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Buffalo, late January, the University district. It was past dark, the streets were quiet,
people at home ate dinner, college students straggled to evening classes, businesses
turned on their outside lights. A fire engine roared down Main Street, lights flashing,
siren blasting, past UB, to a pulled alarm box. As people peered out of their houses and
businesses, and took a few hesitant steps in that direction for a better look, one person
headed the opposite way. A boy, a teenager, gripped his last dime in his left hand and
aimed determinedly for the nearest functional phone booth. His hands shook as he slid
the dime into the slot and dialed the number. The phone on the other end rang several
times before the woman picked up.
“Yes?” Even over the phone she was pinched.
“Grandma? It’s me.” He waited, but there was no answer. “Grandma? Can I come home? Please?”
“You ran away.”
Against his will, the boy began to cry. “Please can I come home? I’ll do whatever you want - I’ll be good Grandma - please?”
“We gave you all your stuff, what more do you want from us?”
The boy was crushed. “I need a home. I’m freezing to death out here. I don’t have anything to eat - I sleep in a box -.” He shivered in the cold and looked back to the fire engine and the false alarm he had pulled.
“You should’ve thought of that before you ran away.” The tone of her voice hurt more than the words.
“I didn’t - I didn’t run away. I just needed a break. Please Grandma - I’m sorry.”
“Things have just settled down now. If you came back it would all be upset again.”
“I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING.” The boy pleaded for the last time in his life.
“Don’t you yell at me. You were always too much to take care of. Things are finally back the way they’re supposed to be.”
“Grandma - please.” He tried to keep his voice down, tried not to anger her again. “Please can I come back? I’ll do anything. Please.” He was crying, shivering, terrified of going on if he had to do it alone. His life hung by her answer.
“No.” And she hung up.
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January 22nd started with a heavy snowfall and thunder resounding in the distance.
The schoolhouse was quiet; Dan was downstairs on his stationary bike, Rick’s alarm
hadn’t gone off yet. He woke up though, trying not to see what time was on his clock.
The light was off in his room, and the curtains were open - two things that had changed in
his life since very early New Year’s Day.
Finally, Rick looked at the clock, and was relieved to see that he still had forty five minutes to sleep. He turned over in bed - and heard something crinkle at his feet.
Dan went to the woodstove to put a few more chunks of wood in and looked up
to see Rick peering around the corner of the staircase. “How did this end up in my bed?”
he displayed a wrapped birthday present.
“You sleep real sound, you know that?”
“Funny guy...is it safe to open?” Rick shook it a little.
“Careful - it’s fragile.”
Rick brought the package to the couch, Dan sat in the overstuffed chair. “How’d you know it was my birthday? I didn’t say anything.”
“And I’m betting you never would...Aunt Marie told me.” Dan said. “There wasn’t any way she was letting it bet past. You got plans with Lynne tonight? I can make myself scarce.”
“Why don’t you invite Carly over? We could have a really nice dinner.”
Dan coughed and became very intent on his cuff button. “Yeah, well, we’re going through a kinda ‘down’ period. She’s not talking to me lately...hurry up and open it -” Dan indicated the present. “ - I want you to tell me what a great idea it was.”
“Dan! What a great idea!” Rick said before he even split the cellophane tape on the gift wrap. But when he lifted the top of the box, he was speechless. “Oh - Dan...” he lifted out framed pictures of his family. “Oh Dan.” He spent a few minutes just looking at them, over and over, lingering most over the picture of Merrill, taking as he tossed handfuls of snow into the air and let them shower back onto his face.
“So, I can safely assume you’re happy with the present?” Dan finally asked.
“These are all pictures I took at Christmas.” Rick said.
“Yeah, I told you I gave the film to Brian to develop. He did ‘em up and got the frames for me...you really like them?”
“They’re great Dan, I really like them. You’re going to have to tell me when your birthday is, so I can sneak into your room in the middle of the night and leave things on your bed.”
“Sure - I’m February 15th. One more present - I took a chance on this one Rick, I admit it.” Dan brought another wrapped present out of the spare room. “I called your Mom and had her send the picture to Brian and he blew it up. Enlarged it, you know. I want you to be really honest and tell me if you don’t like it.”
With more than a little apprehension, Rick undid the tape, slid off the gift wrap, and lifted the top off the box. Another look at Dan before he parted the tissue paper and Rick lifted out an 8x10 of Sandra, a close up of her face.
“Oh my God -”
Dan waited, wondering what the look on Rick’s face meant. Finally, Rick looked up at him.
“Thank you.”
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April was drier than normal. Rick had his third bad cold of the calendar year and
one morning had to choose between breathing and swallowing his granola.
“You take the Vitamin C?” Dan asked.
“Un hunh.”
“You wearing a lot of layers?”
“Un hunh.”
“You got enough Kleenex?”
“Un hunh.”
Dan paused to think if there was anything else he ought to ask. Rick’s eyes were half closed and he looked miserable. “You know you could stay home. I’ll get Russ to help with the milking. I doubt you want to keep bending down with how your sinuses must feel.”
Rick considered this. His head was pounding - not having to move too much would definitely help. “I think I’ll take you up on that.” His voice was hoarse. I’ll get some roofing tiles out of the storage shed -”
“You stay off that roof.” Dan insisted, and Rick shushed him. His voice was too loud and it made his head ache worse. “I don’t want you up on that roof getting a dizzy spell.” Dan added, in a softer tone.
“Okay, I’ll just get the shingles and sent them on the back porch, will that make you happy?”
“I’d rather you didn’t leave the house at all.” Dan told him.
“Too bad.” Rick pushed the bowl of granola away from himself. “I can’t hear, I can’ smell, I can’t breathe and I can’t taste anything now either.” He got up from the island. “I’m heading over. “I’ll round up Russ for you.”
“...’kay. I’ll be down soon.”
Dan locked up the house and headed to the farm not quite fifteen minutes later. He
had just stepped onto Sullivan Road when he saw the first curl of smoke, by the time he
had run all the way to the farm, the storage shed was engulfed in flames.
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Civil War Day. Everyone, almost everyone, would be gathered at the west end of
town. The picnic grounds were on the property of the Mannen family homestead. The
ruins of an ancient farmhouse foundation were the sole monument to the two brothers
who marched to war in 1862 and never came back. All the businesses in town were
closed. No mail was delivered. Women dressed in hoop skirts and men dressed as soldiers.
Phil Monroe, Manneville’s perpetual mayor, always came dressed as Abraham Lincoln.
Lately his son had taken to coming dressed as John Wilkes Booth.
Two cannon, one from W.W.II, were positioned facing south. A large playground had finally been built right at the edge of the shrinking forest. Plans were still underway for shelters. All Connally relations gathered in the northeast corner of the park, this year Dan among them. Pat showed him around the old homestead.
“This is the local Lovers Lane.” Pat told him. “More ‘premature’ babies are conceived here than anywhere else in the county.”
Dan laughed. “I believe that.”
Rick fished his old bike out of the rafters in the garage and took a chance on riding
into town. No one would be there, with the inevitable exception of Mr. Hewitt who kept
his grocery store open for exactly one hour after Civil War Day officially began for the
equally inevitable celebrant who forgot some vital picnic necessity.
The rest of the town was basically the same as the last time Rick saw it. The library, the hardware store, H&R Block franchise, Queen Bee Beauty Salon, Carson’s Hot Dog Boutique. One of the few new businesses in town was the Video Rental Shop which had been combined with Cody’s Vacuum Repair and Sales.
With complete confidence, Rick left his bike leaning against the only stop sign in town and wandered around on foot. Finally he went into Hewitt’s Grocery Store for a single serving of potato chips and a can of Pepsi. Mr. Hewitt was behind the counter on the phone.
“Okay Hank. Okay Hank. I’ll be there Hank. I know but you probably don’t even have the coals started yet in the grills. Okay Hank. Okay Hank.
(missing scene)
Rick skirted the crowd and headed for his family by walking as close to the woods
as he could. He was only a few yards from his family when Warren approached and Rick
longed for somewhere to disappear to. No one was close enough that he could hide
behind. Warren was between Rick and his family.
“What th’hell y’doin’ here?” Warren slurred. In his left hand, he carried a nearly empty bottle of beer, but his breath smelled of harder alcohol.
“Leave me alone Warren.” Rick tried to get away from him (how huge Warren seems to Rick, yet how he can see Sandra in his face)
“Don’t you know what it does to my parents to see you here?”
“Your mother drove me here.” Rick ducked some low flying branches and desperately tried to get to his family. “Just leave me alone.”
“How the hell can you show your face around here after what you did to my sister?” He shoved Rick. “How the hell can you even set foot in this town?”
Rick backed further away. “Don’t touch me. Leave me alone will you? Just leave me alone.”
Dan appeared between them. “Why don’t you take your bottle and migrate back to the slimy hole you crawled out of?”
“Who the hell are you?” Warren demanded. Dan just stared at him. “I don’t want him anywhere around my family.” he made a lunge at Rick and Dan flattened with one punch.
“Faggot.” Warren spat from bloody lips.
“You want to debate the point - you come right back to this spot.”
“Dan - it’s not worth getting your face laid open.” Rick tried.
“Oh yes it is.” Dan told him. Rick was embarrassed, but Dan was exhilarated. It’d been years since he’d been in a knock-down, drag-out, teeth-spitting fight, but he knew that without much effort, Warren was in for a pounding. He circled as Warren struggled to his feet. A small crowd had gathered, and Pat and Ken came to stand beside Dan and Rick.
“I’m telling you -” Warren staggered as he got to his feet. “I want him to stay away from my family.”
“And I’m telling you -” Pat said, the tone of his voice making every word stick. “ - you as much as look at anybody in my family, and so help me I will scatter your bones from here to Lorain.”
Warren grumbled, but took stock of the tide against him and wandered away. Rick ignored his family and Dan. He ran to Mrs. Woertkoeller’s car, grabbed his bike and fled home.
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Two weeks later, Rick and Dan were back at the
schoolhouse. The farm was deserted and disheartening. The
fields had been left to grow without thought of harvest; too soon
they would be torn up for roads and home sites. There was no
reason to get up in the morning, no reason to get up at all except
to pack up the little bits that were left and look for another job.
Dan stayed up late and slept late. One morning, a few mornings later, he was awakened by cartoon noise coming from the living room. He made his way down the narrow stair case to find Rick in the overstuffed chair, sitting close to the TV, watching old Looney Tunes cartoons. He was dressed in thermals and flannel robe.
“Why are you up so early when you don’t have to be?” Dan asked.
“I can’t stay in bed past sunrise.”
“Couldn’t you try? I only went to be a couple hours ago.” Then Dan saw that Rick had Sandra’s picture next to him. “You’re not really watching Foghorn Leghorn, are you?”
“I’ve got water on for tea.” Rick evaded. “Want some?” He slid off the chair and slumped to the kitchen, holding the picture in his arm. Dan followed him.
“I’ll make us both some granola, how about that?”
“No thanks Dan. I’m way past granola and heavily into -.” he brandished the package. “Oreos with Double Stuff.”
“Uh oh...” Dan wanted to ask what was wrong, but he figured - what wasn’t wrong? The Wards were selling the farm, and Rick had let himself be chased away from Manneville again. He’d lost his home again, he’d lost his son again, he’d lost himself again. What could Dan say?
He took the cup of tea Rick gave him, and waved away the offer of Oreos. Rick took a few cookies awkwardly in the hand that had the picture frame, and carried his cup of tea back to the chair. But he didn’t sit down, he just stood there, between the chair and TV, staring at nothing.
“Rick? You okay?” He moved closer and Rick seemed to startle that Dan was there.
“Yeah, no, I just - was thinking about something.” He sat down then, a little heavily, and tea sloshed over the edge of the cup. “Shit - dammit stupid...” he wasn’t close enough to a table or anywhere to set the cup, and it was burning his hand. So he threw the cup and the cookies and the picture onto the floor and bent his head down, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes.
The cup didn’t break, but the tea went everywhere. Cookies rolled under the couch and TV, and the picture of Sandra bounced a couple of times and ended up on its point, resting against the side of Rick’s chair. Dan set his cup on the cupboard and grabbed some papertowels. He knelt down and started mopping up the mess.
Rick didn’t lift his head until Dan lifted the picture and nudged Rick’s arm with it. “Here, hold onto this.” He only seemed to see then what Dan was doing.
“I’m sorry...” he took the photograph. “I’ll clean it up - you don’t have to.”
“All done.” Dan said, as he pulled the last cookie out from under the couch. “I’ll get you some more tea.”
“Okay...thanks...”
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One Saturday in early June, Dan was again at Rick’s apartment. Rick was huddled
on the couch, suffering intensely from a late Spring cold. Dan was forcing orange juice
and aspirin on him, and Rick could just croak “Thanks.”
The phone range and Dan answered it. “Hi Babe, how’d you know I was here - Carly, what’s wrong?” He walked toward the kitchen. He sounded very concerned. “Honey, I can’t hear you. You took a test and it was positive? Oh - it was positive. Oh Babe - I love you. Everything’ll be all right. I’ll be right there, and take you to lunch, okay? Oh honey, honey, everything’ll be all right, I’ll be right there. Okay. I love you.” He hung up the phone and went back to the front room where Rick was looking at him, puzzled.
Dan took a deep breath. “Congratulate me Rick. I am about to become engaged.”
Lunch was McDonald’s take-out at a park bench at Delaware Park. Carly didn’t
even take a bite of her hamburger, she tore up her French fires and only sipped at her
milkshake.
“How could I let this happen? I’ve been to college. I’m in a healthcare profession. How could I let this happen?”
“Carly - take it easy. This kind of thing does take two.”
“Do you know what kind of grief I’m going to get from my family?”
“Yes Babe, I do.”
“What am I going to tell them?”
“We will tell them that we are in love and we are going to get married.” Dan fished in his jeans pocket and pulled out the ring, careful to disentangle from the receipt. It was a gold band with an emerald stone surrounded by diamonds. He held it up to Carly.
“Danny - it’s beautiful.” But she made no move to accept it.
“It cost seven dollars.” Dan had to admit. “I bought it at Hills Department Store on the way to your house. It was the fastest ring I could get.”
“I didn’t call you because I want you to marry me.”
“I love you Carly, and I love that baby. Our baby.” He set the ring on the table and laced his fingers together. “I didn’t grow up with a father.”
“I know Babe.”
“I didn’t have a father till I was sixteen years old, and I wouldn’t want any other little kid to live the way I did, not when there’s something I can do about it.”
“Dan - I don’t want to marry you because I’m pregnant.”
“Then marry me because you love me. I love you. I -” he hesitated on the next words. “I’ve told you, over all the years we’ve known each other, all about my past. And I don’t have a lot right now, but what I do have, whatever I will have in my life I want to share with you. I have wanted to since the minute I met you...” He picked up the ring. “As soon as I have enough money, I’ll buy you the real thing.”
“Oh no Dan. I wouldn’t want any other ring.”
“Then you’ll marry me? You’ll say yes?”
Carly sighed. “Oh Danny - I’m scared.”
“Everything will be okay Babe, I promise. Okay?”
A very long pause until finally: “Okay.”
Dan slipped the ring on her finger then took her in his arms and gave her a hug. “I love you Babe.”
The engagement began a whirlwind of house hunting and the arduous task of
going through Dan and Carly’s possessions - selling all the duplicates to have more money
for the downpayment. The only things Dan spared were his camera, computer, and bike.
What didn’t sell through the newspaper, Swap Sheet, or to friends of a friend were
gathered up for a garage sale that Lynne and Carly handled because it was too painful for
Dan. He spent that Saturday at Rick’s apartment.
“So what kind of house are you looking for?” Rick asked. They each had a section of the Buffalo News Home Finder. Rick was lying on the couch, Dan was in the overstuffed chair.
“You know what I’d really like? A house that I could renovate. I’m not talking major structural damage, not like ‘This Old House’. More cosmetic help, paint and sheet rock.”
“Where were you when I was working on the inside of the schoolhouse?”
“You did that?” Dan asked. “I didn’t know you did that. The inside of that house looked great.”
“When I came out here, I spent the first few months working on the house, before I started full time on the farm itself. Are you looking in any particular location?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want Carly to have to drive too far to work, but she’d like to live near her parents and they’re near Forest Lawn. I’d like to live near the Banks in Getzville, but I don’t like leaving you stranded way out here if I can help it.”
“Don’t worry about me Dan. Friendship is one thing - mortgages are cast iron.”
“Don’t remind me.” Dan laughed. “All this is being very stressful on me.”
“Getting married?”
“Oh no - not even a minute. From the first time I laid eyes on her, Carly has been the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Can I ask you something?” Rick asked over the paper.
‘ “Sure.”
“How did Carly get pregnant?”
Dan lowered his head slightly and looked at Rick. “Your mother has been wanting me to have this conversation with you for some time now.” he said with mock solemnity. “I just didn’t think you were old enough.”
“I know how she got pregnant Dan. I meant - you said you always use condoms.”
“Well...they must have some kind of failure rate right?” He turned a page of the paper. “Best accident I was ever involved in.”
A house was found and purchased. They closed the week before the wedding.
Brian, Bea, Rick, and Lynne helped Dan and Carly move their combined belongings into
the small house compressed between two big houses two blocks away from Rick and half
a mile from Carly’s parents’ home.
The night before the actual wedding, Rick, Brian, and Mr. Banks gave Dan a low key bachelor party: bear and pizza, shooting some baskets in the driveway of the new house. Rick and Mr. Banks sat on the low cements steps and watched Dan and Brian play one on one.
“You know Dan, this is your last night of freedom.” Brian said, as Dan tried to get beyond him. “Are you sure you don’t want a little spicier party?”
“Are you kidding? Carly would kill me. And not just immediately. I could linger for months.” He maneuvered past Brian and sank a basket.
“Yeah? I said practically the same thing about Bea and you helped give me a bachelor party that could’ve gotten me arrested by my own father.”
“I graduated high school the night before I got married.” Rick said before he realized. The three other men turned to stare at him. Rick flushed and looked down. Brian and Mr. Banks turned to stare at Dan. He dribbled the basket ball a few times, watching Rick, before saying quietly, “She was killed in a hold up just after they were married.”
‘I’m sorry.” Mr. Banks said. “I understand, my first wife died suddenly.”
Rick nodded, and whispered “Thanks.” and went into the house for some water.
After the party, Brian and Mr. Banks went home. The sun was going down and
Rick and Dan took the last of the beer and climbed through the bedroom window onto the
porch roof. It was hot out and even in jeans and T-shirts they were sweating. They sat
awhile in silence, drinking warm beer and watching the sun go down over Buffalo. Finally
Rick said:
“Thanks for saving me back there.”
“It was nothing. Brian and Mr. Banks are really great.“
“I didn’t know Mr. Banks had been married before.”
“Umm, yeah. She died of cancer I guess, when Brian was in Viet Nam. Mr. Banks married Mrs. Banks in 1975.”
“And Brian calls her ‘Mom’?”
“Yeah...when I’m in a good mood, sometimes I call her Mom too.”
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Rick walked with Dan around the hospital unit. The hallways seemed too bright
and much too artificial. The people weren’t real, the fixtures and paraphernalia weren’t
real - and surely this situation was not real. Rick had to keep recalling to mind how Dan
used to look, because he looked so thin now and pale.
“So, you and Lynne had a fight?” Dan was too tired to try to broach the subject any less directly. He hated walking around in public in pajamas and his robe. But the more he walked, the sooner he’d get better, and the sooner he got better, the sooner he’d be sprung.
“I think it was a fight...I think it was our first.” Rick didn’t know if their first Christmas counted.
“It was about Sandra wasn’t it?” But Dan didn’t give Rick a chance to answer. “You know I’m real sorry about telling her.”
“I know.” Rick said. “And I like how you collapsed and pretty much died so that I couldn’t stay mad at you.”
“Hey, I think fast on my feet.”
“And your face...” Rick ran over in his mind any possible way to ask Dan about his father, but he knew he couldn’t. A teenage boy, desperate to be with a dying relative, darted between them. “How are they treating you in here?”
“Okay, but the food is yicck. They have absolutely no concept of vegetarian, you know? All they think it means is no meat. Yicck.”
“I can sneak you in something, if you want.” Rick offered and wondered if anyone had heard.
“Great - Carly’s bringing me in lasagna, but I have had the worst craving for a bean burrito.”
“Okay, next time I visit.”
“So -” Dan found his way back to the subject. “What about you and Lynne? The fight can’t be so serious. I mean, you came back here with her.”
Rick didn’t want to talk about it and he muttered something. He hated confrontation and he wasn’t sure he wanted to clear everything up with Lynne because he didn’t know how it would come out. Dan understood the mutter, the meaning if not the words. They were rounding the corner past the nursing station back to his room and he didn’t say anything else about the fight. He felt bad because he knew he’d caused it and Rick couldn’t be mad at him, at least not till Dan was all better.
“You know, I’m related to Lynne now. If you were mean to her, I may have to defend her honor.”
“Yeah Dan. We’ll pencil that in for later.”
While Rick visited Dan, Carly and Lynne went down to the lobby. “So, what was
the argument about?” Carly didn’t want to discuss it in front of Dan.
“All I said is that Rick should’ve told me about Sandra. He said he tried, which looking back on some of our conversations, I can see that probably he did. But then he said it wasn’t my tragedy anyway and he was tired of me acting like it was.”
“He said that?”
“Something along those lines.” Lynne knew the difference between what Rick said and what she was telling Carly. They were sitting where Rick had been and Lynne could see the imprint of his wet shoes on the tile floor.
“Of course it’s your tragedy. If you care about him, of course it is. Just like everything that happened to Danny is my problem because I love him. What does Rick think?”
“I don’t know.” Because I love him.
Carly tried to push her cousin in the direction of making up with Rick. “Maybe though, maybe he’s carried this all by himself for so long he doesn’t know how to share it.”
“He told Dan.” Lynne pointed out.
“There’s a big difference between telling and sharing. Plus even Dan told me he went through a few days of wondering if he could still be friends with Rick after he did tell him.”
“It’s not that I intend to simply dump Rick. I told him that.”The last words were said in the whisper of last minute public discretion. “This isn’t something I can just gloss over. This is something that will affect even our children, if we ever do get married.”
“Well it’s never going to go away for Rick.” Carly pointed out. “And the only way you can keep it away from you is to keep away from Rick. But it will still be affecting you and your children because it will be keeping you away from one of the sweetest men I’ve ever met.”
“Second only to Danny in perfection, hunh? Ohh - I told Rick we’d talk about it after dinner tonight.” Because I love him.
“What are you afraid of him telling you?” Carly asked. “What do you think you wouldn’t be able to live with?”
“I’m not sure. If it had something to do with drugs, that would bother me. If somehow I found out that he isn’t who I thought he was all this time. I think I’m afraid that I’ve been blinding myself all this time like I did with The Idiot. I don’t want to do that to myself twice.”
They sat on opposite ends of the couch in the front room. Lynne made tea and
they had a plate of cashew wonder cookies between them. Lynne had put a board under
the cushions to support the sagging springs. It was better, but strangely unfamiliar.
“Sandra and I first noticed each other in seventh grade at St. Josaphat’s school. It’s the closest Catholic church and school to Manneville so it’s where we all went. We didn’t start unsupervised dating until Junior year. Then around the end of Senior year, around the beginning of April, Sandra told me that she was pregnant. So after we graduated, we got married. In the very same chapel that we graduated in. We didn’t have a honeymoon, we moved into Cleveland. I got a job in a factory and Sandra started college that fall. She was going to be a Social Worker.” He said it proudly, even after all those years.
“Why did you move to Cleveland? Why didn’t you stay at home?”
“Manneville is a tiny town and the last scandal before us was in the Civil War when Mrs. Pignataro was found strangled on her doorstep the day the death lists came in from Gettysburg.”
“You two couldn’t have been the first kids to have to get married.”
“In Manneville? Yes. Oh, maybe not the first. I wanted to start my family in my own place, on my own ground, by myself. Mom and Dad, both of our families thought we should wait to get married, or both move onto one of our farms. But it was too far from either farm to the college for Sandra to drive back and forth, and I wanted to be married when the baby was born. So we got married, and we moved into an apartment in not the best part of Cleveland.
“The baby got sick and I got a part time job in a liquor store to pay for the doctor and the hospital, and one night in May, before we’d even been married a year, the store was held up. Friday nights Sandra would come help me close up - but they beat me up, they broke my arm and nearly my jaw. I got the gun and they ran away - but Sandra came in. I pointed the gun at her and there was a split second where I could shoot or not shoot, but I was so scared and in so much pain - I didn’t want to get hit anymore.”
He set his tea cup on the coaster on the end table, facing away from Lynne as he said: “I’ve never told anybody - not my lawyer, or the police, not my family or even Dan. It’s why I dream that they execute me and it’s why I lie about what happened, and more than anything it’s why I knew I would lose you if you ever found out -” He turned back, the first time he ever looked at Lynne when he talked about Sandra. “- I think I recognized her a split second before I shot her.”
Lynne didn’t say anything. Her tea cup was on her knee, one cashew wonder cookie in her hand. She didn’t even realize that she was staring at him.
“You know, you don’t have to live with this Lynne, but I do.” He spoke calmly, quietly. He tried to gauge if this was the last conversation they’d be having. “I have to live with killing my wife, giving up my son, being exiled from my home, living avoiding people so that I can avoid lying. Then I lost the farm, I almost lost Dan when I did tell him. Now I find out that his father killed his family and I have to wonder what the hell has been going through Dan’s mind this past year and I may lose him anyway when he gets through this. Now I’m losing you.” He didn’t mean this to be self-pity, just reality. “That gives me a whole lot to live with, and not much to live for. So, if you don’t want...me...around anymore...I do understand.”
And Lynne had a sudden visualization of her life without him. Tea and cookies went flying as she hurried to put her arms around Rick. “I was so afraid to tell you.” He said in a rush. “There were about a million time I wanted to tell you and a couple of times I almost did but how do you tell the lady who you want to be in love with you that the only other lady you ever loved you murdered?”
“You didn’t murder her Rick. It was an accident. You can’t believe you murdered her.”
“It took me years to get where I felt any kind of normal at all. It took until Dan moved in to feel like a real person again. It took until - this is going to sound so corny - but it took until I met you to feel like a man again...Oh Lord, that sounded even stupider than I thought it would.” He turned to look for some Kleenex on the end table. “I mean that first night, that first movie, when you put your hand on my arm when you asked me if I wanted a napkin because the popcorn was so greasy - that was the first time since I needed help getting dressed after Sandra died that I let another human being touch me beside my son. It sounds stupid.”
“No, it doesn’t sound stupid. I know what you mean.” She leaned past him and took a box of tissues out of the drawer of the end table. Rick took a handful and blew his nose. “That first night, when you held the door for me, and when we had dinner that next night and you smiled at me because of something I was talking about - I really felt like a beautiful woman. For the first time in my life. It’s not stupid. I know what you mean.”
“So - you still want to go out with me?” It was asked with more hope than confidence.
Lynne paused ever so briefly, then she took his face into her hands and gently kissed his lips.
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After dinner at the Wilson House, as they walked out to their car, Dan handed
Carly an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Just something to thank you for putting up with me all this time. First being sick...”
“Danny, that wasn’t your fault.”
“Then being cranky.”
“That’s just normal Babe.”
“No, you put up with a lot and you never once got mad at me or asked for any time off or even made me feel like you thought life wasn’t being fair to you.”
“For better or worse Danny.”
“Yeah, but who knew the worse would come so bad so soon...open it up. I want you to tell me what a great idea it is.”
Carly opened it - inside was a plane ticket for Tucson. “Dan - this is for the day after tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I arranged it with Lynne and your boss. You leave Thursday morning, come back Sunday night. Lynne’s got a whole weekend planned for you. Sleeping late, going shopping and getting your hair done, doing lunch.”
“Danny, I don’t want to leave you.”
“Babe, you deserve some time off. Working extra hours plus taking care of Quinn and me. You need at least a few days off. I’ll be fine. Rick’ll take care of me, and Quinn has enough grandparents to look after him.” She still looked undecided.
“Please tell me you’ll go Babe. You’ll make me so happy.”
“Allright Danny, I’ll go. It’s a great idea and I love you.” She kissed him and he hugged her.
“I love you too Babe. More than anyone or anything I know.”
Later that night in bed, Carly watched Dan sleep. He was turned towards her on
his side, with his arms folded up and his hands tucked under the pillow. He was sound
asleep, she could tell by the way he was breathing. She always thought he was handsome,
but when he was asleep he was even more endearing to her. It was the only time she felt
he really let his guard down. Even with her, Carly felt Dan kept something of himself
protected. She ran her fingers through his hair then traced down his forehead, over his
eyes, and down to his chin. She loved him so much, it didn’t seem like her heart
could contain it all. She loved him, she loved him, and there was just no way to accurately
express it.
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