things. It’s one of those things we give ourselves over to, so that our paces—short and quick, long and sure—and our thoughts move us in the direction we’ve always traveled. We are travelling still. So there is not stop and go. Or the stop and go you feel is part only of that greater cycle, that larger tradition, that more heaping motion.

So the choices we make we are led to. So the roads we travel are there waiting, expecting. So the return home is part only of the movement started so long ago. And a man’s return is but one steady step on the path outlined when the first energy made the first motion.

Inertia is one of the things and in the end it’s what we have. What do we have besides this? he thought. The steady pace from day to day. Our memories. The steady rhythms of home and work, work and home, until the course is changed though we travel still. Bent on travel still, we wrap ourselves with memories of this or that.

Remember me as a boy? Remember the time? And then, but how could I forget.

And what is this inertia if not a motion fueled by those experiences, sustained by these memories, forecast by our steady remembrances?

Our futures seem already told though we’d say and say and say, I’ve yet to see mine writ. And wrong we are whether arguing this next day is supported by no other day or no earlier decision.

And we close our eyes and a new day is here and gone. And we close our eyes and a week is passed, a month. And we close our eyes and a year is gone. Spring to summer to fall and we are numb with our aging and convinced of yet new things to come. Spring to summer to another fall and again and again time’s landscape is traveled and now we are years older.

So one day we notice and one day we are aware. So one day we take stock and one day we are old. One day we ask ourselves, what next? But next is already passed and now is soon to follow. So one day it’s with our memories that we sit. And with our memories we carry on in idle fascination. With our memories we are born from next day to next day and what can we show but further reliving and further retelling.

So when we are old we sit at dinner and we take stock, we remember. Have you heard from the girls? When we are old we are quiet with ambition. We tune ourselves not to the high-pitched fervor of what next, but the dull throbbing of remember when. And the spike in sound comes more often through shared envy—did you hear?—than personal revelation and epiphany.

“Everyone remembers where they were when,” he said one night.

Helen was reading. Jonathan lay there with a magazine in his lap. Bedside lamps were on and the house was silent.

“Is this about the other night?”

“No,” Jonathan said.

“Everybody remembers where what?” she asked.

“Just everybody’s got one of those moments. Like JFK. Everybody remembers.”

“Where they were, sure. We were in high school.”

“More specific though. I remember where I was at the moment I knew.”

“What’s it matter where?” she asked, her book page down against her chest. “I’ve never understood.” Reading glasses, squat things, were low on her nose and her still blond hair was thick and brushed. Still blond hair where his was gray.

“It’s one of those things,” he said. “Everybody remembers exactly where they were when.”

“Where were you?”

“I’m not talking about him specifically,” he said. “But that is one for me. I was in English with Kovack.”

“I had Lemler.”

“I had her as a freshman.”

“I had Lemler but I don’t remember where I was when I learned.”

“But sure there’s something.”

“I remember a lot of things.”

“But I’m talking about…I mean remembering where you were when you learned something.”

“I know what you mean. I remember…”

“I remember standing in the door to my room when Ritko told me my mom had called and dad had died. November 22, 1966.”

“That’s the same day…”

“As JFK. I know.”

“The anniversary anyways. Did you ever think that strange?”

“No. But do you see what I mean? Everybody’s got something.”

“I guess. I don’t know.”

“Everybody’s got something they remember that involves more than just the context or the…I guess saying that you remember when becomes different because instead you remember where.”

“I remember…”

“And where has really nothing to do with the thing that happened or that you remember.”

The silence of empty rooms. The quiet talk and conversation in a bedroom. The sound of plumbing and the sight of darkness.

“Do you remember where you were, what you were doing, when you learned something?”

“I’m sure I do,” she said. “But I don’t know what.”

“MLK, JFK, your parents?”

“Is this about Thomas?”

“No. No.”

Jonathan put his magazine on the nightstand near him. The lamp burning was a brass looking thing, a wide looking thing that matched the one on the table at Helen’s side. He was shirtless in the bed, blankets at his waist. There were slippers on the thick carpet bedside.

“I just think it’s odd that most people have something they remember in that way,” he went on. “Like the memory of the thing is tied so closely to the place you were. And you remember it connected with where you were.”

“I guess,” she said.

“I’m just remembering a lot of things these days. I guess the other night’s part of it.”

“That’s reasonable,” she said. “We are getting older and that may be all we have left.” Smiling.

Jonathan smiled faintly and said maybe.

“Jonathan,” she said.

He looked at her. Her eyes under half glass. Her cheeks bronzed and aged over a mouth that was full with full lips. The lines across her neck and how they gave way to shoulders that were narrow still, slender. Her shoulders that belied years.

“You have always been beautiful,” he said.

She smiled.

“You have always looked young.”

“What brought that on?” she asked.

“I was just remembering is all.”

“Remembering what?”

“How beautiful you have been.”

She said thank you, her lips frowning in sympathy or sadness. Her eyes following the downturn in her mouth. She put her glasses and the book on the table near her and leaned over to kiss him. The sound a bed makes. She kissed his cheek with him looking forward, out over the bed at the wall and the furniture there. She kissed his cheek and sat back in the way she’d been.

“We’ve been apart a lot,” he said. “But when you left this last time it was the first time you had left me.”

“It was?”

“It was,” he repeated. “It was the first time you had left me where I was. So when I went it was strange that I was not leaving someone.”

“Was it?”

“My whole time gone I didn’t know what to think. If you’d come back.”

“Of course I was coming back. I would always come back,” she said.

“Would you? I wondered if you would.”

“I would.”

“I wouldn’t blame you.”

And she, “I’ve always wondered if you would.”

“Blame you?”

“Come back. I think I’ve always been prepared for the day you don’t come back. I don’t know if I’ve expected it…”

“Or wanted it?”

“Wanted? No. I don’t know. Wanted?”

“Maybe it’s how we know each other.”

She looked at him, his chest soft and forested. Gray hairs and silver hairs and black hairs making slow curls, all. The half-lit room. The hallway dark beyond and the thin reflection across the banister visible. The quiet.

“We do know each other,” she said. “But I still don’t know,” she started.

And after a moment, “Don’t know what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Say it.”

“I’ve been waiting is all. I think I’ve always been waiting for the day you’re gone and not coming back. The day I’d never hear from you again.”

“Each time I’m gone? All this time?”

“Not at first,” she said. “But the last years, as many as the last five or ten I’ve thought each time you’ve left would be the last. This last time, before you went,” she paused. “I saw it coming more and more and so I left. I wanted to be the one to leave. I wanted…I didn’t want to be the one left behind though I was ready. I was always ready. And what with Thomas…”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know. It was so terrible what happened to Thomas.”

Jonathan was sitting with his back high against the bed’s high frame. His hands in his lap, a hand on each thigh. The room again. The dark. Always the quiet.

“Don’t know what? What to think?”

“What to believe,” she said.

“I know I’ve asked for this,” he said.

“It’s not something you’ve asked for. I’m not attacking you. I’m telling you. I’m being honest with you. I’m your wife and I love you and I’m being honest and telling you I don’t know what to believe. I haven’t known.”

“I have asked for this. I have. I don’t know. I’m just learning. Now,” he said. “Finally I’m realizing what I’ve done so wrong all these years. I’ve, how I’ve failed you or even the kids or even myself.”

“You’re not a failure. You haven’t failed us.”

“I have and you’re right. I almost didn’t come back. So many times I wanted to walk away. So many times out there I thought I’d just keep going and forget all this here. Especially after…”

“Thomas…” she started. “If it is…”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Her eyes were moist. Her lips were pursed and held a sorry smile.

“Is it something I’ve done?” she asked.

“No. I don’t know. No.”

“How could you? Why would you forget all this? Or why’d you come back?”

“I don’t know. That’s just it. I don’t know why I’d leave and I don’t know too why I’ve come home and I know what a terrible thing to say that is.”

She got out of bed and took the empty glass from her bedside table. Keep talking, I’m listening, she said, as she walked into the bathroom and ran cold water to drink.

He heard the faucet and the water’s hollow sound. He was there in the bed with his hands helpless in his lap and his bare torso, his exposed body quiet where it sat. Unmoving. He was there without moving and not speaking and hearing the sounds she made filling the glass, turning on and off the light, her feet over the soft carpet and her drinking above the bed before getting back in.

“I have been distant,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m trying not to be.”

“Does this mean you’ll leave again?”

“No. I don’t know. I told you I told Madsen, I’m done. I want it to be the end and I don’t think I could do it again anyway.”

“Will you stay?”

“Yes. I think so. I don’t know.”

“Why would you leave? Why have I always thought you would?”

“It’s not you. I have loved you.”

“I know it’s not me. Which is strange. I knew it wasn’t me, or it was but not in the sense that most would think.”

“It’s been the idea of this,” he said, sweeping his arm, moving for the first time in minutes. “I’ve never been comfortable with the things I have or what they mean.”

“So you’ve walked around hating all this for how long?”

“I hate none of this. I’ve hated nothing,” he said. “I love you. The girls. I love…”

“But what then?”

“I’ve never been ready.”

“This all seems…”

“Wrong, I know.”

“No.”

“Hard.”

“No.”

“I’ve hurt you, I know.”

“No,” she said, looking at him. “I’ve known, I told you. I’ve known and not known and that’s why. I guess, I’ve always,” she stopped. “Your coming and going with work I thought, or knew, was the thing that would make you healthy.”

“But you thought I wouldn’t come back.”

“I worried. But I knew if you didn’t go you would someday leave. Leave me and the kids and go.”

“Yes.”

“It’s cliché but I half-pictured, always half-expected to wake up one day and have you gone. Or go to the airport or expect you home and then you wouldn’t be there. There would be no word and that would be it. I was always waiting for that and this last time I thought it was it. So I left not to see you go. I couldn’t let you leave me after all the years of expecting just that.”

“I’m sorry, Helen.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry.”

“I don’t know what to say then.”

“I want you to tell me once and for all.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You need to try.”

“Why ask me this? You know this and you know I can’t say it. I think,” he stopped. “Everyday has been a question. I have battled everyday. To not go crazy or walk away and everyday I tell myself just today, you worry about just today.”

“How did we get here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve spent so many days wondering just that. How did I get where I am?”

“Aren’t you afraid that being home now and not going and going will make it worse?”

“I don’t know. My coming and going didn’t make the questions go away so maybe being still will.”

“Maybe if you just focus on here, day to day here.”

“Maybe.”

They looked at each other for a time and then each looked around the room. Their clothes over a chair. A bureau drawer open a spare inch or two. An armoire open and the television there.

“So why did you?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you come back?”

“This time? Or before?”

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. This time was different,” he said.

“Of course.”

“I think I always came back because the thought of not was too much. I didn’t want it to be my running away from this.”

“Isn’t that what it is? Your running? Or you’re here because you feel guilty.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not what it was for me. Or maybe it was. I just didn’t want to or I thought,” he stopped. “I don’t know.”

“It’s not like you were running to something.”

“I didn’t run anywhere, Helen. That’s the point.”

“I’m just saying.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever known who or what I’m supposed to be. Except for this here, everything here making me who I am.”

“You made this here. We made this. This is where you were supposed to be even if you weren’t sure of that. This is where you were needed. Not there.”

“You’re right. I guess. I don’t know. I guess it’s just not what I expected.”

“What’s more to expect. A wife that loves you. Daughters that loved you. Love you. A home. This is your home. Streator is your home. Here is your home and you made this and you made yourself what you are. Nobody ever expects what’s going to happen in the end.”

“I could have been more.”

“More what?”

“More for you. For the girls. More devoted. Like you’ve been.”

“I’m devoted because I love you and I know you love me.”

“I do love you.”

“I know.”

“I do.”

“I know.”

“This last time was the first time in a long time I knew what I had,” he said.

“I’m glad.”

“But I still doubted.”

“I’ve never expected you not to. But Jonathan, the fact that you are so passionate is what I love about you. You doubt because you always want to know. You always want to be right and one step ahead and so you wonder. Sometimes you forget where you are when you’re there is all.”

She stopped with her mouth just open and the words she was going to say just there. She was looking at him and he her and then she was looking at the bed between them or the shape of her legs beneath the bedding.

Jonathan was watching her and then he watched his hands where they were idle. The door still open with the thin reflection along the banister he watched too. He heard the dog lapping water somewhere in the dark and then the sound of its claws over the hardwood floor. Then silence.