when she was gone, I cursed. I shook my head at my own stupidity, then noticed the wine on my shirt. I stood and started down the hall, looking for the bathroom.
Turning a random doorknob, I came face-to-face with myself in the bathroom mirror. In the reflected background, I could see Savannah through the cracked door of the bedroom across the hall. She was topless with her back to me, and though I tried, I couldn’t turn away.
She must have sensed me staring at her, for she looked over her shoulder toward me. I thought she would suddenly close the door or cover herself, but she didn’t. Instead, she caught my eyes and held them, willing me to continue watching her. And then, slowly, she turned around.
We stood there facing each other through the reflection in the mirror, with only the narrow hallway separating us. Her lips were parted slightly, and she lifted her chin a bit; I knew that if I
lived to be a thousand, I would never forget how exquisite she looked at that moment. I wanted to cross the hallway and go to her, knowing that she wanted me as much as I wanted her. But I stayed where I was, frozen by the thought that she would one day hate me for what we both so obviously wanted.
And Savannah, who knew me better than anyone else, dropped her eyes as if suddenly coming to the same understanding. She turned back around just as the front door crashed open and I heard a loud wail pierce the darkness.
Alan…
I turned and rushed to the living room; Alan had already vanished into the kitchen, and I could hear the cupboard doors being opened and slammed while he continued to wail, almost as if he were dying. I stopped, not knowing what to do. A moment later, Savannah rushed past me, tugging her shirt back into place.
“Alan! I’m coming!” she shouted, her voice frantic. “It’s going to be okay!”
Alan continued to wail, and the cupboards continued to slam shut.
“Do you need help?” I called to her.
“No.” She gave a hard shake of her head. “Let me handle this. It happens sometimes when he gets home from the hospital.”
As she rushed into the kitchen, I could barely hear her beginning to talk to him. Her voice was almost lost in the clamor, but I heard the steadiness in it, and moving off to the side, I could see her standing next to him, trying to calm him. It didn’t seem to have any effect, and I felt the urge to help, but Savannah remained calm. She continued to talk steadily to him, then placed a hand on top of his, following along with the slamming.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, the slamming began to slow and become more rhythmic; from there it slowly faded away. Alan’s cries followed the same pattern. Savannah’s voice was softer now, and I could no longer hear distinct words.
I sat on the couch. A few minutes later, I rose and went to the window. It was dark; the clouds had passed, and above the mountains was a swirl of stars. Wondering what was going on, I moved to a spot in the living room that afforded a glimpse into the kitchen.
Savannah and Alan were sitting on the kitchen floor. Her back was leaning against the cupboards, and Alan rested his head on her chest as she ran a tender hand through his hair. He was blinking rapidly, as if wired to always be in motion. Savannah’s eyes gleamed with tears, but I could see her look of concentration, and I knew she was determined not to let him know how much she was hurting.
“I love him,” I heard Alan say. Gone was the deep voice from the hospital; this was the aching plea of a frightened little boy.
“I know, sweetie. I love him, too. I love him so much. I know you’re scared, and I’m scared, too.”
I could hear from her tone how much she meant it.
“I love him,” Alan repeated.
“He’ll be out of the hospital in a couple of days. The doctors are doing everything they can.”
“I love him.”
She kissed the top of his head. “He loves you, too, Alan. And so do I. And I know he’s looking forward to riding the horses with you again. He told me that. And he’s so proud of you. He tells me all the time what a good job you do around here.”
“I’m scared.”
“I am, too, sweetie. But the doctors are doing everything they can.”
“I love him.”
“I know. I love him, too. More than you can ever imagine.”
I continued to watch them, knowing suddenly that I didn’t belong here. In all the time I stood there, Savannah never looked up, and I felt haunted by all that we had lost.
I patted my pocket, pulled out my keys, and turned to leave, feeling tears burning at the back of my eyes. I opened the door, and despite the loud squeak, I knew that Savannah wouldn’t hear anything.
I stumbled down the steps, wondering if I’d ever been so tired in my life. And later, as I drove to my motel and listened to the car idle as I waited for the stoplights to change, I knew that passersby would see a man crying, a man whose tears felt as if they would never stop.
I spent the rest of the evening alone in my motel room. Outside, I could hear strangers passing by my door, wheeled luggage rolling behind them. When cars pulled into the lot, my room would be illuminated momentarily by headlights casting ghostly images against the walls. People on the go, people moving forward in life. As I lay on the bed, I was filled with envy and wondered whether I would ever be able to say the same.
I didn’t bother trying to sleep. I thought about Tim, but oddly, instead of the emaciated figure I’d seen in the hospital room, I saw only the young man I’d met at the beach, the clean-cut student with an easy smile for everyone. I thought about my dad and wondered what his final weeks were like. I tried to imagine the staff listening to him as he talked about coins and prayed that the director had been right when he told me that my dad had passed away peacefully in his sleep. I thought about Alan and the foreign world his mind inhabited. But mostly I thought about Savannah. I replayed the day we’d spent, and I dwelled endlessly on the past, trying to escape an emptiness that wouldn’t go away.
In the morning, I watched the sun come up, a golden marble emerging from the earth. I showered and loaded the few belongings I’d brought into the room back in the car. At the diner across the street, I ordered breakfast, but when the plate arrived steaming before me, I pushed it aside and nursed a cup of coffee, wondering if Savannah was already up, feeding the horses.
It was nine in the morning when I showed up at the hospital. I signed in and rode the elevator to the third floor; I walked the same corridor I’d walked the day before. Tim’s door was halfway open, and I could hear the television.
He saw me and smiled in surprise. “Hey, John,” he said, turning off the television. “Come in. I was just killing time.”
As I took a seat in the same chair I’d sat in the day before, I noticed that his color was better. He struggled to sit up higher in the bed before focusing on me again.
“What brings you here so early?”
“I’m getting ready to head out,” I said. “I’ve got to catch a flight tomorrow back to Germany. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I know.” He nodded. “Hopefully I’ll be getting out later today. I had a pretty good night last night.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
I studied him, looking for any sign of suspicion in his gaze, any inkling of what had nearly happened the night before, but I saw nothing.
“Why are you really here, John?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I confessed. “I just felt like I needed to see you. And that maybe you wanted to see me, too.”
He nodded and turned toward the window; from his room, there was nothing to see except a large air- conditioning unit. “You want to know what the worst thing about all this is?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I worry about Alan,” he said. “I know what’s happening to me. I know the odds aren’t good and that there’s a good chance I won’t make it. I can accept that. Like I told you yesterday, I’ve still got my faith, and I know—or at least I hope— there’s something better waiting for me. And Savannah… I know that if something does happen to me, she’ll be crushed. But you know what I learned when I lost my parents?”
