Read Online Light of Day by Jamie M. Saul - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jamie M. Saul
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Really.â
She didnât move. âYouâll call me if you need anything?â
He nodded his head.
âYouâre sure I canâtââ
âIâll be all right. Lois is coming by in a little while.â
She hugged him. âIâll be around until commencementâ¦â
âIâll call.â
Jack sat with the picture of Danny tacking into the wind, and with the slim vestiges of a morning in late spring when his life was whole and seemed part of a wonderful continuum, when he could reach inside himself whenever he needed to and feel the place where he and Danny were together.
Â
He walked across the quadrangle carrying his briefcase and the work heâd left undone. He walked west through the daguerreotype streets feeling the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. He felt sorry for whathe had done to Ainsley. He felt sorry for Ainsley, who was probably up in his office right now, talking on the phone to his wife and friends, licking his wounds, trying to make sense of what Jack had done to him.
He walked west, past the White Brick bakery and Laine Bros. department store, the Palomino Grille, where the old-timers sat in the smoky dark and retreated into the comfortable past. He stayed clear of the courthouse lawn, the police station and the morgue, the way a kid avoids the graveyard, even in the daylight, crossed South Third Street and, a block later, the railroad tracks, and didnât stop until he came to the nameless bridge that overlooked the Wabash.
He leaned against the old corroded railing and stared at the river, to the place where it disappeared beyond the sycamores that bent over the muddy banks, to the vanishing point, where a reverse pointillism occurred: objects dissolved back into dots. He stared at the vanishing point and wondered what he was going to do now that Danny was dead. He stared at the vanishing point as though the future were waiting around the bend and if he looked hard enough and wanted it strongly enough, he could summon it. And what if the future extended its hand, natant and roseate, and carried him away? Would it matter if he knew what was waiting for him tomorrow or the next day? Would it matter if he saw the rest of his life stretched out before him? He thought he knew all of that when he woke up yesterday morning. He thought he owned a little corner of the future. The trips to Cape Cod and New York. The fishing vacations in Nova Scotia. Classes taught, lessons learned, while his son grew into a man. It was a foregone conclusion, his reservations confirmed. But inside his pocket was a poem that wasnât part of the plan. The funeral in New York was not on the original itinerary.
Jack watched the river carry the flotsam and debris on its way to meet the Ohio, taking whatever fell in its path, leaving behind whatever dropped away, endlessly unraveling, like time itself. And what was he going to do, he wondered, with all of his time?
The old girders creaked and swayed under the weight of the afternoon traffic. Jack kept staring into the distance. And even if the future is never generous enough to make itself known, Jack stared anyway,before he picked up his briefcase and walked off the bridge and along South Third Street to Fairmont Park and the ruins.
He sat against the pitted brick near the spot where Danny had died. It made him feel close to his son, like visiting a cemetery. He reached into his pocket:
â¦crossing the line.
He cries a silent cry.
In the night he feels
alone. There is no
mother or father, no one
to tuck him in, to say good night.
No friends come to play.
It is so very co
Jack pulled his legs up to this chest and rested his chin in his knees. He thought about Danny, not the boy who came here to kill himself, but Danny, eight years old, pushing his breakfast around on his plate.
âWhat happened to your appetite?â Jack wanted to know.
âI ate too much last night.â
âLet me guess.
She didnât move. âYouâll call me if you need anything?â
He nodded his head.
âYouâre sure I canâtââ
âIâll be all right. Lois is coming by in a little while.â
She hugged him. âIâll be around until commencementâ¦â
âIâll call.â
Jack sat with the picture of Danny tacking into the wind, and with the slim vestiges of a morning in late spring when his life was whole and seemed part of a wonderful continuum, when he could reach inside himself whenever he needed to and feel the place where he and Danny were together.
Â
He walked across the quadrangle carrying his briefcase and the work heâd left undone. He walked west through the daguerreotype streets feeling the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. He felt sorry for whathe had done to Ainsley. He felt sorry for Ainsley, who was probably up in his office right now, talking on the phone to his wife and friends, licking his wounds, trying to make sense of what Jack had done to him.
He walked west, past the White Brick bakery and Laine Bros. department store, the Palomino Grille, where the old-timers sat in the smoky dark and retreated into the comfortable past. He stayed clear of the courthouse lawn, the police station and the morgue, the way a kid avoids the graveyard, even in the daylight, crossed South Third Street and, a block later, the railroad tracks, and didnât stop until he came to the nameless bridge that overlooked the Wabash.
He leaned against the old corroded railing and stared at the river, to the place where it disappeared beyond the sycamores that bent over the muddy banks, to the vanishing point, where a reverse pointillism occurred: objects dissolved back into dots. He stared at the vanishing point and wondered what he was going to do now that Danny was dead. He stared at the vanishing point as though the future were waiting around the bend and if he looked hard enough and wanted it strongly enough, he could summon it. And what if the future extended its hand, natant and roseate, and carried him away? Would it matter if he knew what was waiting for him tomorrow or the next day? Would it matter if he saw the rest of his life stretched out before him? He thought he knew all of that when he woke up yesterday morning. He thought he owned a little corner of the future. The trips to Cape Cod and New York. The fishing vacations in Nova Scotia. Classes taught, lessons learned, while his son grew into a man. It was a foregone conclusion, his reservations confirmed. But inside his pocket was a poem that wasnât part of the plan. The funeral in New York was not on the original itinerary.
Jack watched the river carry the flotsam and debris on its way to meet the Ohio, taking whatever fell in its path, leaving behind whatever dropped away, endlessly unraveling, like time itself. And what was he going to do, he wondered, with all of his time?
The old girders creaked and swayed under the weight of the afternoon traffic. Jack kept staring into the distance. And even if the future is never generous enough to make itself known, Jack stared anyway,before he picked up his briefcase and walked off the bridge and along South Third Street to Fairmont Park and the ruins.
He sat against the pitted brick near the spot where Danny had died. It made him feel close to his son, like visiting a cemetery. He reached into his pocket:
â¦crossing the line.
He cries a silent cry.
In the night he feels
alone. There is no
mother or father, no one
to tuck him in, to say good night.
No friends come to play.
It is so very co
Jack pulled his legs up to this chest and rested his chin in his knees. He thought about Danny, not the boy who came here to kill himself, but Danny, eight years old, pushing his breakfast around on his plate.
âWhat happened to your appetite?â Jack wanted to know.
âI ate too much last night.â
âLet me guess.
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