The first teacher workday falls on a humid, rather than crisp, August morning. After the staff breakfast, Lauren, Lead Vision Teacher, puts aside her own duties to help her mentee, who, at 23, is less than half her age. She pulls up Jennieâs caseloadâher own former studentsâand runs her finger down the list. The last name stops her. She crosses it out wordlessly.
Any other reason for the deletionâa family move during the summer, a change of teacherâwould be better than the reality: that Sammy, her second grader with the curly hair and mischievous grin, died last year.
Lauren pushes aside her weariness and the memories of students past to review new student backgrounds, medical needs, protocols for emergencies. Jennie, who arrived this morning armed with her new employee badge and a sum total of 16 weeks student teaching experience, listens politely but doesn’t ask a single question. Lauren tamps down irritation at the âIâve got thisâ attitude. She didnât ask questions either, her first year; until the day a preschoolerâs unending seizure sent her running for the nurseâs aide sheâd dismissed, and to her own mentor in the days following, when images of Caitlynâs blue eyes, glazed and unresponsive, followed her everywhere.
They walk through the office together to meet Judi, the equipment manager. The hallways are barren, beige cinder-block walls, dreary without bulletin boards showcasing student artwork, without the sound of children talking or singing loudly.
Singing, like Sammy, reciting from a class performance, an earworm she now canât shake: âSo much of this story is scary you know, scary you know⌠so only brave people sit in the front row!â Lauren wakes most mornings with the ditty, now more of a dirge, echoing from her dreams.
Judi greets Jennie warmly, and issues her a parking pass, a mailbox, a laptop, tablets for students, and an assessment kit. Lauren helps load Jennieâs Prius, the pristine trunk revealed beneath temporary tags. Laurenâs own car, a thirteen-year-old relic she uses to transport students for mobility lessons, is packed full of the essentials: GPS, trunk organizer arranged with student tote bags, white canes, a box of tissues. Lauren carries a watch to keep her schedule, and also to record seizures. Like last year, when Sammyâs, long dormant, recurred.
As she steps in the building, Judi calls her back, an updated spreadsheet lying on her desk. Laurenâs stomach drops. She hasnât informed the team, an awful omission. Both Jennie and Judi need to know, so they wonât contact his family and upset them anew, like she herself did in June after his absence.
âWere you planning to tell me about Sammy?â Judi asks.
âAnother seizure,â Lauren says. âIn the county pool.â Then the words tumble out in a rush, the scene unspooling as if she witnessed it herself. A cavernous room, dozens of children splashing, shrieking, playing, when Sammyâs parents suddenly realize something is wrong and yell for the lifeguards, who dive in together, everyone trying to pull Sammy to the surface, out of the pool, but heâs fighting off the help, not fully conscious, limbs thrashing, the other adults unable to do more than clutch their own children, as Sammy is pulled to the deck, CPR applied to his weak heart, which lets go its fight in the ambulance.
Judi steps around the desk to embrace her. Jennie stands frozen in the doorway. âSammy,â Lauren repeats. âHe would have been yours this year.â
Jennie declines Laurenâs lunch invitation, intent on heading to her schools, her eagerness to move on as obvious as a puppy straining at its lead.
âI appreciate your help this morning,â Jennie says, âbut I need to figure some things out on my own.â
âJust be sure to keep in touch. Iâm here to support you. And your students.â
Lauren watches her drive off, the geography of their work meaning theyâll only see one another at staff meetings and scheduled observations. She wanted to say, âyouâll get there,â but the job requires a willingness to absorb and distill experiences, and a certain resilience. The numbers aren’t promising for new special educatorsâmost leave the field never to return. Which means next August, Lauren will begin the cycle again.
For now, sheâll unpack her caseload, making room for new faces, and seeking the spark which will propel her through the next year.
It is January 6, 2003. Winter break has come to a close and Joel is approaching school for the first time this new year. Snow has fallen on the ground and it is clean, fresh, and new. The glistening clumps of snowflakes dissolve in round pools where rock salt lines the concrete, but the salt canât keep up with the precipitation, and snow accumulates around the school building untouched. The light reflecting off the ice crystals is blinding and he, too, feels new, fresh.
Joel takes one last breath of cool winter air and steps to the door to his high school, where he feels he just left. With his chin lifted, he opens the door, breathes long and even, reminiscent of soft, summer breezes. He looks around and his body feels light. Thereâs an unfamiliar feeling in his gut, unfamiliar, at least, in this setting.
Wait, what is that? He thinks to himself. Excitement? He is awake, alert, alive. A new man! He is saying goodbye to the days of staring at the floor, at the laces of his shoes, avoiding eye-contact; it is time to look life in the face. He is tossing away his insecurities, his lack of courage. This time, he will be heard!
He places one foot gently inside the building and steps out into the hallway, his books in hand, ready to take on the day. Stride after stride, he advances, not noticing the floors were fresh and clean, too. Right foot first, then left, and — there he flies!
Shoes in line with his eyes, Joel is airborne for one terrifying second before landing flat on his back.
His head hits the freshly waxed floor and he sees supernovas. Hears them, too. Joel opens his eyes and the sparkling stops as fluorescent lights fade into view. He hears laughter that sounds both near and very far away. He rolls over, crawls forward, picks up his books, and stumbles to his feet.
The laughter does not stop. He brushes the wetness and rock salt off of his pants and he can see his own reflection on the floor as he looks down. I must have forgotten, Joel thinks with a hint of angst and disappointment. Iâve returned to high school.
He steps forward much more carefully now, eyes focused on the glassy surface of the floor. He doesnât lift his head, he doesnât close his eyes, just in case he should ever again forget exactly where he is.
Rob shoved the truck into gear. It lurched forward. At the turn onto Debâs street, he skated through the four-way stop. âYouâre my girl and I want everyone to know.â As the pickup gained speed, it rattled like a bucket filled with spinners. Deb slapped at his shoulder and yelled at him to slow down. And still, he went faster. His recklessness was foolish. The risk made her angry. The truck swung into her yard and slid to a stop. Debra stomped into her house, the screen door smacked shut behind her. The tires ground a divot in the gravel as he spun out of her driveway.
At school the next day, Debra ticked like there was a Geiger counter in her brain. The clicks sped up as Rob approached. He laughed with his friends as they ambled into the calculus review class. He chose a chair three desks over and one row back from hers and stood for a moment, all tight jeans and neat plaid shirt, then grinned her way. He tossed a textbook on the Formica-topped desk and boosted his leg over the back of the chair, entertained by the chatter surrounding him.
The smell of mower exhaust blended with freshly cut grass wafted through the open windows. The early June sunshine filled the room and ricocheted off the chairs lining the far wall. The desks, arranged in two half circles like bowls nested one inside the other, barely confined their restlessness.
The teacher called on Rob. Deb turned to watch him answer. She caught his eye, dared him to remember when his rough fingers spread across her belly and slowly inched downward.
Rob waited for her in the hall. He took her hand, intertwined his fingers with hers, and kissed the tips. This was his apology. Debra let him stand that way for a moment, before taking her hand back. They strolled down the hall, their arms bumping occasionally. She pinky-grabbed his little finger, squeezed and then let go. Both of them understood, two hands clasped together was a declaration. Graduation was less than two weeks away. They could wait that long.
They sat at the same table for lunch. A girl wearing a handmade dress of cotton calico glided by. The fabric may have begun life as tiny orange flowers on a white background, but with hard washing and line drying, it had faded to a pale peach.
âTell me about your sister,â Debra said. She expected answers. It was part of his penance.
He sighed, âYou know we live on our grandparentsâ farm, right?â
She nodded, waited for him to explain the oddness. âMy grandparents are Mennonite Brethren. They took Mary and me in when our parents were killed in a car accident.â
âDo your grandparents make her wear those high-necked dresses with the long skirts?â
âNo one makes her. Itâs called simple clothing. Itâs a sign of respect and devotion.â
Debra hadnât thought of it that way before. Clothing as a signal of piety, like a nun dressed in a habit. She looked down at her short skirt and camisole. âBut you wear normal clothes.â
He shrugged. âDebra, what can I do? Girls get to choose just like guys do. Itâs up to her.â
Debra smacked her hands on the table. âRob, itâs not fair and you know it.â
He snorted and lifted one of her hands. âGetting mad at me wonât change anything. When I leave, sheâll stay. Thereâs nothing I can do.â
âNo! You get to go to college.â She pulled her hand back. âSaying you canât do anything isnât good enough.â
âI know you donât like it, but itâs her life and itâs her choice.â The school bell sounded and Rob pushed his chair out. âAnyway, I gotta head to work.â
âThis isnât ended, you know.â
âI know, Deb. Iâll call you later. Okay?â
âFine, just donât expect me to wear simple clothing.â
đĄđŁ
He didnât call that night. When he didnât answer her text, she sent a second, then a third. They went unanswered, too. Was he ignoring her on purpose? Frustrated, she set her social media accounts to mute and turned off her phone.
đĄđŁ
The school was unnaturally quiet when Debra stepped over the school threshold on Monday. Students milled around in the central hall. They silently clumped together then parted like fluff spun in circles each time the heavy front doors opened.
âWhatâs going on?â she asked Kathy. âItâs like theyâre zombies.â
âDidnât you hear? Rob Robertson died Saturday night. He was out with Chris Kinney and Mickey Shaw. They say he was driving too fast down East Main and crashed his truck.â
The words punctured Debra. She staggered, reached for the wall, slid down the cold tile. âBut, I saw Mickey as I came in.â
âChris and Mickey werenât hurt. The ambulance brought them to the ER. They got checked out and sent home.â
âHow do you know?â
âWhereâve you been Debra? It was all over the news yesterday.â
âI was studying. My phone was off. I have to talk to Mickey.â She rose from the floor. Ignoring Kathy, she searched the crowd. Mickey sat on one of the long wooden benches lining the hallway, ringed by a collection of seniors. She knelt and placed her hand over his. Normally, they didnât converse.
âIâm sorry,â Deb whispered.
Mickey nodded, mumbled something.
She couldnât breathe. âHow did it happen?â Her steady eyes searched his.
âHe wanted to see how fast we could go, but a car pulled out in front of us. Rob swerved, and we skidded into a light pole. The truck wrapped around it, right where Rob was.â
She whimpered then and folded over. Her forehead touched his knee in benediction; his hand rested in absolution on her head. The morning sunlight streamed through the windows that lined the hallway. The slanted shadows fell into chiaroscuro highlights on the scene. Sandy Garmond caught the picture. Later, the yearbook would use it for Robâs memorial page.
đĄđŁ
Robâs family chose a small stone chapel, lined with rows of wooden pews for the memorial service. A simple closed casket rested in the center front. Several people already knelt in prayer when she arrived. She stood against the back wall and wondered what she could say. It was more than sadness. How could she tell them she too had lost a future? The path that joined her with him and this family was now a cliff. The barrier was broken and hung loose where his truck punched through.
She waited in line; she touched the casket. Her head lowered, Deb murmured her sympathy to his grandparents. They had no idea who she was. They had never met.
Debra returned to her place and followed along with the memorial bulletin. A discreet notice at the bottom of the page caught her unaware. It read the family of Robert John Robertson, III, wishes to thank everyone for their condolences and kind words. There will be a graveside service at a family cemetery. Your kind acceptance that they would like to do this privately is gratefully acknowledged.
đĄđŁ
Debra heaves the thirty-pound pail of frozen berries into a metal cooler in the back of the pickup. As she slams the tailgate closed, across the parking lot, she notices Mary Robertson standing in the shade near the Agway loading dock. A thick braid of light-brown hair crowns her head. The last time she saw Mary was at Robâs funeral two months ago. Deb crosses her arms and watches the farmers shift their purchases off the platform into their trucks and horse-drawn wagons.
Debra takes a deep breath and strides towards Mary.
âI never got to tell you how sorry I am about Rob.â She takes Maryâs left hand and holds it in both of hers. Maryâs ring finger, usually unadorned, now wears a simple silver band. âMary, did you know I liked your brother?â
Mary blinks a bit, and a film of tears begins to fill her eyes, then she nods.
âI liked him a lot. And I think he liked me too. No, I know he liked me.â
Mary stands silent, tall and stately, placidly allowing Debra to hold her hand, without pulling or straining to take it back.
âHe almost made it out, you know? He would have wanted you to try too.â The smell of laundry soap floats off Maryâs dress. Debra whispers. âDo you want that Mary? I can help you.â
Debra isnât sure she hears it right, but then Mary shakes her head and says a bit louder, âNo, no I donât.â
Mary slips her hand out of Debraâs. âMr. Weishaupt has asked me to marry him. After weâre wed, heâll run my grandfatherâs farm.â
âBut Mary, youâre younger than I am.â
Mary steps back. âWhen I prayed for guidance, the Lord answered.â
Deb shakes her head, fights off the exasperation that punches at her throat.
Mary turns and heads towards the parking lot where her grandfather stands fanning his face with his straw hat. Halfway there, she turns back towards Debra and with a small nod says, âIâll keep you in my prayers.â
Maryâs grandfather stares straight at Debra. He waits for Mary to climb into the high front seat of his battered pickup before clambering behind the wheel.
Debra watches him shift into gear and check for traffic before slowly turning onto the road. She glimpses Maryâs profile through the window as the truck rumbles past. After it disappears into the broken woods, she stands for a long time studying the trail of swirling dust as it settles.
The Last words shared between us. We were at a family dinner in the local Chinese Buffet. Now it keeps closing down and reopening with a different name and the exact same food. I sat right opposite you at dinner so we could talk the whole time, challenging each other to see who could eat the most banana fritters. I ate so many I thought my little belly was going to explode. You let me win with seven. I told you all about rehearsals for the talent show coming up and how I was going to sing Magic Moments. On the way out you asked for a sneak preview. I wish I sung that day.
You never got to see the talent show where I sang Magic Moments. I even had a solo part. I was a backing dancer in Super Trooper and Rocking All Over the World too. Even without you cheering me on, I didnât shy away from the stage. You never saw our production of The Button Box where I played Auntie Nellie the belly dancer and âCrow Two.â Not the most glamourous roles, especially when I had auditioned for the lead. You still would have been proud though, telling me I was the shining star of the show.
Two days after it happened I went to Choir like I did every Wednesday. We were learning to sing songs from The Lion King because the kids in year six were going to see it performed in the West End. Next year I would get to go, but I never got to tell you that. The song that day was Endless Night, coming straight after Mufasaâs death. You promised youâd be there, whenever I needed you, whenever I call your name, youâre not anywhere. I couldnât get the words out. When I was fourteen I downloaded the West End album on my iPod. I skipped Endless Night every time. I havenât listened to it since that day in choir.
When I was learning to play the piano I was so excited to tell you that I was learning Puff the Magic Dragon. You asked me if I knew what it was really about and I told a story of finding magical dragons down by the water. You told me my version of the story was much better and that really it was about drugs. I was so excited that I knew something other people didnât, it was our little secret. When I lost you on Monday I didnât go to piano lessons. My teacher was your friend and she hurt too. I wanted to go but I couldnât move my body from the left hand corner of the sofa, staring blankly at the board games on the shelves opposite. Asking why it happened. It wasnât fair. I still sit in that spot on the sofa, holding on to a little part of you. I kept playing even without you. When I dusted off the keyboard for the first time in ten years I thought of you as I played a shaky version of Addict with a Pen. In Copenhagen I did a duet of Welcome to the Black Parade with a friend, it reminded me of our duets. I knew youâd be happy that I returned back to music that was our special bond.
Iâll never get to tell you that I got the part of Mary in the nativity, just like you always said I would. How I sat in Church on the alter and sang Away in a Manger, cradling a real baby in my arms. When my little baby Jesus started filling the Church with screams, I had to pass her through a little arched window and the real mother passed back a tissue box hidden in a white blanket because someone forgot to bring the emergency back-up doll. We never got to laugh about how they couldnât get a real donkey because the couple who owned the usual nativity donkey got divorced and were in an angry custody battle. They had to use a Shetland pony, who refused to walk down the aisle to the tune of Little Donkey which they played three times before he decided to trot towards the crib.
When Christmas comes around I put your unreleased Christmas song on. I know it would be a hit if we released it, maybe even Christmas number one. You were the most wonderful singer and hearing your voice at Christmas fills the air with your presence. Each snowfall reminds me of you. You always had a powerful voice, your laughter filled every room. For months afterwards, each time I heard a Scottish accent I thought it was you. The day of the funeral a tall man with a deep voice came in and I caught my breath. You had come and it was all a prank. No matter how hard I wished, no man was you.
Granny thinks of you when Canât Help Falling in Love starts to play. It makes me think about you too. I know if you could see her now youâd beam with joy. Her wonderful hats, her tiny little Scottie dog, her enthralling conversation, her warm heart. She still lights up every room just like youâd remember. Sometimes when I donât believe in love, I think about the way you would look at each other, peeking through the glass of the framed photo of you both on my desk. She still wears a locket with your hair inside.
When I sing out of tune I know it would make you smile. When I grab the microphone and pour my heart out at karaoke I know youâd be glad that I never hid my voice in shame. Your little girl grew up and never stopped thinking about you, wishing you could have been there for all the big moments in her life. I know youâd be proud of every little thing I did, you always were. I started doing the things you told me I could do. Twenty-one I picked up a pen and wrote again. It was a poem about loss. You always told me I could be a writer, you loved listening to my stories, those little fantasy worlds I dreamed up in my head. Thatâs where you live now.
The first poem I ever wrote, I read for you in the crematorium. A tremble in my voice I stood in front of the masses of people who loved you like I do. Each stanza ended in the same rhyming couplet: âthereâs no need to protest / my grandad was the best.â Everybody told me I was very brave. They still tell me that fourteen years later. Iâll never see it as brave. Itâs what you deserved. A doodle of a tiny little girl with plaits and a full fringe holding hands with a six-foot man with a big belly. My big grandad. Sometimes I sit at your bench and trace the letters in your name. I read that phrase over and over again. Life is fleeting. Love is eternal.
Magic Moments never had the same feeling again. Itâs always for you. Time canât erase it. Time wonât erase you. Our magic moments, filled with love.
If itâs not Acapulco Moonlight, where the first trumpetâs highest note is an optional E, itâs a room full of muddled melodies. Remember, melodies, like life, can be grooved, with directions or blends of the two; just like formulas charted out might turn out jagged or scraped at the edges. Like light that seeped into your room at 16, Bentinck Street, Kolkata, where the changing but unceasing cacophony lingered in the air until nightfall. When darkness drew an impervious curtain, the squalid, overcrowded conditions slightly abated, as did the raised, frayed tempers of the hawkers just underneath your window; where the pavement was usurped each day by screaming men and women selling everything from tea, jalebis to fruits, steel utensils and cheap clothes.
âFive bananas for ten rupees! Five for ten!â
âBest quality steel! Plates, larder, glasses! Get anything for thirty! Only thirty!â
Vans, handcarts, rickshaws, egg-yolk-yellow taxis, rickety buses parked erratically wherever it suited the driver—to pee, or chat, or a cup of chai. You never complained to the man youâd married a fortnight ago. Instead, every afternoon, you paced the tiny room to find something to fill the hours with, then defeated you craned your neck to view, just beyond the grilled window, brick-and-mortar shops rubbing shoulders, standing chock-a-bloc, with pigeonholed stalls stacked precariously like Lego blocks over dilapidated, old warehouses, huddled together, covered in dust and soot, waiting endlessly and hopelessly for an end to their agony. Roots of a Banyan or Peepul pawed unbridled the remnants of a bygone colonial era as they stood in stoic silence. Isnât silence a pause in music?
You breathed in the grimy air, registered the synchronized melody of chaos, until it penetrated you, your life.
You hadnât prepared yourself to be holding the pink stick to your indifferent partner. Just like you hadnât prepared yourself for your husbandâs drunken ruckus, and the horrors of the night that perforated the walls of the room. After your baby was born, in the static soundless soul of the night, you sat to hear a distant owlâs hoot, whistle of a night train rattling over the rail bridge and the shattering of something very near, like the place between your breasts.
You thought you heard the fluttering of wings — your soul on flight! You thought you heard a spluttering fire that raced towards the closed door but couldnât escape.
But the next moment there were other melodies — the cries of your baby on the cot asking for you; the lullaby you sung it to sleep; the murmurs of fleas circling your open wound.
Morning dawned with the sounds of pots and pans at your neighbors and then back to the patterns of high notes and lows.
You lived in that room, as if in trance, rode the crests and falls like you were a feather in the wind, like the blue on your left cheek was the plume of a kingfisher. You thought you heard the sunlight break onto the floor, the moonlight tip-toe to lie on your tear-soaked pillow. You thought you heard your motherâs love when the rains splattered on the broken chimney; you thought you heard the harmonica being played when sparrows lined the window pane.
The first digit of your foot turned backwards; sometimes you found you could coo like the cuckoo; sometimes you shook off the bristles that had grown where your eyebrows were.
You waited. You trained your ears to hear. You coached them to hum a tune, until that night after your son left for boarding.
You heard trills and gurgles of a nightingale, a strain rose above the din of your room, above the crescendo your heart was reaching. You let the blood of the demon in the room soak your tail wing; and with rapid beats you flew to where the bird sang an impaling melody.
Seasickness overtook me on my first voyage, a pleasure-cruise to baptize the Queenâs new ship. I heaved over the side. My bile formed the shape of a mermaidâs tail on the water.
A tall, bearded man in uniform offered me a handkerchief. I looked up; I caught my breath; my heart strings thrummed.
The captain appeared at court that evening. I â like the other debutantes â had curtsied to the Queen in white satin, and, I, like them, took my turn to perform. I caught the captainâs eye⌠smiled⌠and glowed as I sang the aria of the queen of the night, imparting her dying wish that her lover would claim her before daybreak. Afterward: golden silence, then rapturous applause.
âYou stole the voice of a siren,â the captain murmured in my ear.
You stole my heart from my breast.
The Queen congratulated me, saying she hoped to hear me sing again. My giddy ears could only follow the sounds of the captainâs footsteps as he approached to kiss my hand.
The next day he sought my parentsâ permission to squire me about town, to picnics, parties, and balls. They reasoned that his distinguished career atoned amply for his birth, so off we went: he took me everywhere. (Indeed, one night he took me to a discreet hotel, and I joyfully relinquished my maidenhood. After that, as I say, he took me everywhere.)
Except on his ship: the merest rocking rendered me queasy.
Meanwhile, the Queen had not forgotten me.
The Opera Director called on my parents to convey her command. They protested, saying I was a lady, not some mere stage-strumpet. The man returned pointedly that it was the Queenâs particular wish.
Naturally my captain had had to go to sea again. Amidst endless rehearsals, I missed him tenderly. I felt the full force of his absence during my arias, voicing my fathomless longing. But when the applause began⌠when the Operaâs rafters trembled with the crowdâs adoration⌠I floated beyond the moon and starsâŚ
My captain returned in time for the final performance, and crowned me with water lilies.
We resumed our previous engagements â chaste and otherwise â in a season of delight. But the weather turned, and the Queenâs thoughts drifted toward her winter residence.
The captain and I sat on the pier, our legs dangling vainly. He was due to leave again on the morrow. The Queen had ordered me to attend her â a thousand miles inland.
âDaphne â marry me, my darling.â
My heart broke upon the waves.
âI love you,â I said, âbut you are a marine creature, and I, a terrestrial animal. It is not fair for either of us to pretend otherwise.â
We parted. I surrendered to my anguish.
At the Queenâs court, my grief transfigured my music, giving it a resonant, glorious cadence.
I alternated between the capital and the winter palace, occasionally returning to the opera for public performances.
Once in every great while, I found water lilies in my dressing room.
Five rows back, Iâm close enough to see the sweat glisten on the first violinâs forehead, and the glimmer of light from the mezzo-sopranoâs black diamante dress. The music draws me up from my seat and forwards over the four sparse rows in front of me. Towards the white-haired conductor, and away from my notes to self and the constant vibrato in both my hands and the black oblong case sitting empty in the corner of my apartment. My mind begins to drift over the stage, between the intervals of the melody.
Fifths are earthy, grounded, cycling through channels and strings with the flick of a full hand-
-but fourths are fresh, fresh like a newly-opened piano lid, metallic hopscotch leaps which are desperate to resolve, building a tension each time they rise that makes my neck and right foot jerk and tap with each upbeat and downbeat.
And Iâm back there, in amongst the orchestra with my desk light and pencil, surrounded by the blaring reds of the brass, the succulent blue woodwinds, the greens of the strings: grass-green for violins and violas, olive for cellos and double basses.
Thirds, though, donât have a colour. Theyâve made their minds up: black or white, ebony or ivory, major or minor.
I can smell my old pot of resin, feel the slight tension rising just before one of each pair has to reach out and turn the page, taste the chords behind and beside and in front of me.
Seconds are what wrong notes feel like: squashed too close for comfort, pricking the pads of your fingers, the spanners in the wheels of the revolving fourths and fifths, trapped, hammered, broken, until-
Unison. The final chord. Applause all around the concert hall. I smile. The musicians stand up and bow. As one, they turn to their desk partners and shake hands. Mine are still shaking, too. I turn to my right, and then to my left, but the seats either side of me are empty.
Henry walked the 40 minutes from his familyâs apartment on72nd Street, the September morning already muggy and warm, and entered at seven-thirty. Penn Station was bustling — when it was not? â but because it was Sunday it was both bustling and calm, if that were possible. The vast hall hosted hundreds of people, some sitting, most standing or walking, and a few running, yet it felt expansive.
Heâd lived in New York his entire life, all nineteen years, had even worked right here for a summer, two years ago, selling magazines and newspapers, cigars and cigarettes, and gum â so many packs of gum â from Jimmy Vincenzoâs booth. That was a good job.
His next job, he wasnât so sure about.
He was taking the 10:40 to Pittsburgh, then transferring to another line, and then another, to end up in Texas in a couple of days. Today was Sunday, yes, but tomorrow was Monday, and on Thursday he was reporting for duty at Camp Maxey, near a city called Paris, which made no sense at all. Wherever it was, heâd be lugging his bag the whole route.
Upon arrival, heâd be issued a new set of clothes, Government Issue, army green.
He bought a Daily News from someone at Jimmyâs booth, someone heâd never seen before, grabbed a coffee from another vendor, and found a bench with a direct view of the massive clock. In truth, there likely were very few seats without such a view. He had a good two plus hours to wait but he was fine with that. He believed in early arrivals: in his mind, âon timeâ was dangerously close to tardiness. More, he wanted a last Penn Station immersion. When would he be here again? And where else, he wondered, did he feel so at home? Certainly not âat home,â despite the best efforts of his mother, his stepfather, his little sisters. There was nothing horrible about any of those people but God that apartment was small. It was like it had hands, hands that too often clutched his neck. Yes, an exaggeration, but it was damn hard to breathe there.Â
And there was one more reason to be here this early, in this spot. Call it hope. Better, call it by its true name: Sheila.
Sheila, whom heâd met only two weeks ago, at a CYO dance way out in Brooklyn. Sheila, who had moved from Kentucky to New York only six months earlier. Sheila, who had kissed him that night, on the R train back to Manhattan, and who had kissed him on three separate nights since then. She did the paperwork in her uncleâs plumbing supply company in the Bronx, lived with a cousin in lower Manhattan, and took care of the cousinâs kid pretty much every hour she wasnât on the job. Her going to that particular dance had been such a fluke â such an Act of God or something, given the odds â in fact, it was her first dance since leaving Louisville. And he had been there, too, also almost completely by chance. Heâd gone with two buddies, a spur of the moment decision by the three of them, each a recent high school graduate: âClass of â42, thatâs who!âÂ
Since the June ceremony, the three had often found themselves sitting and wondering what to do next. Classes were boring, and pointless, many of them, but you knew where you were supposed to be, knew what you were supposed to do. He guessed that heâd again soon be told what to do, twenty-four hours a day. The other two guys were shipping out next week, Merchant Marine.
The kisses on the R Train. The kisses the following Tuesday, and Sunday, and Tuesday of this week. And today was Sunday. She knew he was leaving â heâd told her that first night, a few minutes before they reached Canal Street, her stop. He couldnât not tell her. The look on her face the moment he told her, whatever else happened in his life, that look he would never forget.
He sipped his coffee, regretting the lack of cream. He opened the paper to the sports section. The Yanks lost yesterday, but he knew that, and theyâd already locked up the pennant. The Series was starting on Wednesday. He closed the paper, set it beside him, stood, stretched, and sat down again.
A group of fifteen or twenty people crossed in front of him, all following a guy holding a sign above his head, a sign that said something Henry had missed, going to his left, probably to the stairs to the next level.
He got up, walked ten steps to the trash bin, and tossed his empty cup. He returned, opened the paper to the crossword, pulled a pen from his pocket, stared at the puzzle for a moment, but did not begin. He closed his eyes, pen still in hand.
When he opened them, Sheila was standing five feet away, wearing the same green dress sheâd worn in Brooklyn. Little white flowers danced on the shoulders. She was smiling. He didnât know if his own face was smiling or crying or both.
And then he saw, on the scuffed floor beside her, amid cigarette butts and crumpled napkins, the most beautiful sight of his life, a red and black Samsonite suitcase.
Howie was insistent: âDad, I want to get you signed up before you start back.â
âWeâve just buried your mother, for Godâs sake!â Howard balked. âI havenât been a widower two weeks yet!â
They had returned this morning with fresh flowers, just the two of them, yesterdayâs handful of mourners already a distant memory.
The cemetery, with its sculpted trees and manicured lawn, was a bright green postage stamp in the wheaten vastness of the Nebraska prairie. One horizon was punctuated by the townâs lone church steeple and, in the nearby railroad yards, stark concrete-tube grain silos. In all other directions the flatness went on forever.
Ellen had wanted to be buried here, in a family plot, close to the Platte River and the sandhill cranes she remembered from early childhood. They had come once, years ago when she was vibrant and coherent, to marvel at the birds — wheeling through early spring skies to glean any kernels that escaped the fallâs harvest, roosting and croaking on river sandbars at night — and to make basic arrangements for them both at the cemetery. It had not seemed so windswept and bleak then.
 âTwo weeks? More like two years, Dad. Longer, really. Three, at least.â
Which was true. Heâd managed to keep her at home for the first few years, although powerless to slow her descent into the grip of the damned disease. The day had finally come when he begged Howie to come to Connecticut for a few days to help with the move to Harmony Acres. They got Ellen into the âmemory unitâ â a euphemism for no-memory, their son complained â and then moved Howard himself into the adjoining apartment block, walking-distance away.
As she slipped inexorably into the vacuum of Alzheimerâs, he had indeed gradually become, emotionally, a widower. Not a day went by without his spending a few hours with her, every day harder. Near the end, nothing he offered could prompt the least remembrance of friends or family, distant lands visited, theater moments, signal achievements — anything of their rich lives together. He counted it a blessing that she never entirely forgot her husband and her own children â and at the end, a blessing that pneumonia spared her more days or weeks or months or dear God years of blank existence.
Meanwhile, heâd settled into the life of a vibrant retirement community. He made new friends, far from alone in having a spouse in the memory unit or recently snatched away. He steadfastly renewed subscriptions to pairs of tickets to the symphonies, operas, chorales, plays and musicals that had been such a part of their lives. He invited his new friends, both men and women, to keep him company using âEllenâs ticket.â He always made clear that he considered himself a married man, company for an evening but nothing more.
Now he was headed back to Harmony Acres fully a widower, and Howie wanted him to look around for new companionship through an online dating service, a damnable app on the new smartphone he was still learning.
âDad, youâre just seventy. Gramps and Gramma lived twenty years beyond that.â
âDoesnât mean I will.â
âNot a certainty, maybe, but likely; itâs in your DNA.â
âI looked at the website you sent me to. All that stuff about ârenewed intimacy in your golden years.â Like they were selling donuts.â
âWell, I guess theyâre in business.â
âAnd when you scroll in a few pages, theyâre invasive as hell.â
âYouâre one up on me, Dad; I havenât looked. Tell me what that means.â
âCanât remember it all offhand. They want me to write down all my hobbies and habits. What I eat. What I wear. Excruciating detail. What I watch on TV. How far I walk every day. And what kind of woman Iâm looking for.â
âSo?â
âFirst of all, Iâm not looking for a woman; thatâs your idea.â
He paused. His gaze on the freshly-laid, too-bright green sod a few feet away blurred unexpectedly. A light morning breeze was rich with the smell of ripening grain. From the distant rail yard by the grain silos came the throaty mutter of a Diesel engine and the high-pitched, mourning bleat of its horn.
Finally: âAnd I never gave your mother a catalog of things she might not like about me. In our day, you found out the faults little by little.â
âIn my day, too,â Howie admitted. âAfter weâd found out the things we liked, I guess.â
âExactly. This online stuff is selling instant â what? friendship? love? intimacy, whatever thatâs supposed to mean?â
âMaybe not instant,â his only son replied. âJust a few shortcuts.â
He felt himself warming to the argument, the incipient tears dried. âYour mother and I didnât need shortcuts. We dated, began to more than just like each other. And if weâd decided it wasnât going to be a good match, weâd have looked elsewhere.â
âMmmm. Seems like you could save some time with this computer matching.â
He looked out at the fields of grain. âWinnowing.â
âYes,â Howie said. âGetting the chaff out of the way, maybe.â
âYou assume Iâm looking. Threshing. I might someday. More likely, may never.â
âDad, Sueâs out on the West Coast; Iâm down in DC. We donât want you to be lonely.â
âSon, your mother was pretty special. Almost fifty years. Itâs not like Iâve lost a fork, hurrying to find a replacement so I wonât starve. I have friends. Iâm not saying itâs impossible I might discover a special friend, but that would take time to ripen. What I donât need is . . . .â
âInstant intimacy? I hear you, Dad. Forget the app. Letâs start back.â
The freight train bleated again, hoarse, more distant now, its voice falling. He bowed his head, eyes moist again, fixing the sound in his memory, an element of this Nebraska scene to cherish. Like the cranes, he would someday come back, to be again with Ellen.
âAll right,â he said at last. âLetâs go.â
A first encounter. Shy smiles, a nod hello. Side glances. Warmth inside, feeling things that shouldnât be. But it will pass.
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But will it pass?Â
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Distracted thoughts most inappropriate. A click of picture taken in discreet. Avoidance that does not last. Sit apart and glance too long. Has anybody noticed? Then seated side by side, legs bump and elbows brush. That warmth becomes a flame.
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Standing near, and then too close. A full body lean, inhaling the scent of one another. Gently one hand slides over the other, fingers weave. Flame burns, breath quickens. Heads tilt and eyes meet, a silent question lingers. Not a moment for witness, unspoken promise of later and parting ways.
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Later finds them on a forest stroll, fingers laced. Birds flit about in anticipation, noting an excitement that hangs in the air. Will it? Wonât it? Should it? Want it.
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A moment chosen. Gently, carefully, hands find their way. Breath becomes heavy as flushed cheeks graze one another. Spirited eyes close as lips meet and part.
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A groping moment before they separate, carnal hunger in their faces. One leads the other off the path into the shade of trees, dried leaves crunching beneath their feet. An old knotted oak is chosen, pressed upon. Clothing is unbuttoned, fumbled loose.
Promises broken while making, making, making.
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Bitten lip, bitten shoulder, nails drag down back. Birds cease to sing, leaving the rustling leaves above to mingle with the sighing crescendo.
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And then the realization of the moment, no longer pure fantasy. Confusion. Uncertainty. Shy smiles and side glances. Will anyone find out? Is this where it ends? Is this the start of something?