It was just across the street. It was a walled and private place, an oasis of shade trees and flowing water in the middle of the city. This time of year, it was usually empty. The gardens were a tiny, waited-off area, no larger than a vacant building site. In summer, people enjoyed its cool shade and the rising mist off the splashing water. In Seattle’s winter, shade and rising mist were in the public domain. No one went seeking them. Wizard sat at a little round table, watching the running water and trying to comfort himself with facts. The park was a memorial to the original headquarters of the United Parcel Service, which had been built on this site in 1907, convenient to Occidental Avenue and the whorehouses. That was how it had begun, with a handful of messengers whose chief customers were the brothels. He tried to picture it, and smiled vaguely at the running water.
“Does every little thing have to be spelled out for you?”
Wizard jumped at the woman’s voice and spun, expecting to find Lynda rampant. Instead, it was a stout little black woman, her hair lacquered into an unnatural set of waves. Her dress was too long, but her very old shoes were well cared for. She had on a blue cloth coat, not long enough to cover her dress.
She sniffed disgustedly as she stared at Wizard. As she sat down at his table, he immediately rose.
“Where are you going? Don’t walk out on me, you dummy!
We’ve got things to say. Hey! Don’t try to run away from it, because it won’t work. It’s right on your heels now!“
He moved off rapidly, routed from the Waterfall Gardens.
He had no magic to comfort them; why wouldn’t they leave — him alone? Away from the protective walls, the wind blew cold and stiff. It crept up his sleeve to chill his wrists, it stiffened his spine with achings. He coughed and it made his head pound.
He had to find shelter, warm shelter, away from strange people talking to him. The bus.
The driver glared at him, but had to let him board. It was the Ride Free area. Wizard shivered his way to a seat in the rear, away from the doors that opened and closed to admit a gust of wind at every stop. He would ride it clear to Battery Street, then jump off and get back on a southbound one. He sat rubbing his hands and staring at his raw knuckles. For a moment he couldn’t remember how he had skinned them. Booth.
Oh, God! His mind teetered dizzily between Wizard and Mitchell.
The bus jerked and swayed from stop to stop. It had begun to rain, at first gently, then determinedly. The passengers on the bus increased, most of them damp, a few shaking drops from umbrellas as they boarded. Yet the bus was not full when a young man came down the aisle and took a seat beside him.
Wizard slid over and leaned into the side of the bus, staring at the water drops on the window but heedless of the scenery beyond. He was so engrossed in his own misery that the soft ‘ voice of the man surprised him. He spoke in less than a whisper, his eyes fixed on the front window of the bus, his hands toying with a key chain.
“I think she’s going to say we’re through.”!
Wizard’s body clenched. Mitchell receded. A tremble passed through him from head to foot. The magic was hovering, asking him to listen and balance with it, demanding that he give of himself what he could to those whose instincts sought him out.
He began to sweat. It was here, and he had nothing to give, no Knowing, nothing to trade for these confidences. He had to force his shivering mind to focus on the words.
“She said we had to separate, just until she knew her own mind. She said she knew she still loved me, but that she needed space to figure out how our lives fit together- So I told her okay. What else could I say? I respect her. I didn’t many her to keep her at home in a box and take her out and look at now and then. Her independence was one of the things that made me love her. I didn’t want our marriage to change that. So I said okay, and I moved in with a buddy for a while, and I tried to give her some space. I’d call her in the morning, and at night, and then she said that it made her feel like I was checking up on her all the time. I wasn’t. I just wanted to hear her talk, hear her say she loved me and that I could come home soon.
So I only called her twice a week alter that. She talks to me, but I can tell she doesn’t miss me. She likes being on her own again. She even comes out and says it, that she likes getting up alone and grabbing a quick breakfast and heading to work.
And after work she can shop and eat out, or come home and watch TV, and she never has to worry if it fits in with anyone else’s plans. She never has to hurry to be on time to meet me for lunch, or find a movie we both want to see, or wait to use the bathroom. She doesn’t miss me. And she doesn’t need me.
So what I ask myself is, can you love someone if you don’t need them? And is she happy and fine all on her own, or is there someone else? Can it be she doesn’t need anyone, least of all me?“
The bus lurched into the next stop. Wizard waited nervously, but nothing came to him. Whatever comfort he was supposed to give this man was not appearing. The magic’hovered just out of his reach. He steeled himself and leaped for it blindly.
“Love and need are two separate things,” he murmured softly. “A mother does not need her children, yet she loves them. Need may even destroy love. What have you been doing with your own life while she has been finding hers again? Are you still the man she loved, the man with his own interests and life, or are you standing in the wings, waiting for her to take responsibility for your happiness? Perhaps you should find your own life and resume it, so she can approach you without fear of being consumed by you. Your terrible need for her…”
The man was rising, getting off at this stop, without waiting to hear what Wizard was saying to him. Such a thing had never happened before, and Wizard gaped after him, reeling defiled and useless. The bus lunged and roared on through its route.
He sat in silent misery. It began to get steamy inside from the cargo of warm, damp humans. The seat beside Wizard sagged with weight, and he turned to find that a slender Polynesian woman had settled in beside him. He turned away from her and stared out the window.
A manicured finger jabbed him in the ribs. “Pay attention!” she hissed. He knew that accent, but couldn’t place it. It was from the bad times. “I’ve got you cornered now, and you are going to listen. So quit playing stupid with me. It’s right in front of your nose, and you won’t see it. There is no time left for me to be subtle and let you learn at your own pace. When you are irrational, you are vulnerable. And another thing: You substitute tears for action. You want to know what is wrong with you? You found out, a long time ago, that it is much easier not to care. You pretended a distance between yourself and others until it became real. You stopped hurting when people you loved got hurt. You threw your pain away. There is a part of you that fears pain and wants to go back to that numbness. But that is where your enemy is waiting for you.
He will attack, you with yourself.“
She was rambling, he didn’t know about what, but he did know he had nothing to give her. He didn’t want to hear her secrets and her hurts. He had no balm for them. “Beg pardon?”
In a flash of self-preservation. Wizard turned an icy stare upon the little woman. “Were you addressing me?”
She did not waver. “Yes!” she hissed. Another jab of the finger. “Pay attention. You are throwing away your weapons because you think defeat would be easier. You do not wish to take responsibility for yourself. You like to fumble and limp and be helped along. Winning would change all that. So you choose to forget that you are involved in a battle. You have turned your exposed back to your enemy. When you are defeated, you will say, ‘There was never a war.’”
Politics were the last things on his mind today. He did not want to think back to that time. He spoke very softly. “You must understand. I have nothing useful to tell you. Beg pardon.