When I arrived last night at eleven, having beaten it home in four hours to an odd day-within-night indigo luminance down the quiet streets of town (many house lights were still lit), a message was waiting from Ann, declaring that Paul had come through his surgery “okay” and there was reason for hope, though he would probably develop glaucoma by fifty and need glasses much sooner. He was “resting comfortably” in any event, and I could call her anytime at a 203 number, a Scottish Inn in Hamden (the closer-in New Haven places already filled again with holiday voyagers).
“It was funny, almost,” Ann said drowsily, I supposed from bed. “When he came out of it he just jabbered on and on about the Baseball Hall of Fame. All about the exhibits he’d seen and the … I guess they’re statues. Right? He thought he’d had a splendid time. I asked him how you’d liked it, and he said you hadn’t been able to go. He said you’d had a date with somebody. So … some things are funny.”
A languor in Ann’s voice made me think of the last year of our marriage, eight years ago nearly, when we made love half waking in the middle of the night (and only then), half aware, half believing the other might be someone else, performing love’s acts in a half-ritual, half-blind, purely corporal way that never went on long and didn’t qualify as much or dignify passion, so vaguely willed and distant from true intimacy was it, so inhibited by longing and dread. (This was not so long after Ralph’s death.)
But where had passion gone? I wondered it all the time. And why, when we needed it so? The morning after such a night’s squandering, I’d wake and feel I’d done good for humanity but not much for anyone I knew. Ann would act as if she’d had a dream she only remotely remembered as pleasant. And then it was over for a long time, until our needs would once more rise (sometimes weeks and weeks later) and, aided by sleep, our ancient fears suppressed, we would meet again. Desire, turned to habit, allowed to go sadly astray by fools. (We could do better now, or so I decided last night, since we understand each other better, having nothing to offer or take away and therefore nothing worth holding back or protecting. It is a kind of progress.)
“Has he done any sort of barking?” I asked.
“No,” Ann said, “not that I’ve heard him. Maybe he’ll quit that now.”
“How’s Clarissa?” Emptying my pockets, I’d found the tiny red bow she’d presented me out of her hair, companion to the one Paul had eaten. No doubt, I thought, it’s she who’ll decide what goes on my tombstone. And she will be exacting.
“Oh, she’s fine. She stayed down to see Cats and the Italian fireworks over the river. She’s interested in taking care of her brother, in addition to being slightly glad it happened.”
“That’s a dim view.” (Although it was probably not a far-fetched one.)
“I feel just a little dim.” She sighed, and I could tell, as used to be true, she was in no rush to get off now, could’ve talked to me for hours, asked and answered many questions (such as why I never wrote about her), laughed, gotten angry, come back from anger, sighed, gotten nowhere, gone to sleep on the phone with me at the other end, and in that way soothed the rub of events. It would’ve been a perfect time to ask her why she hadn’t worn her wedding ring in Oneonta, whether she had a boyfriend, if she and Charley were on the fritz. Plus other queries: Did she really believe I never told the truth and that Charley’s dull truths were better? Did she think I was a coward? Didn’t she know why I never wrote about her? More, even. Only I found that these questions had no weight now, and that we were, by some dark and final magic, no longer in the other’s audience. It was odd. “Did you get anything interesting accomplished in two days? I hope so.”
“We didn’t get around to any current events,” I said to amuse her. “I heard most of his views. We talked over some other important things. It might be better. He might be better. I don’t know. His accident cut everything short.” With my tongue I touched the sore, bitten inside of my mouth. I did not mean to talk specifics with her.
“You two are so much alike, it makes me sad,” she said sadly. “I can actually see it in his eyes, and they’re my eyes. I think I understand you both too well.” She breathed in, then out. “What are you doing for the holiday?”
“A date.” I said this too forcefully.
“A date. That’s a good idea.” She paused. “I’ve become very impersonal now. I felt it when I saw you this afternoon. You seemed very personal, even when I didn’t recognize you. I actually envied you. Part of me cares about things, but part doesn’t really seem to.”
“It’s just a phase,” I said. “It’s just today.”
“Do you really think I’m a person of little faith? You accused me of that when you got mad at me. I wanted you to know that it worried me.”
“No,” I said. “You’re not. I was just disappointed in myself. I don’t think you are.” (Though it’s possible she is.)
“I don’t want to be,” Ann said in a mournful voice. “I certainly wouldn’t like it if life was just made up of the specific grievances we could answer all strung together and that was it. I decided that’s what you meant about me — that I was a problem solver. That I just liked specific answers to specific questions.”
“Liked them instead of what?” I said. Though I guessed I knew.
“Oh. I don’t know, Frank. Instead of being interested in important things that’re hard to recognize? Like when we were kids. Just life. I’m very tired of some problems.”
“It’s human nature not to get to the bottom of things.”
“And that doesn’t ever get uninteresting to you, does it?” I thought she might be smiling, but not necessarily happily.
“Sometimes,” I said. “More recently it has.”
“A big forest of fallen trees,” she said in a dreamy way. “That doesn’t seem so bad today.”
“Don’t you think I could bring him down here in September?” I knew this was not the best time to ask. I had asked seven hours before. But when was the best time? I didn’t want to wait.
“Oh,” she said, staring I was sure out a frosted air-conditioned window at the small lights of Hamden and the Wilbur Cross, a-strearn with cars bound for less adventuresome distances, the holiday almost over before the day even arrived. I would miss it with my son. “We’ll have to talk to him. I’ll talk to Charley. We’ll have to see what his ombudsman says. In principle it might be all right. Isn’t that okay to say now?”
“In principle it’s fine. I just think I could be some use to him now. You know? More than his ombudsman.”
“Ummm,” she said. And I couldn’t think of anything else to say, staring at the mulberry leafage, my reflection cast back: a man alone at a desk by a telephone, a table lamp, the rest dark. The complex odors of backyard cooking over with hours before still floated out of the evening. “He’ll want to know when you’re coming to visit him.” She said this without inflection.
“I’ll drive up Friday. Tell him I’ll visit him wherever he’s in custody.” Then I almost said, “He bought you and Clarissa some presents.” But true to my word, I forbore.
And then she was silent, taking time to assess. “Doing anything wholeheartedly is rare. That’s probably why you said that. I was shitty the other night, I’m sorry.”