Long Bright River(31)

—Pretty good, he says.

He makes no move to take a seat, nor does he offer me one.

I’m still wearing the uniform I put on earlier, in the locker room, and I wish, now, that I hadn’t left my duty belt in the car. Without it, my hands don’t know what to do. I scratch my forehead.

—How’s the knee? I ask.

—Okay, he says. He looks down at it. Straightens it.

I gesture weakly around at the room, the house.

—I like it, I say.

—Thanks.

—What are you doing these days? I ask him.

—This and that, he says. I’ve got my garden going in the back. I read. I do the Co-op now.

I don’t know what this is. I don’t ask.

—It’s a cooperative grocery store, says Truman, reading my mind. It’s one of the things he used to rib me about: my reluctance, at times, to admit to deficits in my body of knowledge.

—The girls are good? I say. There’s a small family portrait standing upright on an end table, something taken when his daughters were young.

I notice that the portrait includes his ex-wife, Sheila. Something about this embarrasses me. It feels undignified. He’s been lonely, perhaps. Missing her. I don’t like thinking about it.

—They are, says Truman, and I don’t know what to say after that.

—Tea? Truman asks, finally.



* * *



—

I follow him into the kitchen: newer than the rest of the house, something he’s had redone. Perhaps, I imagine, something he redid himself. He’s always been handy. Regularly, he teaches himself to do new things. Just prior to his injury, he bought and restored an old Nikon camera.

I stand and watch the back of him as he works, taking a small empty tea bag from a box, portioning loose tea leaves into it.

Without his gaze directly on me, I find it easier to think.

I clear my throat.

—What’s up, Mickey, says Truman, not turning.

—I owe you an apology, I say. The words are too loud for the room. Too formal. I often misjudge these things.

Truman pauses, just for a moment, and then continues, pouring steaming water into a teapot.

—For what? he says.

—I should have had him, I say.

—I didn’t act fast enough, I say. I flinched.

But Truman is shaking his head.

—No, Mickey, he says.

—No?

—Wrong apology, he says. He turns around, facing me. I can barely meet his gaze.

I wait.

—He got away, says Truman. It happens. It’s happened to me more times than I can count.

He looks at me, then at the steeping tea.

—You should have come around sooner, he says. There. That’s your apology.

—But I backed down, I say.

—I’m glad you did, says Truman. No point getting shot. I survived.

I’m silent for a moment.

—I should have come around sooner, I say.

—I’m sorry, I say.

Truman nods. The air in the room changes. Truman pours the tea.

—Are you coming back? I say.

The question sounds needy.

Truman is fifty-two years old. He looks about forty. He has the kind of unharried, calm demeanor that has somehow crystallized his youthfulness, preserved it. I only found out his age a couple of years ago, at a fiftieth-birthday party that some officers threw him. Because of his age, if he wanted to retire now, he could. Already, he’d get a pension.

But he only shrugs.

—Maybe I will, he says. Maybe I won’t. I’ve got some things to think over. The world is weird.

He turns around, finally, and looks hard at me for a while.

—I know you didn’t come just to apologize, he says.

I don’t protest. I look down.

—Why else are you here? he asks me.





When I have finished speaking, Truman walks to the door off the kitchen. He looks out at his garden, asleep for the winter.

—How long has it been since anyone’s heard from her? he asks.

—Paula Mulroney said it’s been a month. But I’m not sure whether she has a particularly good handle on time.

—Okay, says Truman. He has a look on his face I’ve seen before: the one that used to come over him before he sprang into action, pounding after a runner. A coiled look.

—Do you know anything else at this point? he asks.

—I know she was last active on Facebook on October 2, I tell him. Also, she might be dating a person named Dock. D-O-C-K. I saw someone on her Facebook page with that name.

Truman looks skeptical. Dock, he says.

—I know, I say. Know anyone with that nickname in Kensington?

Truman thinks. Then shakes his head.

—What about Connor Famisall? I say. I think that’s his actual name.

—How do you spell that? asks Truman. And I hear something silly entering his voice. A smile.

I spell it for him, reluctantly. I dislike being on the outside of others’ jokes. A leftover from my childhood.

—Mick, Truman says. Did you get that off Facebook?

I nod.

Truman is laughing now. Fam is all, Mickey, he says. Fam is all.

Something about the way he says it—kind smile, kind eyes—loosens what’s tight in my sternum. As if a knob were being turned there, just so. And suddenly I am laughing too.