“Not yet. Molly, please. Please listen to me. If we don’t... if we can’t even talk about it...”
“What difference will it make?” she said. “Don’t you know what we’ve become?”
“I know what we’ve become.”
“So what difference will it make?”
“We can go back to what...”
“How?” she said. “Oh God, how?” And suddenly she burst into tears.
He listened helplessly to her sobs. He gripped the telephone receiver tightly. He wanted to reach out across the miles that separated them, the years that separated them, hold her close, tell her...
“I hate him,” she said, sobbing.
Her words did not register for a moment.
“I hate the little bastard.”
He caught his breath.
“I hate what he did to us! Why did he have to die?” she said, sobbing. “He didn’t even have a license, why did he... Oh God, forgive me,” she said.
“Molly...”
“I hate him,” she said. “God forgive me, I hate him.”
She cried for a long time. Her sobs were deep and racking; he thought she would never stop crying. He thought of that day in her First Avenue apartment, when she was moving, her tears then. He thought of the way he had filled her new apartment with roses. He thought of filling her life with roses if only she would stop crying. At last the sobs subsided. He heard her blowing her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and began crying again.
He waited. She seemed to want nothing more from him now than the assurance that he was still there, on the other end of the line. He did not cry with her. He had wept all his tears. She cried for both of them. She cried for his father. She cried for their son. She cried for what had been and for what might lie ahead. And at last the sobs ended, and when she said again, “I’m sorry,” her voice was steady, and he knew that it was over.
“Molly,” he said, and hesitated. There were so many things to say, so many things to ask. “Do you love me?” he said.
“What...”
Her voice caught. He thought she might begin crying again. He waited.
“What business is that of yours?” she asked.
He smiled.
“Molly,” he said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said.
He realized there was nothing more either of them could say for now. It would, after all, have to wait till morning.
“Please come home soon,” she said.
“I will,” he said.
“I want you to,” she said, and hung up.
He replaced the receiver gently on the cradle. He went to the window and looked out at the ocean for a very long while and listened to the waves rushing in against the shore.
Before closing the drapes, he opened the window a little, so that he could hear the gentle sound of the sea while he slept.