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didn’t do some pretty nasty stuff yourself. And you and I are never gonna really get over it.”
    Johnny had dropped his hand from my arm. He just stood there, staring at me like I had grown another head or something.
    I took his arm and led him over to a tiny table in the corner. He followed like a well-trained puppy dog. After I sat down, I looked at him and he seemed a little pale. “Are you okay, Johnny?”
    “Am I okay? Are you crazy? You just go tearing up an old wound like that and you ask me if I am okay? Hell, no, I’m not okay.”
    Well, I felt like a real jerk. Here I was thinking about Sammy, and I’d gone and made things worse for Johnny, like the two of us hadn’t suffered enough.
    I sagged back in my chair, stumped. We sat that way in silence for awhile. I was barely aware of our surroundings, of the time, of anything. I was just tired, and overwhelmed by the futility of it all.
    Then Johnny said, in this voice so weary that it scared me, “You think you were just being honest and generous with me, don’t you? Well, you weren’t. The way to do this, you know, was to have a nice, polite conversation between us here tonight. And maybe a phone call tomorrow. And we go out to coffee now and then and send each other Christmas cards, and we just act civil, good manners, you know, talking about nothing for years, maybe. And gradually, we’d get comfortable around each other. And little by little, we’d forget the bad stuff, and we’d be something like old friends, maybe, and that might help neutralize the pain a little bit.”
    I tried to break in, but he just kept talking.
    “But that’s too slow for you, right, Laurie? So you just cut to the chase. Remind me of things I’ve spent all my time and energy for years—it’s thirteen years, Laurie, thirteen years—trying to forget. Well, fuck you. Just fuck you.” He stopped and sat back in his chair and looked at me. In a soft voice, he said, “God, would I love to fuck you.”
    “I need a drink,” I said. He didn’t say anything, so I walked up to the bar, ordered and drained a shot glass right there, and then walked back to the table with a pair of beer bottles. I put one down next to Johnny’s head, which he had down on the table, cradled in his arms. From that angle, I could see how his neatly cut, short hair was thinning on top. When I first met Johnny, he had long golden curls. Believe it or not, I’d called him my “angel of love.”
    I sat there, nursing my beer, listening to the god-awful music and watching the locals. Finally, Johnny sat up. “Okay,” he said. “What is it you want? You sure as hell want something. That’s what this is all about, right?”
    He stared at me and I felt my face redden with shame. “What is it?” he insisted. “What do you want from me?”
    “I’m sorry, Johnny.” How many times could I keep apologizing? “I was wrong to do this. I don’t want anything from you, I really don’t. Let’s just forget everything.” I stood up to leave. Johnny grabbed my wrist. Hard.
    “Dammit, Laurie. Let me do something for you. Don’t make me go on remembering that the last months between us were so bad. You’re right, I did some awful things, and that’s all I can remember when I think of you, and I can’t quit thinking of you. So let me do something for you. Come on. Please?”
    I felt like I’d been hit upside the head with something hard. All those years we’d been apart, he’d been blaming himself? Part of my self-righteous rage every time I thought about our marriage had been my certainty that he blamed me. Not that there wasn’t enough blame for both of us, with a good helping left over.
    “Okay,” I said, and we sat back down, and I told him why it was that I’d come back to Port Mullet. I figured he wouldn’t be surprised about the relationship between Sammy and me, given some of the things that happened during our short, but very eventful, marriage. I’d always been grateful that