“Do we love each other?” Susan said.
“Yes.”
“Are we monogamous?”
“Yes.”
“Then why,” Susan said, “aren’t we domestic?”
“As in live together, share a bedroom, that kind of domestic?”
“Yes,” Susan said. “Exactly that kind.”
“I recall proposing such a possibility on Cape Cod fifteen years ago,” I said.
“You proposed marriage,” Susan said.
“Which involved living together,” I said. “You declined.”
“That was then,” Susan said. “This is now.”
Pearl dropped down from her contemplation of the river and moved on, snuffing after the possibility of a gum wrapper in the crevice between the sidewalk and the wall.
“Inarguable,” I said.
“Besides, I’m not proposing marriage.”
“This matters to you,” I said.
“I have been alone since my divorce, almost twenty years. I would like to try what so many other people do routinely.”
“We aren’t the same people we were when I proposed marriage and you turned me down,” I said.
“No. Things changed five years ago.”
I nodded. We walked off the bridge and turned west along the south side of the river. We were closer to the outbound commuter traffic now, an unbroken stream of cars, pushing hard toward home, full of people who shared living space they shared.
“Trial period?” Susan said.
“And if it doesn’t work, for whatever reason, either of us can call it off.”
“And we return to living the way we do now,” Susan said.
“Which ain’t bad,” I said.
“No, it’s very good, but maybe this way will be better.”
We swung down closer to the river so Pearl could scare a duck. Some joggers went by in the other direction. Pearl ignored them, concentrating on the duck.
“Will you move in with me?” Susan said.
We stopped while Pearl crept forward toward the duck. Susan kept hold of my left hand and moved herself in front of me and leaned against me and looked up at me, her eyes very large.
“Sure,” I said.
“When?”
“Tomorrow,” I said.
Pearl lunged suddenly against the leash, and the duck flew up and away. Pearl shook herself once, as if in celebration of a job well done. Susan leaned her head against my chest and put her arms around me. And we stood quietly for a moment until Pearl noticed and began to work her head in between us.
“Jealousy, thy name is canine,” I said.
“Tomorrow?” Susan said.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
Tomorrow… and tomorrow… and, after that, tomorrow… Yikes!
CHAPTER 8
Hawk and I sat in Hawk’s car in the middle of the empty courtyard of Double Deuce. The only thing moving was an empty Styrofoam cup, tumbled weakly across the littered blacktop by the soft spring wind. The walls of the project were ornate with curlicued graffiti, the signature of the urban poor.
Kilroy was here.
There was almost no noise. Occasionally a child would wail.
“This is your plan?” I said to Hawk.
“You got a better idea?” Hawk said.
“No.”
“Me either.”
“So we sit here and await developments,” I said.
