Tom
I ALMOST FEEL ANNA COME back into her body as I lay my hand on her shoulder.
Frightening stuff. She can be such a frightening girl.
Something comes over me as I see Bill and Betty leave the hall.
He turns to wave at all of us. Not at me, but at everybody.
And I am compelled to call out after him.
To halt him, to catch up to him. Cold sweat on my neck.
Cold wind on my face. And tell him that I’ve never really been anything, but he has made me feel like a man.
That I might never be enough to impress him, but that I will always be here.
That woman’s husband. It’s a funny one. I’ve had flashes of admiration for people before. Of course I have. Dozens of people. But this is something altogether new. I don’t know what to call this feeling, and I don’t know what to do with it. All I really know is that it took Bill to find it in me.
I was always comparing myself to Dad, and then to Jack.
To any man with his own land or his own woman.
Meeting Bill has made me see how wasteful that was.
I don’t want to compare myself to anybody anymore.
I want to stand alone as a singular thing, far away from everybody else, so that his light hits the most of me.
It doesn’t matter anymore that I’ve no land and no wife.
I have somebody who cares about me, who wants the best for me, and who is deeply interested in me.
There’s plenty men with wives who don’t have that.
Do I want the feeling named? Do I really need it named?
Some combination of gratitude and freedom, of ecstasy and lightness.
Whatever it is, it all comes from Bill. And he doesn’t even drip-feed it, he lets it all flow freely.
Something tells me that I should try to create this feeling for myself. Something else tells me that I will never be able to. He’s teaching me how to be a man, how to be smart and happy. Whatever he wants to teach me, whatever he wants me to know, I will take from him.
He walks away with his wife, and I watch him go.