The Old Man(56)

When they made it to the house it took time for all of them to shower, change clothes, and eat the dinner their mother had made. The dinner was much as it had been when Julian was growing up. The exact combination of spices his mother always used made him remember nights twenty years ago.

After dark, Julian spent an hour or so chatting with his parents about local people, politics, and the condition of the world. Then Leila came out to the porch and said, “Julian, can you give me a ride into town?”

When they were in his rental car, moving along the highway toward Jonesboro, Leila said, “I don’t know if you want to know this, but she wants you to stop by and see her.”

It was as though their conversation from before dawn had never ended, just gone underground and surfaced again. He had no confusion about whom she meant. He looked at Leila. “I don’t know if I wanted to hear that, but I do appreciate your passing it on.”

“Are you going to go?”

“I don’t know yet. When and where do you want me to pick you up?”

“I’m meeting Meg and Latrice at choir practice. Then James is going to pick me up in his car.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

He opened his wallet and found a receipt. “You got a pen?”

She handed him a pen from her purse.

He held the receipt against the steering wheel and wrote down his cell phone number. “If you need a ride, call me.” After a moment he added, “If you want me for any other reason too.” He handed it to her with the pen and she put them in her purse together.

In a few minutes, he stopped in front of the church. Leila got out of the car, and then leaned back in. “That house where the Deckers used to live, next to the corner market?”

“I remember.”

“That’s where Ruthie is staying now.”

“You think I ought to go see her?”

Leila frowned. “I don’t know what your life is like now, Julian. As you said, it’s classified. If you want to, go ahead. If not …” She ended her sentence with a shrug. “Got to go. I love it when you’re home.” She hurried to join her friends, and Julian drove off.

As Julian drove the streets of Jonesboro he passed the high school. Sometime in the 1970s it had been demolished by a tornado and rebuilt low with a peaked roof and gables on the front and a steeple that made it look like a big Howard Johnson’s.

Soon Julian noticed that in his aimless drive, his rental car had made several right turns, and that the last one took him near the old corner market. He considered calling the farm to see if his mother wanted anything from the store, but then thought better of it. If he bought something frozen or likely to go off, he’d have to rush right home with it.

Julian pulled up on the street far enough from the store not to be recognized in a car he didn’t own, and sat for a minute. His eyes settled on the market as he thought. There was Ruthie coming out of the market with a brown paper bag in her left arm.

She was wearing a white cotton dress and flat sandals. She paused in the parking lot. She seemed not to see him, but to know he must be there and look where she expected him to be. She walked across the parking lot and up the sidewalk to the passenger side of his car. She pointed at the lock button on that side and he hit the switch to make it pop up. She opened the door and sat beside him.

He looked at her, not pretending he wasn’t staring. He was taking in the sight.

She smiled. “Can we go for a ride?”

He started the car and drove.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said.

“Leila told me.”

“I got divorced this year,” she said.

“Are you sad about it?” he said.

“No. A little embarrassed. People look at me, and I can see behind their eyes. They’re trying to guess why it happened. They wonder if he cheated on me, if I cheated on him, who we would have cheated with. They wonder if I’m cold, or bitchy, or selfish. They wonder if he hit me. Whatever anybody ever got divorced for, they try on me to see if it fits.”

“What does fit?”

“Nothing. People get along or they don’t. If they don’t, then one day one of them sees the future all laid out ahead. And they realize that it’s almost exactly like the present. And they don’t want it to be.”

“I understand,” he said.

She gave him a look that had a bit of skepticism, and he knew what she was thinking: Either you’ve been divorced or you haven’t. So he thought about how foolish he probably had sounded. It wasn’t that he’d had the experience or really understood. What he’d meant was: I don’t want to think about that anymore.

They drove on for a couple of miles before she said, “How long are you going to be here?”

“I don’t know.” He took out his phone and held it up. “When this rings again, I’ll have to go. If it never rings I’ll be here until I die.”

“If it rings, can you say no?”

He thought for a few seconds. “Not if I want to keep working for the government.”

“Has that been so great?”

“Not really, to tell you the truth.”

“Okay,” she said, and then stopped because he could draw his own conclusions.