stand, just here. Then,impulsively, I bought a watch, too elegant, too expensive, already chiding myself as the saleslady wrapped it for me, already knowing it was excessive, that that was the message of it. I couldn’t possibly give it to her; at home, I simply stuffed it away still in its plastic bag at the top of my closet.
It was getting toward evening; I didn’t want to be in if Rita came by the building to meet up with Sid. I got in the car and drove. The streets were clogged with rush-hour traffic; at one point, going down toward the lakeshore thinking to stop in a little park there, I missed a lane change and was forced out onto the expressway. At the end of the on ramp I had a moment of panic as the ramp narrowed and nearly pulled into the path of an oncoming truck. Its lights flashed, its horn sounded, and then somehow I ended up squeezed onto the shoulder, fighting the slide of the wheels against the gravel until I was able to bring the car to a stop.
Another car had already pulled up behind me. A bearded man in a parka got out and came to my window.
My heart was still pounding.
“Is everything all right?” he said.
“I think so.”
“You came pretty close to that truck.”
He eyed my car uneasily, its luxurious bulk. Perhaps he was afraid that I’d stolen it, that I was on the run. I saw myself for an instant as he might, through a veil of fear and good intentions: I could be anyone, capable of anything.
“You sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
More than my near accident, the look in the man’s eyes left me unnerved. It was as if I had suddenly lost any internalsense of what I was: for that instant I was only what he reflected me back as, an unknown quantity, a threat.
I took the first exit and headed north. I had got it into my head to visit my friend Michael, though I hadn’t seen him since the fall. It took half an hour of driving, past older stretches of city and then up through the slow deterioration into discount furniture shops and strip malls, to get out to his suburb. From a distance the little island of tidy bungalows his subdivision formed cast up a halo of collective light like some protective dome that enclosed it.
Michael came to the door looking dishevelled and tired as if he’d just risen from a sleep.
“I was on my way home from Centennial,” I lied.
The television was on the living room, but the rest of the house was dark. There were no toys in the hall, no baby sounds in the background.
“Come on in. It’s good to see you.”
He offered me a beer. I followed him into the kitchen expecting it, for some reason, to be in shambles. But everything was in purest, pristine order, as if in waiting.
“Suzie left me,” Michael said, before I asked. “A couple of months ago.”
“Oh.”
There was an awkward silence. We sat nursing our beers at the kitchen table like two interlopers, out of place there.
“What happened exactly?” I said.
“You know how it is. You don’t notice the signs at the time, and then it’s too late. She was pretty young when we got married and all that. I guess she felt she’d never had much of a life. It’s just hard with the kid and everything.”
He set about to make us some supper, setting out foodstuffs and pots with an instinctive carefulness and frugality as if not to disturb the kitchen’s ordered calm. I thought of the three of us having supper there the fall before, drunk on homemade wine.
“I’m thinking of moving back to the city,” he said. “There’s no point keeping a house like this. My father jacked the rent up just after Suzie left, that’s how he thinks about these things.”
He talked a bit about the things he would do, his new freedom, but it was clear that Suzie’s departure had broken him. The baby would be about a year old now – he said the silence was the hardest thing, coming home every day and instinctively waiting to hear a child’s sounds that didn’t come.
“They’re back
It was getting toward evening; I didn’t want to be in if Rita came by the building to meet up with Sid. I got in the car and drove. The streets were clogged with rush-hour traffic; at one point, going down toward the lakeshore thinking to stop in a little park there, I missed a lane change and was forced out onto the expressway. At the end of the on ramp I had a moment of panic as the ramp narrowed and nearly pulled into the path of an oncoming truck. Its lights flashed, its horn sounded, and then somehow I ended up squeezed onto the shoulder, fighting the slide of the wheels against the gravel until I was able to bring the car to a stop.
Another car had already pulled up behind me. A bearded man in a parka got out and came to my window.
My heart was still pounding.
“Is everything all right?” he said.
“I think so.”
“You came pretty close to that truck.”
He eyed my car uneasily, its luxurious bulk. Perhaps he was afraid that I’d stolen it, that I was on the run. I saw myself for an instant as he might, through a veil of fear and good intentions: I could be anyone, capable of anything.
“You sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
More than my near accident, the look in the man’s eyes left me unnerved. It was as if I had suddenly lost any internalsense of what I was: for that instant I was only what he reflected me back as, an unknown quantity, a threat.
I took the first exit and headed north. I had got it into my head to visit my friend Michael, though I hadn’t seen him since the fall. It took half an hour of driving, past older stretches of city and then up through the slow deterioration into discount furniture shops and strip malls, to get out to his suburb. From a distance the little island of tidy bungalows his subdivision formed cast up a halo of collective light like some protective dome that enclosed it.
Michael came to the door looking dishevelled and tired as if he’d just risen from a sleep.
“I was on my way home from Centennial,” I lied.
The television was on the living room, but the rest of the house was dark. There were no toys in the hall, no baby sounds in the background.
“Come on in. It’s good to see you.”
He offered me a beer. I followed him into the kitchen expecting it, for some reason, to be in shambles. But everything was in purest, pristine order, as if in waiting.
“Suzie left me,” Michael said, before I asked. “A couple of months ago.”
“Oh.”
There was an awkward silence. We sat nursing our beers at the kitchen table like two interlopers, out of place there.
“What happened exactly?” I said.
“You know how it is. You don’t notice the signs at the time, and then it’s too late. She was pretty young when we got married and all that. I guess she felt she’d never had much of a life. It’s just hard with the kid and everything.”
He set about to make us some supper, setting out foodstuffs and pots with an instinctive carefulness and frugality as if not to disturb the kitchen’s ordered calm. I thought of the three of us having supper there the fall before, drunk on homemade wine.
“I’m thinking of moving back to the city,” he said. “There’s no point keeping a house like this. My father jacked the rent up just after Suzie left, that’s how he thinks about these things.”
He talked a bit about the things he would do, his new freedom, but it was clear that Suzie’s departure had broken him. The baby would be about a year old now – he said the silence was the hardest thing, coming home every day and instinctively waiting to hear a child’s sounds that didn’t come.
“They’re back
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