Long Bright River(76)

He leans past me to squeeze the door handle. I don’t move.

—Mick, he says, I’m gonna open that door for you.

I look at his face. And suddenly I understand something new about the world, and about Truman and me. It seems so obvious in this moment that I laugh, just briefly: he’s been here this whole time, right next to me for nearly a decade. How have I never noticed? Truman is breathing in time with my breath. Quickly now. Both of us.

I kiss him on the cheek.

—Mick, says Truman. He puts a hand on my shoulder.

I put a hand on his face, as I imagined him, earlier, doing to me.

—Hey, says Truman. But he doesn’t move away.

I kiss him on the mouth. He stays there, just for a moment. Responsive. But then he pulls back.

—No, says Truman. Mickey, that’s not right.

He takes a couple of steps backward, puts some space between us.

—That’s not right, Mick, he says again.

—It is, I say. It is right.

He sets his jaw. Look, he says. I’m seeing somebody.

—Who? I say, without thinking.

But I know the answer before he says it. I think of the portrait on Truman’s end table, a happy family. His beautiful girls. His beautiful wife. I think of Truman’s mother, skeptical when she opened the door for me. Protective, Truman said.

Truman hesitates.

—It’s Sheila, Mickey, he says at last. We’re getting back together. We’re trying to make it work.



* * *



—

On the ride home, we’re both silent. I say nothing, even when I get out of the car.



* * *



—

Bethany watches me as I enter the apartment, her eyes appraising. I try very hard not to get too close to her, but I’m certain, when I pay her, that she can smell what’s on my breath.





I wake up feeling more ashamed than I’ve ever been in my life. Memories return to me, first slowly and then quickly. I put my hands over my face.

—No, I say. No, no, no, no, no.

Thomas, who has apparently crept into my room in the night, wakes up at the foot of the bed. What, Mom? he says.

I look down at him.

—I forgot something, I say.



* * *



—

Bethany, as usual, is late. While I wait for her, I allow myself to indulge in a particularly delicious fantasy: Maybe I’ll fire her on the spot when she walks in the door. I’m on suspension now, anyway, and therefore not actually in need of her services at the moment. But two things prevent me from acting on this impulse: The first is that I have to go retrieve my car in Juniata today, and I’d rather not explain to Thomas how it got there in the first place. The second is that, presuming I get my job back, I’ll need childcare—and finding a second person, quickly, with Bethany’s flexible schedule sounds daunting, if not impossible.

So when she arrives, at last, I pretend to be leaving for work. And she actually apologizes, for the first time in our acquaintance, for her tardiness. She hasn’t done her makeup today, for once, and she looks very young without it.

I am caught off guard by her sincerity.

—Well, I say. That’s all right. Don’t worry.

—Thomas can watch one show today, I add. You can decide when.



* * *



—

It turns out that a taxi from my apartment in Bensalem to Juniata costs $38.02, not including tip. A fact I never needed to know.

After the taxi drops me off, I get into my car and drive.

The day is mine, I realize, to do with what I wish. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had this luxury. It’s been a very long time since I felt so aimless, no work, no child to watch, no self-assigned mission.

I cruise through Kensington, through the 24th. Off duty, I can afford to notice things about it that I never do at work: the way certain small and empty lots have been converted by neighbors into improvised playgrounds, old donated slides rusting in a corner, haphazard basketball hoops mounted to chain-link fences. The secondhand appliance stores that set their wares out on the sidewalk, dented and dismayed-looking washing machines and refrigerators, upright soldiers in a line.

I’m not in my cruiser, for once, and the women I pass don’t even glance at me. A young boy on a three-wheeler pulls up next to me, at a light, and then eclipses me when it turns.

I have the sudden urge to see my old house in Port Richmond, and I drive toward it. It belongs, now, to a preppy young man in his twenties (or, more accurately, to his parents, according to the paperwork I signed). Then I drive toward Fishtown, where I drive past Gee’s house, the house I grew up in. Today, it looks uninhabited. Dark inside.



* * *



—

It’s time to head home. But, driving past Bomber Coffee, I decide impulsively to stop in. I’m out of uniform today, and when I walk in, no one blinks. Briefly, I let myself imagine a different life for me and Thomas: coming here on the weekends to read the newspaper. Having the time to teach him everything he’s curious about, to give him a light and peaceful existence, to serve him a fat five-dollar muffin from the glass case in front of me, or the fresh fruit and yogurt in a blue ceramic bowl that the boy at the counter is now handing to a customer. I imagine being friendly with this boy, with all the people who work here. I imagine going to other restaurants, too, on my days off, lots of them, sitting for hours at them. Bringing a sketchbook, maybe, and sketching my surroundings. I used to like to draw.