6. Blake
CHAPTER 6
BLAKE
FOUR YEARS LATER
I sat on the bed, suitcase at my side, watching the cars go by headed uptown. I’d deliberately picked a rental close to my college place, but now I was here, it felt… strange. It felt like a place I’d read about in a book, but it didn’t match up with how I’d imagined. Nothing was quite how I remembered it being — a house painted pink I was sure had been blue. A Buck Plus on the corner I’d thought was a Save More. The grass was a darker green than the grass I remembered. The roads were all narrower, the fall breeze too cool. Hadn’t it been hot here, that long fall with Claire? Hadn’t we stretched on her rug in her den, with a fan blowing over a bowl full of ice cubes?
Memphis wasn’t my home, I guessed was the problem. It was the last place I’d called home, so I’d come back on leave, but what was here for me four years down the road? A few old friends, sure, but they all seemed busy. Even Sam, my first call, had rushed me off the phone. Gotta go. I’m on call. Talk soon, okay?
I stood up and stretched until my back cracked, then went to the window and peered up the street. I couldn’t see my old place from here, but I could see my bus stop. The shelter at least was just like I remembered, shaky and scratched-up, plastered with ads. If I squinted, I could make out my spot on the bench, where I’d sat with my book till I heard my bus coming. Sometimes in my last year, I’d sat there with Claire.
Claire.
I closed my eyes. No. I wasn’t back here for her. I hadn’t come hoping we’d somehow cross paths, and she’d have forgiven me, and life would be rainbows. Things like that only happened in books. I’d come because, hell, where else would I go? Where else had I lived eight years back-to-back, mostly in the same place, the same bed to go back to? The same friends through the years, Sam and Joelle? Where else had I had that? The answer was nowhere. So, no. I had not come back dreaming of Claire, though I had dreamed of her on the flight over. But, an actual sleep-dream. Not some sad fantasy.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time. Chow time. I wasn’t hungry, but if the Army does one thing, it turns a man into a creature of habit. Eating time in the Army, you sit down and eat, and a quick visit home doesn’t change that. I unzipped my suitcase and pulled out a fresh shirt, changed, washed my face, and headed up past the bus stop.
I didn’t have Claire in mind when I set out. It was habit, again, that led me to our diner, where we must’ve shared a hundred lunch combos. Plus it was close, and their burgers were good . So of course I wound up there, back at our table, looking out at the patch of park we’d always looked out at. One time, a ball had smacked right on that window, and Claire had jumped up and spilled her leek soup. She’d screamed, then she’d laughed, and she’d sat down all shaky.
“I thought that broke through. I thought I felt glass.” She touched her hair like she still thought she might find some shards there.
“Nah, just a soccer ball. Too light to break through.”
The kid who’d kicked the ball had come up to the window, and now he knocked, and he mouthed a sorry . Claire smiled, no worries , and wiped up her soup. I shot the kid the OK sign and he jogged off.
“You think you’ll want kids someday?”
Claire looked up. “What?”
“Kids.”
“Oh.” She watched the boy kick the ball back to his friends. “Probably someday. Yeah, I think so. But not till I’m settled, with a house and a yard. Kids need a yard, or they kick balls into windows.”
“Sir? You okay? Can I take your order?”
I realized I’d zoned out watching the empty park, grinning a big, stupid, faraway grin. “Sorry,” I said. “Meatball sub combo. What’s your soup of the day?”
“Veggie medley, or you can sub fries if you want.”
“Nah, the soup’s fine. And a root beer. Thanks.”
My meal came out quick, and I sat and ate it. I scrolled my phone while I did, only half seeing it. It’d been a mistake coming here, sitting at our old table, eating the same sub I’d split so often with Claire. The taste and the smell made it feel like no time had passed. Like my four years in Munich had been a dream. There’d been times it had felt like one, working the trauma ward, patients lifted in from the worst kinds of war zones. Running on no sleep and high-octane panic, pushing down everything but right now. What now? It was like that sometimes, an endless what now — bleeding that wouldn’t stop. What was my next move? Blood pressure dropping. What next? Organs shutting down. Cold setting in. What next? Too late. I set my sub down half-eaten.
“Should I wrap that up for you?”
“Nah, that’s okay.” My voice had gone rough, and I finished my root beer. “Guess my eyes were just bigger than my stomach.”
I headed out of the diner, but I wasn’t ready to go home. I had nothing there waiting but my bed and my suitcase, not even a book. I’d finished mine on the plane. I figured I’d swing by Smart’s Reads for another, but when I got there, I saw Claire in the window. Or rather, I saw a head of dark hair, and I flashed back to us at the bus stop.
“What are you reading?” Claire tilted my book, trying to check out the title. I tilted it back before she made me drop it.
“Just some Western. The Time it Never Rained. ”
“Didn’t they make a movie of that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. If you saw it, don’t spoil me.”
“How could I spoil you? It’s all in the title. It never rained. That’s the story. The end.”
I laughed, because from what I’d read, she was kind of right. I laughed in real life too, back in the present, and a guy walking by skirted wide to avoid me. The big, ugly guy laughing alone in the street. Not a good look. I moved on, embarrassed. It had been a mistake renting a place near my old one, ground zero for memories, both fond and unwelcome. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here at all. I should’ve listened to Marco, my buddy in Munich: Why would you waste your leave hanging around Memphis? It’s not like your family’s there, or most of your friends. If it was me, I’d hit up Vegas.
I could still go, I guessed, hop a quick flight to Vegas. But once I got there, what would I do? Gamble? I’d lose, then I’d be broke with six weeks to kill, and I’d sit in my room with nothing to do. I could do that fine here, and a lot cheaper.
I headed out past the bookshop and past the bars where the students went, out where the streets were less familiar. I walked a long time stuck in what now mode, just my next step, then which way at the corner. Wait for the light to turn. Walk. Wait some more. Right foot, left foot, breathe in through the nose. Life was less complicated, lived in the moment. No past, no future. Right foot, left foot.
I came to a park in a nice neighborhood, trees and tall swing sets. A big shiny slide. No one was around, so I sat on the slide, right on the end of it where the metal was warm. I listened to the wind playing songs in the leaves and the uneven splash of a fountain nearby. The day was a cool one, but the grass still smelled warm. The earth still smelled fertile, busy with growth. I closed my eyes and breathed deep of it and tried to feel… something. Whatever I was supposed to feel, being back home.
I was still sitting there breathing when a dog barked nearby. It burst out of the trees to the west of the park and came bounding toward me, its tongue hanging out. I stuck my hands up.
“Whoa, there. Easy, boy.”
The dog barked again, not a mean bark. Pure joy. It jumped up on me with its paws on my knees, and slurped on my hand when I pushed it away.
“Hey, now. Behave.” I eased the dog off my lap. He was a big boy, a golden retriever, a lot like the one I’d met at Claire’s parents. I mussed his big ears and scratched under his scruff, and he leaned into me, enjoying the attention.
“You here with somebody?” I cast about for his owner. The dog thrust his nose up into my crotch. “Go on, get out of there. You know that’s bad manners.”
“Buster?” Her voice floated out from the trees, and at first I was sure it was like at the bookshop — a head of black hair, and I saw Claire. But the dog, wasn’t Claire’s dog also called Buster? And wasn’t that her stepping into the light? Her smile slowly fading as her eyes locked with mine, as the color drained out of her familiar, shocked face?
“Sorry,” I called, not knowing what else to say. I gave Buster a push. “Go on to your mama.”
Buster didn’t listen. He nosed up on my pocket. He was smelling my pretzels, I guessed, from the plane.
“Uh-uh, too salty. Go on now, git. I’ll bet Claire’s got some treats for you, something more healthy.”
Buster danced on his toes, and I sighed and stood up. This was awkward, and no use pretending it wasn’t. No use avoiding what had to come next. I took Buster’s collar and hustled him along.
“That’s it, good boy. Let’s walk you back over.”
Claire took Buster’s collar and snapped his leash on him. She frowned as she did, and my insides felt weak. Most of the time, you build someone up in your head, then you see them again and you can’t guess what the fuss was. But Claire was all I remembered and then some — a little tired-looking, but what doctor wasn’t? Her hair still looked softer than any I’d seen, though I couldn’t see a scenario where she’d let me touch it. She still had those curves that had once filled my dreams. And she looked angry, and I didn’t blame her.
“Thank you,” she said. “C’mon, Buster. Let’s go.”
I got halfway through wait, just the wuh sound, and Claire was already walking away. And I knew I should let her, if that’s what she wanted. She didn’t owe me anything, not even hello. Still, my chest hurt, and I ached to run after her, to spin her around and straight into my arms. How could four years have passed when it felt like four minutes, when she still scowled the same as the moment she’d dumped me? Didn’t she feel it too, the time dropping away? Didn’t she —
“Mommy!”
I jumped as a little kid charged out of the trees and latched onto Claire’s leg, and reached out for Buster. Claire glanced at me, shook her head, and took the kid’s hand.
“Come on, Oli. Time to go pick up Grandma.”
Oli’s face fell. “But, Mom! We just got here!”
“I know, but we’re late. Come on, shake a leg.”
Oli giggled and balanced himself on one foot. He shook his leg at her, but Claire didn’t smile. She hurried him away from me like she thought I might… what? Get mad she’d moved on? She had every right. I’d dreamed of that life with her, the nice house, the kids, but I hadn’t been there, so she’d found it elsewhere. Unless… unless, no. But, how old was that kid?
“Wait, Claire?—”
If she heard me, she gave no sign. She packed Oli into her dad’s station wagon, buckled him into his little car seat. Then she half-ran to the driver’s side door and jumped in herself, peeling out too fast. And then she was gone, along with… my kid?
My head spun. I dropped to one knee where I stood. No way was that my kid, but what if he was? Had his eyes been gray, or deep brown like Claire’s? His sandy blond hair was a mess like mine when I was a kid, too thick to lie flat, too fine to cut right. Like a pale dandelion gone to seed on his head. But, she’d have told me if he was my kid. Wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she?
I hitched a harsh breath. What now?