2024-05-29
'Once you get used to it, you could never go back,' Jack said.
'Really?' the young woman opposite him said. She looked very familiar. Jack wondered if he'd ever worked with her before. Something in the way she looked at him with those green eyes, but he couldn't place it.
'Oh yeah,' he said. He pulled his sweater down to cover the small patch of his exposed paunch. 'It revolutionizes door-to-door sales. Allows us to take payment right there at the door.'
'That's good.'
Jack thought it an inadequate response. She obviously didn't care about the business. And then there was the wasteland where she'd decided they should stop for coffee. They were sitting in a plastic booth with plastic cups and loud music that he didn't recognise was blasting in his right ear. Fake people fake laughing on plastic posters on the wall besides them. But what was in front of him interested him very much. He was good with names and faces, and he was sure he knew her, but nothing came to mind.
'What was your name again?' he asked.
'Don't you remember?'
He laughed, 'I'm terrible with names.'
'Lilith.'
'That's a great name.'
'My parents thought so.'
They sat in silence and sipped their coffee.
'Terrible coffee,' he said.
'I thought you liked the place.'
'Don't know how you might've gotten that idea.'
'You told me.'
'I doubt it.'
'Let's drop it,' she said.
'We should get back to work,' he said. 'I've got a daughter waiting at home. I promised her to play soccer later and I want to keep that promise.'
'Just a minute. Let's finish our coffees first.'
He leaned back, 'You're married?'
'I am. You?'
He sighed, 'It's complicated. We're working our way back,' he said and then chuckled, 'But goddamn it's hard when you're out on the road so much. And it gets so tough when the kids start growing up and you're not there for all the important stuff even though you want to. But you know, you need money and...' he said. The rest was not worth saying. Instead he said, 'I hope it's true what they say, that love transcends somehow.'
'I hope so too.'
Jack said nothing and began tapping the table with his fingers, hoping that she would get the hint. She didn't, and as the silence grew, he felt his mind wander.
It was night and she stood holding the light pouring in through the window from the street. In that dimmest of bars Jack remembered the bright illuminated shadow of her laugh. He saw it instantly --- how could he not? --- from the opposite end of the crowded hall. Her eyes too small and mouth a little too short and body a bit too long. He knew without doubt that he'd never seen anything as beautiful. She sat leaning on a windowsill as he paced back and forth trying to figure out how to approach such a task. It was so simple, yet nothing had ever been so impossible. But nothing had ever been as important.
'And then she looked at me and laughed, and he just left still wearing the clown suit,' she said and her friend standing opposite her laughed. Jack was standing close and both of them looked up and she raised her eyebrows and whatever he had planned to say escaped into the air and all he could say was 'Hi.'
'Hi,' they both said.
The silence was stifling.
'My friends always say that I'm terrible at this and I've never believed them,' he said. 'Though I guess they were right.'
'And what's that?' she asked him.
'I'm Jack.'
'Hi Jack, I'm Isabella,' she said. 'And this is...' but he forgot her friend's name as soon as she'd said it.
But it was clear that after that there was no confusion. What life was, and where life was going, was clear. Soon life before they had met was no life at all. For every look that she shot his way, and for every time the earth lifted as they lay in the dark under clean sheets drunkenly laughing, he was confused as to why he was lucky enough to have it. Cradling love by a crooked finger. The feeling remained strong, even stronger perhaps, as bedroom cries turned from woman to young child, and when Isabella or him rocked the crying baby to sleep on endless nights. He was feeling just the same as he'd always had, if only a bit tired in the dark. But the sight of the sight of them was the only sunrise he felt he would ever need.
'Did you say something?' he said but she shook her head. 'I thought you said something,' he said. They sat in silence and sipped their terrible coffee. 'I just heard from corporate that we could leave earlier sometimes without---'
'Must we talk of work?'
'I guess not,' he said, but he had nothing else to say to her that came to mind, if she was so inclined to keep him there. He looked at her and she looked at him and in her eyes he saw a twitch and how they contorted inwards. She looked away and took a sip of her coffee, fiddling with a paper napkin that she rumpled and threw on the table. She rubbed her forehead with the fingers of her left hand, back and forth, back and forth.
'Are you okay?' he asked.
'I'm fine,' she said. 'I'm just tired.'
'Okay,' he said and he thought he wouldn't try to force them to leave if she needed a break.
'How old's your kid?' he asked.
'He's just turned one,' Lilith said.
'That explains it,' he said.
'Explains what?'
'The tiredness.'
'Oh right,' she said, 'the tiredness.'
'It seems that all they do is sleep, but they don't sleep at all.'
'How was it for you?'
'Just like how it was for everybody else, I reckon. But I would never have missed it for anything.'
'I need some more coffee,' she said, and she stood up. 'Do you want some more?'
'Just call the waitress over.'
'They don't do that here.'
'Do what?' he asked.
'You have to go up to the counter and order. Or through the app.'
'Do their job for them?' he said, confused. 'But yes. Coffee,' and she went over to the counter.
Before he could drift anywhere she returned with two more paper cups and two cupcakes wrapped in plastic. 'I couldn't resist,' she said.
He opened up the packaging of one of the cupcakes and began eating.
'But he's really sweet,' she said, 'even though he does keep me up some days.'
'Yes, they are little miracles,' he said. The cupcake tasted artificial and he put back the rest in its plastic wrapper.
'My mother told me once that everything in life, all the choices we've made, are all exactly how they should have been when we sit there with our children. That it makes it all worth it, and infinitely more,' Lilith said.
'Wise woman,' he said. 'And it's such a blessing to have family help out there in the beginning.'
She looked at him with her eyebrows darting up and down and he could not decipher it so he renewed his non-existent interest in the cupcake.
'Oh, she's never met my son. She...' she said, nostrils flaring, 'she passed away a few years ago.'
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'But don't worry sweetheart. Everything in life, you find out when you're my age, has a tendency to work out in the end,' he saw her eyes start to water. He continued, 'Especially love. Most certainly love.'
'I'm fine,' she said. 'I've just got to grab some napkins. I think I'm catching a cold so my eyes swell up.' Jack looked at the pile of scrunched up unused napkins on the table.
Soon, he began tapping his feet and drumming the table with his fingers. How long had she been gone? Jack knew that what ailed him, what troubled him, as it had always been, as far as he could remember and would always be, was the waiting. It was the waiting which kills you. Yes, it was the waiting.
When Jack stood tapping his feet on the wet concrete stoop after knocking and hearing her shout 'Comin'!' from inside he did not think anybody had waited longer, or more foolishly, than he. And when Isabella opened the door and saw him standing there in the pouring rain in his pressed grey suit he thought he spied the fleeting flash of her smile. He was happy to see her and he thought she was happy to see him too.
'Come in. You're gonna catch a cold out there,' she said. 'I'll go grab some towels.' She disappeared into the darkened hallway and closed the door. He put down the soaked bouquet on the radiator where some woollen socks were hanging to dry.
'I'm not interrupting anything, I hope?' he shouted back.
'There is time, she's at a friend's house,' he heard from an approaching voice. 'Here,' she appeared from behind the corner, handing him a towel. He took it and reached for the bouquet, but even before he could begin thinking of exactly what to say she said 'I'll put a fresh pot of coffee on,' and disappeared again.
'That's good,' he added far too late. He walked in to the adjacent living room with bouquet in one hand while half-heartedly drying his hair with the other. He sat down on the sofa strewn with toys. Dolls and stuffed animals and crayons sticking up in-between the cracks. A suspicious red-brown stain on the cushion next to him.
'No milk or sugar, right?' she asked from the other side of the room behind the kitchen island.
'Right.'
The coffee machine sputtered aggressively against him.
Jack stood up and grabbed the bouquet and went over to the kitchen. She turned and saw him standing there. 'Oh, thank you,' she said, taking the bouquet before he managed to open his mouth, turning and standing digging around a cabinet muttering 'Where are those pretty vases...' She stood up and removed the paper around the bouquet, cut the ends, filled the vase partly with water, and turned around. 'There,' she said and then looked at him. 'What?'
'What?' he said.
'What's with the smile?'
And he realised he was grinning.
'Like a schoolboy,' she said.
'I'm glad to see you,' he said.
'Yes, me too,' she said. She passed by him and put down the vase on the living room table. 'But I'm worried.'
'Don't worry, sweetheart,' he walked over and sat down beside her on the sofa.
'It just can't be these brief visits any more. It's not good for you. It's not good for me. And it's not good for our daughter.'
'It's not good for you?'
'You know what I mean.'
He laughed, 'It's funny,' he said, 'I came here wantin' to say somethin' similar.'
'Really?'
'I was drivin' up from San Antoine and I saw Toy Story was playing on a drive-in and I saw a car pull in with a father and his daughter and they were laughing and I was there alone by the wheel on the road headin' who knows where and all I could think of was...' he said and he knew he did not need to finish the thought.
'I think the coffee's done,' she said, putting her hands on her knees.
'Let me,' he said, standing up and going over to the kitchen. He opened the cabinet where the cups had been but found plates instead.
'I switched the cabinets,' she said.
And he opened up the plate cabinet and took out two cups and looked out at the window. Beyond the small yard filled with muddy puddles and a turned over tricycle was the neighbours' yard that looked the same. Beyond that was an identical box of ticky-tack to the one he was standing in. In that kitchen somebody like him was probably standing with two coffee cups, just the same. Jack poured coffee in the two cups. He wondered how many succeeded.
'There we go,' he said as he passed the cup to her.
'Thanks,' she said.
And they sat sipping their coffee in silence since they could say nothing yet surrender everything all the same. Perhaps it was even undone the moment they spoke.
'I think it's nice,' Isabella said. 'That you want to be there.'
'I will be there,' he said.
'Jack...' she said and he was afraid for what would come but it never came so he stood up and went over to the shelf of picture frames. A young girl that he hardly recognized was smiling next to Isabella's mother who had aged terribly since the last time he'd seen her.
'She's growing up quick,' he said, and he regretted it since he could feel his eyes start to well up.
'Yeah,' she said from the sofa. 'Time moves quickly, too quickly, it really does,' she stood up and joined him by the picture frames.
'You needn't be cruel,' he said.
'I wasn't trying to,' she said. 'She's just started soccer practice. She's really good and most importantly she thinks it's really fun and she is really making a lot of new friends.'
What was painful was that his mistakes were easy to spot even for him, and Jack thought he understood the fix, but he knew fixing it would require time. For him perhaps as much as her. Of course, at that moment he wanted to get down on his knees and plead for her hand. To say that he was infinitely sorry for how things had turned out and that what he had done was no more and that he would be better, by God he would. Instead, to his horror, yet what he knew what was best, he found himself saying 'Well, I've got to go. Places to be.'
'Of course,' she said. 'If you have some place to be.'
She trailed behind him exchanging pleasantries like 'I think the rain's letting out' as he was putting on his soaked jacket in the hallway. He turned to say goodbye and he couldn't help let it slip out that he'd be back soon and he meant it, but she just smiled at him. She'd seen it before.
As his shoes clicked against the pavement walking to his car a little down the street a thought came to his mind. All through his life things had begun and things had ended. For the first time, he thought as he turned the ignition of his car, he had done a good thing and he knew this time was different. There would be no more new beginnings.
'What was that?' he asked. 'I'm sorry, I'm just a little confused.'
'I asked about your daughter,' she said. 'What's her name?'
He paused. He could not remember. He chuckled nervously, 'I must be tired. Some days are just like this, you know. You forget things.'
She began scrunching up another napkin and he could tell that she was crying.
'What is it?' he asked. 'You can tell me.'
'It's no big deal.'
'You can still tell me.'
'Don't worry about it,' she said. 'It's no big deal.'
He did not want to keep pushing her. 'Tell me about your dad then,' he said, hoping that it was a happier story.'
'He...' she said. She stopped and looked down at the table. 'He left when I was very young, and then came back around the time I was becoming a teenager,' she looked up into his eyes and paused.
'Just tell me what's wrong,' he said. 'It'll make you feel better.'
'It's no big deal. Don't worry about it,' she said mechanically. 'But he comes back and at first it's fine. He's there even though he does not know what to do, though he does his best. But then I become a teenager you remember and I wanted nothing to do with him because I was angry that he had left me and my mom, especially mom, all alone. He tried, he really tried, but I wouldn't have it. And then I left because I was angry at him and I thought anger would fix things and when I returned it was too...' she said, choking, 'late.'
'Did he die recently?' he said. 'Is that it?'
'Something like that.'
He nodded solemnly and slow, 'Did he get to meet his grandchild?'
'Yes,' she said. 'He met him many times.'
'Well, then I'm sure that he would've been happy no matter how hard it is for you right now.'
'Maybe that's true.'
He finished his coffee and so did she. They said nothing since nothing seemed to be needed to be said. But silence speaks, he knew, oh yes, he knew that all too well. She stood up and offered him help to stand up and he took the arm since he was tired and he was not too proud to accept help when it was needed. He knew that he had to get out of there so it was good that they were leaving but he had forgot exactly why he needed to leave. It would come to him later.
Lilith held the door open for him and he thanked her and went outside. Looking up Jack saw the falling snowflakes reflected against the street light in the otherwise still winter night. 'The first fall of snow,' he said.
'Yes, yes,' he heard her say.
He began walking to his car but he had forgotten where had parked it. The snow was piled up in large drifts, waving slowly in the cold bitter wind. Most cars were caked in snow and ice. He was walking, but he didn't know where. He didn't get far. Lilith grabbed his arm.
'The car is parked just in front.'
She held the passenger door open for him. 'Thanks Lil',' he said. He sat down and realized the door was open. He saw her standing with her back towards him, slightly hunched over. The sulking, the heavy sobs that were barely covered by her hand covering her mouth were with the exception of the heavy traffic in the distance the only sounds to be heard. After a little while she turned around and shut his door and brushed the freshly fallen snow off the windshield, leaving the caked ice at the edge of the windshield.
The woman sat down beside him and started the car.
'Where are we going?' Jack asked her.
'Home,' the woman said.
And he somehow knew it had to be true.