together closing in as clearly as if they were staying in an apartment whose lease would soon be up. From the moment she arrived on Friday nights all she could think of was how much time was left before she’d have to go.
Remember this, she’d think as they would sit on his porch swing having a beer and listening to Ella, or on his couch some evening, listening to a particular recording of Bud Powell he loved, her head in his lap while he read the sports page. She knew now this was a country she was visiting and her visitor’s permit was about to expire.
She started asking him for the names of certain jazz albums he played a lot, asking him to tape them for her. She went out and bought a couple hundred dollars’ worth of perennials and planted them in Mickey’s garden. Sometimes she’d wake in the middle of the night and just lie there watching him sleep.
At the end of July Mickey saw his son off to camp in preparation for the month he and Claire were going to spend together. The day she was supposed to go to Mickey’s, with her bags packed in the backseat of her station wagon, she got a call from her lawyer telling her Sam had decided to file for custody of the children on the grounds that she was an emotionally unstable parent. Claire called Mickey and told him she couldn’t come and be with him in August. Or ever again.
“You do what you have to, Slim,” he told her. “I always knew this couldn’t last forever. I was just going to enjoy every second for as long as I could, and I did too. You ride the ride until it’s over. Then you get off. Simple as that.”
On the other end of the phone Claire was weeping too hard to speak.
“Hey, baby,” he said. “None of that. You know you’re my true love and you always will be. It’s just one of those things.”
After she put down the phone she walked over to the stove, where she had been making her leek and potato soup to bring to Mickey’s house. She picked up the pot, and threw it with all the strength she had against the black and white tiles of her kitchen floor. There are three chips still missing from the place it landed. She stood there for a long time after that, her whole body shaking, calling out his name.
Then she took out the mop and cleaned up the mess. Over the course of the next four weeks, while her kids were off with their father, Claire met with her lawyer and defrosted the freezer and canned thirty-two quarts of tomato sauce. She sewed a patchwork quilt for Pete’s bed, using fabric from all his outgrown flannel shirts, and stenciled a row of flamingos along the ceiling of Sally’s room. She organized their photograph albums and ordered enlargements of all her favorite pictures of her children, which she framed and hung in her bedroom. She cut off her braids—not in some desperate, middle-of-the-night rampage, but calmly, with nail scissors, at her bathroom sink. Later she went to a Newbury Street salon that charged her a hundred dollars to shape what was left of her hair into a chic, French-looking style that everyone says suits her well.
The day before her children were due to come back home from their father’s house, Claire spent an afternoon listening to every one of the tapes Mickey had made for her. She left till last the tape of herself and Mickey singing together, taped in Mickey’s studio. Then she put the tapes away.
When her marriage had ended, Claire experienced a heady, exhilarated feeling of release, as if a great weight had been lifted from her. But with Mickey gone she felt like a widow. Every time a Beatles song came on the radio, she imagined Mickey’s hand tapping out Ringo’s drumbeat on her thigh. A wave of feeling washed over her and made her knees buckle and her stomach turn over, sometimes took her breath away even. And it could hit her at any moment: from the news that a particular Red Sox pitcher had blown out his arm or a weather report mentioning storm warnings for the North Shore, from the taste of
Remember this, she’d think as they would sit on his porch swing having a beer and listening to Ella, or on his couch some evening, listening to a particular recording of Bud Powell he loved, her head in his lap while he read the sports page. She knew now this was a country she was visiting and her visitor’s permit was about to expire.
She started asking him for the names of certain jazz albums he played a lot, asking him to tape them for her. She went out and bought a couple hundred dollars’ worth of perennials and planted them in Mickey’s garden. Sometimes she’d wake in the middle of the night and just lie there watching him sleep.
At the end of July Mickey saw his son off to camp in preparation for the month he and Claire were going to spend together. The day she was supposed to go to Mickey’s, with her bags packed in the backseat of her station wagon, she got a call from her lawyer telling her Sam had decided to file for custody of the children on the grounds that she was an emotionally unstable parent. Claire called Mickey and told him she couldn’t come and be with him in August. Or ever again.
“You do what you have to, Slim,” he told her. “I always knew this couldn’t last forever. I was just going to enjoy every second for as long as I could, and I did too. You ride the ride until it’s over. Then you get off. Simple as that.”
On the other end of the phone Claire was weeping too hard to speak.
“Hey, baby,” he said. “None of that. You know you’re my true love and you always will be. It’s just one of those things.”
After she put down the phone she walked over to the stove, where she had been making her leek and potato soup to bring to Mickey’s house. She picked up the pot, and threw it with all the strength she had against the black and white tiles of her kitchen floor. There are three chips still missing from the place it landed. She stood there for a long time after that, her whole body shaking, calling out his name.
Then she took out the mop and cleaned up the mess. Over the course of the next four weeks, while her kids were off with their father, Claire met with her lawyer and defrosted the freezer and canned thirty-two quarts of tomato sauce. She sewed a patchwork quilt for Pete’s bed, using fabric from all his outgrown flannel shirts, and stenciled a row of flamingos along the ceiling of Sally’s room. She organized their photograph albums and ordered enlargements of all her favorite pictures of her children, which she framed and hung in her bedroom. She cut off her braids—not in some desperate, middle-of-the-night rampage, but calmly, with nail scissors, at her bathroom sink. Later she went to a Newbury Street salon that charged her a hundred dollars to shape what was left of her hair into a chic, French-looking style that everyone says suits her well.
The day before her children were due to come back home from their father’s house, Claire spent an afternoon listening to every one of the tapes Mickey had made for her. She left till last the tape of herself and Mickey singing together, taped in Mickey’s studio. Then she put the tapes away.
When her marriage had ended, Claire experienced a heady, exhilarated feeling of release, as if a great weight had been lifted from her. But with Mickey gone she felt like a widow. Every time a Beatles song came on the radio, she imagined Mickey’s hand tapping out Ringo’s drumbeat on her thigh. A wave of feeling washed over her and made her knees buckle and her stomach turn over, sometimes took her breath away even. And it could hit her at any moment: from the news that a particular Red Sox pitcher had blown out his arm or a weather report mentioning storm warnings for the North Shore, from the taste of
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