The whole time I was making the cappuccinos, I could feel myself grinning, and I remember thinking: This is art. This is love. It’s simple and I get it. I can do this. And way back in a usually quiescent part of my mind, I heard a voice say: You gave up so much for so long. You’re not going to do that anymore.
Not even the guilt I had over what I was doing behind Cal’s back daunted me then. I had reasoned it all out in my head to justify the situation. Cal will be fine, I decided. He has women at his beck and call. He doesn’t need a life here with October, because he has everything he’s ever wanted.
Let me have this one thing, I thought.
The rest of that day remains lodged in my mind like an indelible song. Each moment is a note, and if I conjure up the first one, the whole tune comes back to me: what the day looked like, what it tasted like, what it smelled like, what it felt like. My skin was alive, and it transcribed every feeling in a way that went deeper than memory. Memories are fragments. Unreliable. This was an experience that seemed to exist inside of me before it happened, and it remained inside of me when it was over. In my heart and behind my eyes I can still see it, not as bits and pieces, but as a whole composition.
Here’s another important distinction: I felt entirely myself that day. And I don’t mean my best self. I don’t mean I was pretending to be some ideal version of Joe Harper so that October wouldn’t change her mind. I was the same awkward, insecure, overly sensitive Joe Harper that I’ve been for as long as I can remember. But the other Joe showed up too. The man who can be thoughtful, witty, and charming when he gets his head out of his ass.
I kicked off my sneakers, and October and I sat against the headboard drinking our cappuccinos. The window was open, and a light breeze was blowing into the room. Our legs were parallel, my right one touching October’s left as we watched a gray warbler foraging on a branch outside. The bird’s little head moved in quick, jerky tics like the second hand on an old watch, its beak a tiny jackhammer.
“Do you think he’s looking for breakfast?” October whispered, as if her voice might scare the creature off.
“He is a she,” I told her. “The males have black throats. See how hers is a whitish gray?”
October dipped her head toward me and smirked. “It turns me on when you talk like the Audubon Society.”
I smiled. Bob Harper was good for something.
The late-morning sun was starting to flood the room, and even though the breeze was cool, I felt warm and content, the scene calling to mind an old Johnny Cash quote I’d read somewhere online. Johnny had been asked to describe his idea of paradise. He’d pointed to his wife, June, and said, “This morning. With her. Having coffee.”
This is simple, and I get it, I thought again. Then I put my hand on October’s thigh and left it there for as long as it took for her to get it too.
Eventually she set her mug on the bedside table, spun her body sideways, and rested her head in my lap.
“I want to tell you something,” she said quietly. There was a pause, like she was searching for the words. “I want you to know why I’m so drawn to you. And why I think this is important enough to go through what we’re going to have to go through to be together.”
I slid my hand into hers and said, “OK.”
“It’s something I feel when I’m with you, that I don’t feel with anyone else. Chris says I’m always so busy noticing everyone else’s feelings that I ignore my own, and maybe he’s right. I don’t have a lot of friends that I confide in, and it’s never been easy for me to get close to people. But I wanted to be close to you the moment we met. I feel all this deep, creative energy when I’m with you, and it makes me want to explore things and express things that I’ve never had the courage to explore or express. Am I making sense?”
As usual, her words at once softened and baffled me. “Yes.”
“In a way, I guess what I’m saying is that you inspire me. And you feel like home.”
I let go of her hand, stroked her hair, and she whispered, “Cafuné.”
She picked at the frayed hem of my cargo shorts. The warbler outside the window was singing now, her song full of sweet, buzzy “Z” notes.
“There’s a magnitude to all of this,” October said. “That’s what you’re feeling. The magnitude of moving through life without any idea how or when this is going to end but embracing it anyway.”
I let her words sink in. “Are you saying you think this is going to end?”
She flipped onto her back and looked up at me. “I’m saying that I’m scared too. But we’re here now, and that’s all that matters. And I’ll tell you something else.” She put her index finger to my chest and drew what I’m pretty sure was a heart. “I think that love lives in a space inside of us that never ends. That’s why it’s the ultimate art project. Because while a book, a painting, a song, a piece of pottery, a tree can outlive us, none of those things will exist forever. But love is an energy. It’s infinite. So, no. Regardless of where you and I end up, I don’t think this is ever going to end.”
We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary that day. After we finished our coffee we made love, and it was slow and intense. I melted into October,
