All That's Left to Tell(48)

“That was one of his ‘go-to’ phrases. Nothing’s inevitable. And he meant the way people live as if tracks have been laid in themselves, or through them, is what he said, and so they have no choice but to follow them. But he meant it politically, you know. He was a Marxist. He believed revolution was possible. I think he missed the point.”

Marc looks down at the baby again. Her eyes are open now, but she still seems to be sleeping, since they are the only parts of her moving. She is swaddled tightly.

“So what was the point?” he asks.

“I mean the way he believed tracks are laid in you. They’re not political, or they are only after the fact. I fell in love with him. And I was happy at the time, before I met him, you know, having graduated college, and getting a good job. But after I met him—on the street where he was wearing a dark wool jacket, and directing protesters who were staging a walkout for higher wages. I mean, to tell you the truth, I never thought twice about that. About the rights of workers, the rights of the poor. Just abstractly. And I wasn’t thinking about it when I stopped to watch for a second, and he turned, suddenly, as if he knew I was there, and when he saw me—he had this kind of scruffy beard, and curly hair, and an earnestness or resolve that slowly disappeared into this beautiful, warm smile, and he was only taking me in, you know? He was taking me in, and it wasn’t about me picking up a sign or chanting for a cause. He was seeing me. I thought he was seeing me.”

She glances at the baby, and then pulls herself up in the chair and tucks her legs under her, so she is sitting higher, her back erect.

“I miss that. I still miss that. That sense of being seen. By someone you hadn’t even come to know yet. I know it sounds na?ve.”

“Not really.”

“No? I’m not so sure, Marc. Something primitive led me there. Something that happened before I could find the words to describe it.”

“Why didn’t he want the baby?”

“I told you, he did. It was me that didn’t want him. He was killed. By an angry union worker in a truck. Manslaughter. He wasn’t trying to hit him, just get him to move. And he wouldn’t.”

“I’m so sorry, Joline.”

“It’s not about his death, Marc. It’s not about his death. He doesn’t matter anymore, except in memory. It’s about what became of me. It’s about what became of that little boy, who would be six now. It’s about Laura, who has a brother she may never know.”

She pushes herself up from the chair then, and walks over to him, and he lifts the baby, who has fallen asleep again, toward her arms, but she shakes her head and stands next to the chair, looking down on him, her face obscured again by her hair. He feels a tightness in his chest, like his heart is catching on a rib, as she places the palms of her hands over his eyes.

“Keep them closed,” she says.

She pulls her hands away and places them on the arms of the chair, and even with his eyes closed he can sense her shadow over him as she lowers her head toward his. When she kisses him, his head moves slightly, involuntarily, and she brings her hand to the side of his face, but the kiss itself is gentle, lingering, her lips warm, tasting of something both of them had eaten earlier in the day.

Then she says, “What do you think happened to Claire?”

He is still absorbing her kiss.

“I don’t know. I’ve thought of a thousand things. Why did you kiss me like that?”

But she smiles and shakes her head, and then takes the baby from him.

“Good night, Marc.”

*

The next morning, she is again the young woman who first came through the door, and he has slept later than he usually does, and she and Tom and Kathleen are finishing their coffee and English muffins when he walks into the dining room, the suitcases already sitting at the front door.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Joline says, her eyes bright. “Up late?”

“Yeah, a little.”

Tom says, “I took the liberty of starting a fire. Hope I didn’t overheat the place.”

“It feels nice and warm,” Marc says.

Kathleen’s expression is difficult to read.

“They have to leave a little earlier than planned,” she says. “Tom has to work on a project for tomorrow morning.”

“A call came in before you woke up,” he said. “Not the big deal they’re making it, but gotta put a little Sunday-evening time in.”

They sit with Marc at the table for maybe fifteen minutes out of politeness. The baby is awake, and her occasional coos, her wide-eyed accidental smiles, her clutching of Kathleen’s pinkie finger, occupy both Kathleen and Joline, and neither gives him much more than a glance. Tom has pushed his chair away from the table and leans back and watches with an expression of halfhearted amusement. It gets better, kid, Marc wants to say to him, but doesn’t.

At the back door, while Tom brushes away the snow blown onto the windshield, Marc stands with Joline and Kathleen while they say good-bye. Kathleen gives her a long hug, and Joline lets her mother hold the baby one more time.

“Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll be back before you know it. Or come down and visit us before the real estate business cranks up.”

They chat a bit more while Marc carries the suitcases to the car. Tom lifts them into the trunk but leaves the lid up and glances at Marc with a half smile.