“Just a little damaged in transit, as they say at the post office. Then, of course, they hand you this thing that’s taped back together three ways from Sunday and whatever was inside is crushed beyond recognition.”
“Are you?”
“Crushed? Absolutely. Many times over. But it always springs back. Well, these days I guess it’s more like it
“Stronger than before?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. You?”
She shook her head. “Be nice if it were true, though. Like a lot of things.”
I eased myself onto the couch.
“Tell Sheryl T.C. won’t be bothering her anymore. Actually, I’m not sure he’ll be bothering
“Must have been one hell of a talk.”
“
“Might be some scotch under the cabinet from when my parents were here. Want me to look?”
“Oh yes.”
There were a couple of inches left in the bottle she put on the coffee table before me. Ignoring the glass, I tilted the bottle up. Seemed easier that way: less movement, less pain. I remembered O’Carolan asking for Irish whiskey on his deathbed, saying it would be a terrible thing if two such friends should part without a final, farewell kiss. I tilted the bottle again.
“I feel like I just blinked and twenty years went by-backwards,” I said. “Definitely an old TV science fiction show. Can’t be real life.” I looked at her. “Sorry. It’s late.”
“It’s okay, Lew. Really.”
“Tell you what. I’m going into that bathroom down there at the end of the hall to face up to some hot water and soap. Pay no attention to screams, and if I’m not out in ten minutes, you can decide on your own whether to call paramedics or the funeral home.
“Need any help?”
“Me? Look at what I’ve already accomplished, all by myself.”
“I’ll make coffee, then. Once I’m up, that’s usually it for the night.”
I stepped carefully down the hall. Must be heavy winds and a storm coming up: the ship listed badly both to port and starboard.
Ablution accomplished, nerve ends singing like power lines in a hurricane, I came back and sat as Clare poured something yellow into the cuts, smeared on antibiotic salve and bound my hand tightly in gauze.
“That’s going to need stitches. Lucky you didn’t cut a tendon or an artery.”
“It’s not bleeding anymore. It’ll be okay.”
“Lew, don’t you think you’ve worn your balls as a hat long enough for one night? Jesus!”
“Okay, okay. You’re right.”
“You’ll go to the ER?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
I nodded and she went out to the kitchen, brought back a lacquered wooden tray with coffee in one of those thermal pitchers, two mugs, packets of sugar and sweetener, an unopened pint of Half amp; Half.
She poured for both of us and we sat there like some ancient married couple, sipping coffee together in the middle of the night without speaking. The moon hung full and bright in the sky outside, and after a while Clare got up and turned off the room’s lights. Then, after sitting again, finishing her coffee, pouring anew for us both, she said quietly, “I don’t understand what happened between us, Lew.”
I said nothing, and finally she laughed. “Guess I’ll put that on the list with quantum mechanics, the national debt and the meaning of life, huh?”
I looked at her.
“I’d come over there and sit at your feet now if I could, Lew. Just lean back against you and forget everything else. That’s what I’d do if I could. But I can’t. Probably fall, if I tried. Coffee okay? You want a sandwich or anything?”
“The coffee’s wonderful, Clare.
A silence. Then: “You have things you’d do, too-if you could?”
I nodded. Oh yes.
Another, longer silence. “Think maybe you’d consider spending the night in this wonderful coffee maker’s bed?”
“I’m not in very good shape.”
She laughed, suddenly, richly. “Hey, that’s
Later as we lay there with moonlight washing over us and the ceiling fan thwacking gently to and fro, I mused that pain was every bit as wayward, as slippery and inconsistent, as intentions.
“Half in love with easeful death,” Clare said, striking her right side forcibly with the opposite hand and laughing. “Little did he know. But what’s left is for you, sailor.”
Human voices didn’t wake us, and we did not drown.
Chapter Nine
It was not a human voice at all to which I woke, in fact, but a cat’s. Said cat was sitting on my chest, looking disinterested, when I opened my eyes. Its own eyes were golden, with that same color somewhere deep in a coat that otherwise would have been plain tabby.
“You didn’t tell me there was a new man in your life,” I said when Clare came in with coffee moments later.
“Yeah, and just like all the rest, too: only way I can keep him is to lock him in at night. Lew, meet Bat.”
She put a mug of
“I was in the kitchen one morning, bleary-eyed as usual, nose in my coffee. Glasses fogging over since I hadn’t put my contacts in yet. I heard a sound and looked up and there he was on the screen. Just hanging there, like a moth. I shooed him down but a minute later he jumped back up. That went on a while, till I finally just said what the hell and let him in. From the look of it, he hadn’t eaten for a long time.
“He was just a kitten then. There wasn’t much to him but these huge ears sticking straight up-that’s how he got the name. I asked around the neighborhood, but no one knew anything. So now we’re roomies. He’s shy.”
“I can tell.” I wanted the coffee bad, but the cat didn’t seem to understand that.
“No, really. I bet he spent all night behind the stove, just because he didn’t know you.”
“Help?” I made clawing motions toward the coffee mug.
“What? Oh sure.” She scooped the cat up in an arm (it hung there limper, surely, than anything alive can possibly be) and dropped it onto the floor (where it grew suddenly solid and bounded away into the next room). “Hungry?”
“Yes, but it’s my treat. What time is it, anyway?”
“Eight-thirty.”
“Aren’t you late?”
“I called in.”
“Not feeling good, huh?”
“
“Okay. So we can make the Camellia when it opens. Before the crowd hits. If that’s all right.”
“That’s great.”
We splashed water on faces, brushed teeth (unbelievably, she still had a toothbrush of mine there), dressed (as well as clothes to replace encrusted ones from the night before), and took her car uptown. Since the car was
