Part 2/3
Thom thought this was what happened when a good man tried to do bad: he botched it.
The photo had upset him, and he’d had some wine while cooking, and he’d been high on the old love letters.
He continued to wait for his phone call. The guards had told him he would get his turn in a matter of minutes.
***
Lane wore one of Thom’s t-shirts that hung low on her body. She ate her eggs, and Thom ate his. She asked him about his classes, and he asked about hers. She smiled and nodded, and he did the same.
Relations with Lane were a sort of medicine: healthier than booze, yet containing a more complicated hangover. But at least with her, he didn’t think. It was the thinking that killed us more than anything else.
The reality of Kathryn’s new boyfriend—Donnie, the pastry chef—the one she’d showcased on social media for the last eight months sometimes drifted away when he stayed in the sheets with Lane, but there was little he could do to permanently avoid the reality that Kathryn was moving on.
He forked a couple of over-easy eggs and watched the yolks run. Maybe Donnie could slip in the shower, have a heart attack while jogging, or fall off of a ladder while stringing Christmas lights. These sorts of miracles happened, right? They probably did, but they wouldn’t happen for Thom. No, no. Thom would have to hope for the old-fashioned death—the one that came from years and years together only to discover that sustained love was as mythical as the Loch Ness monster.
“Wanna grab lunch today?” Lane asked. “We could meet at your office?”
He blotted his lips with a napkin. “I have some meetings.”
“Last night you said you were free.”
Yolks oozed across his plate, and he inspected the deep orange Rorschach blot. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “It’s tomorrow, I think. Why don’t you swing by the office at noon?”
“Perfect. I’ll bring some food from that new Korean spot.”
“Korean food in Tennessee . . . what could go wrong there?”
***
Thom dialed Akari. The guards had given him access to his cell phone to peek at his numbers, and he knew that Akari would come pick him up and bail him out, too. He would pay her back right away.
“Leave one at the beep,” Akari’s message said, and Thom heeded the instructions: “Hey,” he said. “I’m in jail. In a holding cell. Can you bail me out if you get this? I’ll pay you back right away. I’m good for it.” Then he hung up the phone hard and one of the guards screamed to “take it easy.”
Take it easy. That was bullshit advice for anything in life. It wasn’t easy, and pretending it was made it harder. Take it normal. Why didn’t we just say that?
***
In the bathroom caddy corner to his office, Thom washed his hands. A little plant, something of a fern, sat near the sink, and there was a sign propped on its pot that read, “If you wouldn’t mind giving me a water from time to time, I’d appreciate it. Signed, -The Biology Department.”
He was of two minds about this plant. If the bio department was so keen on keeping this fern alive, then they should have kept it in their offices and watered it. It wasn’t the responsibility of the professors on the third floor of Johnson Hall to feed this plant. Then, other times, when Professor Clark was content with the world, he thought it was rather sweet that everyone did his or her part to keep the roots growing. He even liked that the note was written in first person.
When he returned to his office, he did some grading, pulling some essays from a huge stack. The pile teetered with every tug of a paper, reminding him of how he used to play Jenga with Kathryn on Sunday nights before they opened a bottle of wine and watched HBO. The scenario played, details ripe and poignant: her laugh, her grape-stained teeth after too much merlot, her hair nestled against his shoulder.
Then he did the thing he’d been so good at avoiding: checking Instagram. Kathryn had posted six times since his last inspection. Two pics of her new rescue dog Clementine in a black-and-white filter. That didn’t bother him much. A little, but not much. Then a few sunset photos for which the caption read, “Blessed.” And then one with Donnie. The two of them, their feet propped on a leather ottoman, Clementine tucked between their socked feet.
Beads of perspiration sprouted around his hairline and his lower back knotted.
“Hey!” Lane said, entering his office. She wore a jean shirt paired with jeans of a darker wash and carried a paper bag that was stained with food grease. Her smile beamed. He loved how physically perfect she was, how everything at her age was just-so. Her face: creamy and smooth. Her hair: blond and thick. And her body: perky in the right spots, soft in others.
Thom shut off his computer monitor, before rising to meet Lane. When he reached her, he closed the office door, turned the lock, and set the bag down on his desk. He pushed her hard against the wall and brought her arms over her head. With her wrists pinned, he kissed her on her neck, dragging his tongue over her collarbones. Lane scratched at the back of his neck. The image of Kathryn and Donnie’s feet on the ottoman faded as they moved quickly from kissing to undressing.
There was a knock at the door.
Thom ignored it, even though he and Lane stood only feet away from the sound.
The knock returned.
“Come back later,” Thom said.
Again, the knock, louder this time.
“Come back later!”
“Professor Clark,” the woman said. “It’s me . . . Akari. You said to come by today at 12:30. When would you like me to return? Sorry if I’m bothering you.”
“Akari?” Lane whispered into Thom’s ear.
“Oh,” he said. “Yes, yes. Give me five minutes. Wait down the hall on the red couch.”
“Is everything okay?” Akari asked.
“Yes! Just go wait down the hall!”
“Okay,” Akari said
“Sorry,” Thom said to Lane.
They didn’t resume. The moment had vanished.
Thom explained to Lane that he couldn’t do lunch after all, that he’d promised his time to Akari, which he now vividly remembered.
Lane sighed, opening the brown paper bag and giving him the kimchi burrito and Coke she’d ordered for him. “Well, we almost had fun.”
“Ah, title of my autobiography,” Thom said.
Lane didn’t answer.
***
Thom drank a cup of water—not really a cup, but one of those paper cones that a person couldn’t set down—and stared at his cellmate with the Bugs Bunny tattoo. “What’d you do?” Thom asked.
“Stabbed a man,” he said. “Not the first time either.” He delivered the words matter-of-factly, like he had run some errands. “Had to, you know? The world will push you around until you push back.” He cleared his throat and hocked up some phlegm. “You?”
“Kinda lost it.” Thom pointed to his bloodied hands.
“Kinda?” The man seemed irritated that Thom hadn’t totally committed. “That’s too bad.”
***
Akari and Thom sat in his office.
“I’m sorry about knocking earlier,” Akari said. She sported a blue corduroy blazer paired with fashionable khakis. “You said you might have something for me today. A little draft?”
“I’ll get to it tonight,” he said.
“I’m just worried. I mean, by the time you get it to me, I have to write it in my handwriting and get to a post office. And then it has to go from Tennessee to France . . . who knows how long that’ll take?”
He clicked on his computer monitor, and Kathryn’s Instagram once again seized the screen. The photo of the feet. The same feet that used to be in his bed, his shower—the same feet that used to stroll with him along the damp banks of the Mississippi.
“Are you okay, Professor Clark?”
“Yes,” he said, but her gaze told him she didn’t buy it.
“It doesn’t have to be long, but it does have to be good.”
“I know.” He closed the Window on his computer screen. He didn’t want to be alone tonight, nor did he want to be with Lane. “Would you like to come to my place for dinner? We could work on the letter together.”
“Do you think the answer will be positive, Professor Clark?” He thought it was funny the way love turned everyone into a nervous 13-year-old.
“The truth is always risky.”
“Yeah.”
“But rejection heals. Regret festers,” he said.
She nodded and gave him her cell number. They then squared away the details before saying their good-byes.
Thom walked home.
Today, like every Thursday, a farmers’ market was set up on campus, so Thom picked out a couple of items for his evening with Akari: olive bread and a few blood oranges.
It wasn’t long before he was home, defrosting a chicken in the microwave and snapping the stems off of some green beans. When the bird was thawed, he took his time with it, placing some carrots and potatoes under its body, so that the poultry wouldn’t burn against the steel. His mind and body went through the same routines that they used to when he was with Kathryn: rushing home to cook in an attempt to surprise her, hoping the aromas would grow fast enough to wrap her when she entered from a long day at work.
Before long, Thom did what he’d been avoiding and opened the door to the basement. He descended the creaky steps and reached the box in cobwebby corner. He brought it to the dining room, where he could go over its contents with Akari this evening.
He checked on the chicken, and then returned to the box and opened the cardboard flaps. Inside, were dozens of postcards from all over the world due to Kathryn’s job—right out of undergrad—at Habitat for Humanity. She expressed sincere tenderness in such few lines and, even though Thom was the author whose walls were plastered with degrees, she was always the one with the right words.
Thom raked his hand through his hair and sat down, inspecting her sentences:
So hard to experience all this beauty when we are rivers, ranges, and time zones apart.
I look at the moon, and find peace in knowing that you see the same one.
I keep thinking about your mom’s passing. I see her in you all the time The lines around your eyes, your fingernails, your smile. Her DNA will always be the best part of you.
Love has made me corny: you are the love of my life.
Thom imagined Kathryn’s fingers near these words, a pen in her grip, the careful dotting of her “I’s,” the intricate curves of her “Y’s.” At one point, she cared enough to write every day, and he riffled through the box and found more letters. On some of them, she had scrawled on the front and back, making the papers crinkly. His face warmed, knowing that he was once the man who occupied her thoughts in baths, taxis, and those soft seconds before dream.
