accept Uncle Samuel's offer of prostheses and elbow canes. I don't know why I opted for a chair. I think maybe I didn't want to display my infirmity in public. Or maybe I wanted to play the martyr. who the hell knows. Do you always know why you do the things you do?
That's especially true of moral choices. They're a bitch, because no one gives you a guid when you're born. You're supposed to learn by education, training, and experience. But sometimes you're faced with conflicts that nothing has prepared you for. There are no precedents, and common sense can only take you so far.
What brought on that fit of introspection was the business of my niece, Tania, planning to run away from home. I figured that if I snitched on her, she'd never forgive me. But if I kept her plans secret, as I had promised, I could be endangering her safety. I didn't like to think of what kids like her and Chester Barrow might face on the road by themselves.
So I batted it back and forth, and I finally decided to inform their parents. I told Cherry Noble what I was going to do.
'I'm glad, Chas,' she said. 'Children are not just young adults, they're children and haven't yet learned to act in their own best interests.'
'I guess,' I said. 'I keep wishing Tania may eventually forgive and forget I betrayed her. And maybe it'll make the parents pay a little more attention to their kids. It's a gamble.'
'All our choices are gambles,' Cherry said. 'Aren't they?
We try to calculate the odds and go with the decision that offers the best chance of success. But sometimes we go against the odds.
That's called hope.'
'Thank you, doctor,' I said.
'How are you going to tell the parents?' she asked, ignoring my sarcasm. 'Telephone them?'
'No, that's too cold. Herman comes here for lunch every Thursday.
I'll tell him then,' 'I think that's wise,' she said. 'Be sure to say or imply that you think it's the shortcomings of the parents that made Tania want to leave home. I wish you could talk to the mother, too.'
'I will,' I vowed. 'I'll tell Herman to ask her to come out here so I can talk to her one-on-one. I'm going to be tough on them.'
'Good,' Cherry said. 'Even if Tania is imagining her grievances, they should be aware of them.'
So that was that, another crisis dealt with, a decision made.
But I couldn't forget what Cherry had said about all our choices being gambles. The most important bet I had to make involved her.
What convinced me were things I had said and things she had said about my book-in-progress, The Romance of Tommy Termite. It didn't take a giant brain to realize I was writing about myself.
All of Tommy's indecisions were mine, and all his hopes were mine.
That included love, marriage, home, family-the whole megillah.
It wasn't that I was unhappy with the way things presently were between Cherry and me, ut our relationship irked me because it seemed b incomplete. There was something missing-and it wasn't just sex.
It took me a while to figure out what was bugging me, but I finally identified it, There was no commitment.
I had reached the point in my narrative where Tommy the Termite decides to give up his bachlorhood and ask Lucy to marry him. (I could hardly wait to write the termite wedding scene, that was going to be fun.) Anyway, Tommy goes through a lot of mental and emotional anguish before he decides to pop the question. He's afraid of giving up his independence. He's afraid of losing his freedom.
He's afraid of taking on responsibilities he isn't sure he can handle.
I was afraid of those things, too, and in addition I had the fear of impotence to overcome. It was no use saying the decision was a gamble, take a chance, and what did I have to lose. I had a lot to loseand so did Cherry Noble. Maybe it was because we had spent those years as analyst and analysand that I had little hesitation in talking to her about it. , 'First of all,' I said, 'I want you to know that I realize this isn't wholly my decision to make. I have no idea what your reaction might be, but I know it's just as important or more important than mine. So you'll have your mind to make up after you help me make up mine. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not taking you for granted. I hope you understand that.'
'I understand,' she said quietly.
It might have been the first day of September but South Florida was still sweltering. I had finally sprung for a new air conditioner, a beast of a machine that could bring the inside temperature down to the point where you could hang fresh hams on the walls.
It wasn't quite that cold, but I kept it chilly enough so that Cherry always brought a light sweater along when she came to visit. We were sitting close to each other, working on a bottle of Frascati, when I started my confession.
I remember very well that the bathroom door was open and the light was on in there. It didn't provide much illumination for the big room, but it was a bright night, a full moon or close to it, and a pearly glow was coming through the windows. It was like being under water, looking up and seeing a wavery translucence, almost hypnotic.
Cherry was paled by that light. It made her eyes seem dark and enormous. I suppose I looked as masked to her, and I thought it odd, because that night I wanted no part of disguises.
'You must know I care for you,' I started.
'Care?' she said with a small smile. 'That's rather insipid, wouldn't you say, Chas?'
'How about I'm fond of you, ' I said. 'Is that better?
'Not much.'
'You're a tough lady. All right, I like you. Will you buy that?'
'You can do even better,' she said. Try.'
'First let me tell you what's bothering Tommy the Termite.'
I told her about all his fears and the struggle he was going through trying to decide whether or not to propose to Lucy.
'Those are my fears, too,' I told Cherry.
The bottle was in a bucket of ice at her feet. She leaned to refill our glasses. The wine looked as colorless as water in the moon t.
'And what does Tommy decide?' she asked.
'That's fiction,' I said. 'This is us.'
'And I thought you had made up your mind,' she said mockingly. 'After all, you did say you liked me.'
'Oh, God!' I burst out. 'Care for, fond of, like, have affection for-is there anything I've left out?'
She looked at me. Was she amused or hurt?
'Whatever happened to love?' she said.
'Ah,' I said, 'the four-letter word. What is it?
Tell me that.'
I think she laughed. 'Someone once asked Louis Armstrong what jazz was.
He said, Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know.'
'
'At least tell me the symptoms.'
'An ache, uncertainty, a hope, longing.'
'That's it?
'That's it.'
'I may have it,' I said.
All right, I was bewildered. You've got to picture me, a grizzled old fart planted in a wheelchair. And there was that slim, elegant woman, brainy, with the greatest legs God ever created. And she wanted me to say I loved her. I knew she did. And I couldn't. You'd say I had been popping stupid pills, wouldn't you?
We stared at each other, and there were so many things unsaid, by me at least.
'This is worse than going into a firefight,' I said.
'Is it so painful? I'm not pressuring you, you know. I wouldn't want you to think that.'
'I don't think it. All the pressure is coming from meand it's driving me nuts. Give me a clue, doc.'
