I could offer a handful of snapshots or switch on the slide show and bore you with pictures of how happy we were, how much fun we had, but rather than that, there are only two other scenes I must describe.
She loved open-air markets and we often came across them as we drove around that beautiful countryside. Our rented car was soon filled with perfume essences, old linen dresses, dried Provencal herbs and lavender. I loved standing beside Lily watching her sort through boxes of old French magazines, or rub olive oil on the back of her hand so she could better distinguish the quality. She taught me a great deal about food that week and I was both grateful and eager to learn. She laughed when I told her how her enthusiasm was so invigorating and different from the attitudes of the women I’d recently dated (excepting Norah Silver), who rarely took off their sunglasses to even look at a menu.
“ ‘Say nothing, act casual,’ huh? I’m not very California in that way, am I? I don’t even own a pair of sunglasses.”
What was the name of the town? I can see it so well in my mind’s eye. The fast brown river running next to it. The restaurant on the water where we ate. A historical plaque announcing that someone like Petrarch had lived there. A big market was being held when we drove in, so we stopped to eat and browse. The river, the market, and the main road all ran parallel to each other. Lily and I separated because she wanted to look at the food, while I discovered a box of old cartoon books that had me rubbing my hands together. We agreed to meet at the car in an hour, big kiss, see you later. Another thing I liked about her—it was no big deal to go your separate ways a while. More often than not, she was the one who suggested it when we were someplace but had our eyes on different directions.
I was so engrossed in the books, the sound of impact and the howl of the poor animal didn’t penetrate my skull for moments. People started calling to each other and running in the same direction. My French is basic, but I heard “chien” and “accident.” Besides, the screams were hideous and unmistakable. It was clear what had happened. I only hoped it was a dog and nothing else.
“Oh pauvre—”
“Il n’est pas mort!”
“Qui est la dame?”
“Sais pas.”
There was a crowd huddled in a semicircle over whatever was on the ground. I came up behind and through their movement saw a blast of shiny blood, entrails, and the beautiful gleaming black coat of a young dog. Its rear quarters were crushed across the pavement. Next to it on the ground was Lily. She was shouting in French for something, loud enough to be heard over the screeching death wails of the puppy. She said later she was asking for string, wire—anything she could use to choke. I pushed through and squatted down next to her. The dog moaned and snapped its jaws in a mad shudder and snarl. It kept trying to twist around to its burst rear. Black fur. White frothing mouth. Red. Half its young blood was over my love.
“Max, get rope or string. No, give me your belt!”
I knew what she wanted, why. I slid the belt out but said, “I’ll do it, Lily. Get back—it can still bite. It’s crazy.”
When the dog turned away again, I whipped the belt around its neck and choked it with all my might. What little life was left, it took only seconds. The noises were soft and very short.
“Hard, Max. Hard as you can! Kill it fast. Please kill it now.”
Besides the grimness of the scene, what I found remarkable about it, and what kept coming back to me long after it was over, was how she reacted to what had happened. I remembered how she had run to help the pregnant woman in the parking lot the first day we met. She was unquestionably one of those rare good people whose first impulse is to help whenever it’s needed, but this was different. Helping is one thing, putting a crazed, dangerous animal out of its misery is another. Pragmatic yet moral, self-sacrificing, a firm good mother, funny, and a flame in bed… This was it. Lily Aaron was God’s gift to me. I knew I must do everything in my power to win her.
There was another scene that happened in France, though the other is a story rather than a scene. A story I told her at the beginning of our flight back to Los Angeles. But on second thought, I will not tell it till later. Let this part end with death and hope. The real possibility of joy. See us looking out a small round airplane window together at the world below. A world that would have been ours, if not for the child.
PART TWO. CROWS WITH BLUE EYES
“Why should we import rags and relics into the new hour?”
“Mary told me about a couple that went to Thailand for a vacation. They were walking down the street in some town and saw a baby puppy just lying there. It was adorable but had been abandoned and they knew if they didn’t save it, it would die. So they took it and somehow snuck it back home with them. Back to America.
“It grew up and was a real cutie—affectionate and sweet. It liked to sit on their laps when they were watching TV. But they also had a cat that the dog hated and was always after. One day the cat disappeared and next thing they knew the man found little bones or something near the dog’s bed.”
“Get out! The dog ate the cat? Fur and all?”
“Wait, it gets better. The dog ate the cat, fur and all, which made the owners a wee bit suspect. So they took the dog to the vet ‘cause they were afraid it might start eating other things in the neighborhood. The vet took one look at it and said, ‘This isn’t a dog. I don’t know what it is, but it is definitely not a dog.’”
“What was it? What’d they do?”
“Took it to a zoo. Know what it was? A rat. It was called something like a Giant Siamese Rat.”
“THEY KEPT A RAT IN THE HOUSE?”
“A Giant Siamese Rat.”
“What’d they do with it?”
“Put it to sleep.”
Lincoln turned to his mother and asked, “That means they killed it?”
“Yes, sweetie. Hey, Max, is that story true?”
“According to Mary it is.”
It was a winter Sunday. The three of us were sitting around the kitchen table still in our pajamas, each with his different section of the newspaper.
Two months after returning from France we moved in together. It was a difficult change for all of us, but Lincoln had it hardest. Lily and I chose to do this because of our hope and new love. There would be difficulties, but there was also the elation that accompanies the possibility of real and long-lasting satisfaction. So, like diplomats negotiating a nuclear test ban treaty, we felt the boy out as delicately as we could and then worked our behavior and our words in such a way that he felt he was involved in our decision.
Lincoln was used to having his mother to himself. I learned he was not a terribly egotistical kid but, like anyone, enjoyed being the center of another’s universe. They had lived alone together ten years. He was her history, while she was his rock and his truth. She had had boyfriends over the years, two of them quite serious, but nothing ever serious enough to threaten the straight distance between their two points. Lincoln’s father, Rick Aaron, was a rumor and a ghost to the boy. He seemed larger than life, ten feet tall, an adventurer, Zorro, et cetera, but he was more of an event to his son than a real human being.
Lily and Rick met at Kenyon College. He was a handsome math whiz with a sleek ponytail of long hair, a blue Jeep, and a notebook of poetry he’d written two hundred pages long. He did photography, calligraphy, he knew a world about ornithology. Lily was enthralled and disturbed by him in equal measures. Why was this Mega Man interested in Lily Margolin, language major? She was good-looking, had enough self-confidence to hold her own in conversation, and liked sex more than most of her friends. Butttt Rick Aaron was one of those rare people who part the waters wherever they go. Men disliked him, yet they wanted to be his friend. Women looked too long at him, sometimes their mouths hung open a bit. He had a reputation, but from what Lily could gather, his old girlfriends were proud of their time with him and few of them said bad things. What bad was said was good: he was too intense, too hungry, too self-absorbed. She liked those qualities. Besides, with everything he had going for him, didn’t he have a right to be self-absorbed? It made Rick all the more compelling when he shone his thousand-candle-power attention her way. One night she even dreamed he was a lighthouse. A human lighthouse with enough brilliance and power to illumine every part of the night. The only odd thing about this dream, which naturally she took as a crucial sign from her deepest heart, was that Rick’s head swiveled completely around on his neck. But at the time, she took that as further proof of him as a true lighthouse. To include everything one must cover all directions, swivel or not.