“I remember that, Clifford,” his mother says. And then to David, she adds, “That was at least two years ago.”
“It was before I understood about being dead, except I knew that my father was in heaven and that is where the dead go, so I knew a little about it. I thought that since I had seen that horse every day, that I had been the one to make it be there. And then when I didn’t see it every day, I thought that I had been the one to make it not be there. I thought that seeing something was also the same as making it do something. I understand more now.” Clifford drops what is left of the flake into Arthur’s stall. “I think Arthur is like I used to be. He thinks that the difference between seeing and not seeing is something that he made happen. It makes him feel bad.”
“I don’t under—” is all David gets out before Clifford, having voiced the words in his head, exits the barn.
David turns to Sally for guidance, but she just shrugs. “I’d let it go for now,” she says.
David touches his wound and then shakes his head. “Okay. I’m going to take more Advil. Do you know if we have any food? I’ve only had popcorn.”
“Of course. Why don’t you go to the house and I’ll make something.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t suppose you and Clifford would like to join me?”
Sally smiles at my husband. “I think we would. I think we’d like that a lot.”
David smiles back until he winces because of his stitches and then walks toward the house.
In the barn, Sally tries to stroke Arthur on the nose, but he quickly pulls his head back. “Okay. Too much.”
She then takes in the rest of the barn and the items that had once been mine—an antique silver curry comb that David bought for me in Paris, a saddle, a pair of muck boots. She touches a pair of reins just where I’d held them in my own hands. All these items lay where I last left them, like they wait for me.
Sally shivers for an instant and then walks out into the darkness.
M
ax enters David’s office to find him typing away at his computer. David’s face has gotten better over the last two weeks—still a bruise, but not the broad cotton bandage that had made him appear so vulnerable and that had given Max so much fodder for his “move back to the city” campaign.
David looks up from his work. “You have that look on your face, Max.”
“What look?” Max raises his hands to protest his innocence.
“That look,” David says, pointing. “The last time you had that look, you were trying to convince me that back-to-back trials were good for my marriage.”
“Ah, back in the days when you listened to me.”
“I was young and stupid.”
“No, you were almost brilliant. And who knows, you may have that chance again. You’ll never guess who just called.”
“Satan. He needs you back at the office.”
“Would you be serious please?”
“I don’t want to play. I’ve got a set of papers to get out the door.”
“Simon.”
“Dulac?”
“That’s the one.”
“I thought he was forced to retire.”
“He’s risen phoenix-like from the ashes. After all these years, he got his revenge. He bought the company that bought his company. Now he wants to retain us to do all his work.”
“Great for you. You’re wonderful, as usual, okay? Now can I get back to work?”
“He also asked for you to be his chief consigliere.”
“Me?”
“And, as you might expect from Simon, he needs quite a bit of advising.”
“I lost his last trial. What would he want with me?”
Max shrugs. “He says he trusts you. Can you meet with him?”
“It’s your relationship. You’ve known him forever. You don’t need me.”
“Actually, need and want. Simon was quite insistent.”
David shakes his head and motions toward a stack of papers on his desk. “It’s not a very good time.”
“There’s no better time, really. I’ll give you half the credit for all the work.”
“It’s not about that. It’s not always about money.”
“I’ll overlook the fact that you said that.” Max hesitates for a moment and puts a finger to his lips in concentration. “Hmm. Nope. Sorry. Can’t overlook it. Of course it’s always about the money, you moron. This amount of new business will give you real power to control your life. That’s what you always wanted, isn’t it?”
“ ‘Always’ seems kind of stale to me right now.”
“It’ll be a nice fresh start for you. New memories on new cases.”
“Max…”
“At least just meet with him.”
David closes his eyes and bangs his head against the headrest of his chair. “Okay. If you leave me alone, I’ll meet him.”
“Great. Paris will be cold, so dress warm.”
“Paris?”
“Simon had a stroke several years back. Didn’t I tell you? He’s in a wheelchair. Obviously it’s very difficult for him to travel here.” Max quickly heads for the office door before David can argue.
David is on his feet. “You really suck. I have responsibilities now. I can’t just drop everything. And Paris of all places? You know better!”
Max turns at the door. The look on his face confuses me. For just one moment, I think he’s going to say something meaningful, something understanding. He opens his mouth and I want to smack myself for being so foolish. “A lot of people have honeymooned in Paris. But it’s just another city—a city with business.”
Max departs, shutting the door behind him. David throws the Scotch tape dispenser at the door where it leaves a small dent before dropping uselessly to the floor.
At the animal hospital, Joshua gingerly removes a bandaged cat from one of the cages lining the back room as Sally looks on, sipping tea from an old cracked mug.
“Thanks for coming with me tonight,” Joshua says. “It’s nice to have the company of a human.”
Sally smiles as she rubs the cat on the ears. “And what’s the story with this one?”
“Stray,” Joshua answers. “Probably a fight with a dog or another cat.”
“So who pays for the care?”
“If someone adopts her, they’ll probably offer me something toward it. Otherwise, it’s just the cost of doing business.”
Sally looks at all the cages, each with a dog or a cat receiving some type of medical attention. Many of the cages are marked
FOR ADOPTION
. Sally notices Tiny Pete and a few of his brothers and sisters in two of the cages.
“From the looks of things,” Sally says, “I’m guessing you haven’t paid off that X-ray machine yet.”
“Are you kidding? We’ve got money rolling in.”
“Well, that explains the fancy car you picked me up in. The ’96 Honda Civic is a classic.”
Joshua returns the cat to the cage and opens another. A small mutt runs out onto the floor. Joshua and Sally play with the dog as they talk about Clifford, David, me, Joshua’s plans to close the practice, and the passage of time.
Finally, Joshua asks the question that I can tell has long been on his mind. “What really happened with us? At first we were pretty good.”
“Are you using your three minutes?”
“If I need to.”
“That one’s easy. I don’t know. It just started feeling like we were two raw wounds rubbing together.”
“But what changed?”
“Nothing did. I think that was the problem. We both have a couple of long stories in us. They define who we are, but we never spoke about them. In the end, we couldn’t get past them or through them.”
“I’m tired of being afraid,” Joshua says quietly.
“Me, too. I assume there are worse things, but I’m not aware of them at the moment.”
“At some point you’ve got to say ‘what the hell’ and take the chance, don’t you?”
“Otherwise nothing ever changes,” Sally agrees. “We can’t keep blaming our silence on the absence of an understanding ear.”
“So, whatever the other person does with it—”
“Right, that’s just about them.”
They let the silence between them grow for a few seconds. Then, finally, Joshua says, “I once had a son.”
“I’d like to hear about him.”
Joshua swallows hard. “He was sick. Near the end he was in excruciating pain. I needed to stop that for him. No one else was going to do it, so I made that decision for my little boy. After we buried him and I had to go back into the world, I did some awful things to people who cared about me.”
“Do you still love him?” Sally whispers.
Joshua can hold back his tears no longer and nods. “He was the last, best of me.”
“I don’t believe that.”
And so, Sally and Joshua pass part of their evening together in the telling of stories. To themselves their stories, once spoken aloud, are shameful if not completely beyond the realm of human forgiveness. But to each other, the tales—told tentatively at first and then in the rush of a completely unexpected unburdening—are far too familiar in tone to permit judgment.
I choose to honor their confidences in each other. My discretion is really the only gift I’ve left to give them.
Later that night, when Joshua drives Sally back to her house,
there is a troubled silence between them that comes from their vulnerability. The evening has had too much intimacy shared between two people who’ve not yet laid the supporting foundation of trust.
Joshua pulls the car in front of Sally’s apartment complex. He glances over at her as he begins the same sentence for the second time, “I want to thank you for…,” and then stops.
Sally waits a few seconds for him to continue. When it is clear that Joshua is paralyzed by his own thoughts, Sally leans over to him, says, “What the hell,” and kisses him full on the mouth. Joshua, unprepared at first, quickly recovers and gently holds her face in his two hands.
Sally finally pulls away and searches his eyes. “The most I can tell you is that I really will try not to do anything to hurt you. Hope you’ll do the same for me.”
He smiles his answer. In that instant, I can imagine what Joshua looked like when he was thirty or perhaps younger, before death forced him to learn about true sadness.
Sally reaches into the backseat and takes hold of a small portable kennel with two little kittens inside. One of these is Tiny Pete.
“Let me help you with those,” Joshua offers.
Sally playfully smacks his hand away. “Don’t you touch my kittens.”
“May I walk you to your door?”
“I think we should end the night on a high note before one of us screws it up.” After Sally exits the car with the portable kennel, she sticks her head through the car window. “You can think of me, though.” Sally jogs up the steps, quickly unlocks the front door, and vanishes into the house without a backward glance.
I
’m disappointed but not surprised to see that the house is devoid of my usual Christmas decorations even though the holiday is only a week away. There is no evergreen roping around the horse fencing, no wreath on Collette’s house, no candles above the fireplace, no Christmas cards on display in the dining room. David appears to have either forgotten about or purposefully ignored the year’s end on the calendar.
He’s in our bedroom now, attempting to pack a small suitcase while several cats watch from the bed. His resistance to this Paris trip is evident in his apparent inability to find anything—and I do mean anything—that he claims he needs.
“Sally,” David yells, “have you seen my passport?” This is his fifth request to Sally and his second for the passport—a document that she has never seen (as she told him just moments ago) and that sits in the top drawer of his dresser.
“Nope,” Sally calls back. “I’ll help you look—”
The doorbell cuts her off. Sally breaks into a smile and quickly
heads for the door, quieting the barking dogs along the way. She must expect that it is another surprise visit from Joshua—the third for the week.
Sally opens the door not to Joshua, but to Jaycee. Jaycee is bundled against the cold and stamps the snow off her feet. She looks awful.
“Can I help you?” Sally asks while holding Bernie back by his collar.
“Yes. I’m looking for David Colden. Is this the right address?”
“Who shall I say is asking?” Sally’s tone is polite, but cold.
“Jane Cassidy—Jaycee.”
“Regarding?”
Jaycee clears her throat. “Regarding trying to keep me out of prison.”
Sally raises an eyebrow at this response, but doesn’t comment. “Please wait here for a moment,” she says and then abruptly closes the door on Jaycee.
She finds David still in the bedroom. “Was that the UPS guy with my documents?”
“No, it’s a woman,” Sally says with a hint of suspicion. “She says she wants you to keep her out of prison.”
This gets David’s attention. “What? Did she give you a name?”
“Jane Cassidy.”
“Jaycee?”
“Should I let her in?”
“You left her out on the steps?”
David heads to the front door, and Sally follows him. He opens the door and steps aside to let Jaycee in. “Sorry about keeping you out there.”
Chip and Bernie sniff Jaycee for a moment and then, finding
the situation of little interest, return to their resting spots. Skippy, however, watches the scene warily from a place next to Sally’s shoe. “Sally said you mentioned something about prison. I’m assuming that’s a joke?” David takes her coat, but she clings to the backpack she carries.
“It’s no joke. I’m in real trouble.” She sounds weak, like she’s been awake for days.
David walks Jaycee to the dining room and puts her in a chair. Sally scoops up Skippy in her arms. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
David takes the chair next to Jaycee. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t get anyone to take my case,” she says.
“I’m not surprised.”
“I couldn’t let it just happen. I needed to do something.”
“So you…?”
“I tried another way.”
I can see David’s mind at work, thinking through the range of possible actions that could have gone bad and brought Jaycee to his door—she launched a sit-in at CAPS, she refused to leave her congressman’s office until he saw her, she posted something defamatory on the Internet. “What do you mean by ‘another way’ exactly?” he asks.
Jaycee takes a breath and then drops the bomb. “I bribed a custodian to leave a window unlocked and I broke in and tried to free Cindy.”