Chapter 69
JOEL
When he woke again, Joel realized he would have to take the second ferry.
After Andrew had left, he had lain in bed for a long time, watching the ceiling shift from blue to blossom to gold.
On another morning, he would have risen for a run, but his heart felt like a kettlebell.
Eventually, somehow, he’d fallen back to sleep.
He was woken by the sound of children playing tag in the hallway, loud as a stampede.
He showered again and shaved, neatly folded his shirts and trousers, straightened the curtains.
The hotel room was somehow already a place in his memory.
In his life, he’d passed many happy hours—drinking beer in the park with Jack and Roger, watching Patriots games with his brothers on their parents’ wooden Zenith—that had bled into one another, a collage of sun and fumbles and half-recalled jokes, but loss crystallized everything that surrounded it.
He would remember every detail of this island for the rest of his days.
Downstairs, he ate breakfast by the window.
He listened to the tables around him, to see if there were any murmurings of trouble from the evening before, but all he heard were complaints of mosquito bites and hangovers, gossip about a girl who had briefly exposed herself on the dance floor, an uncle who’d drunk too much, and a young man, a Vietnam vet, who’d gone home with the prettiest bridesmaid, the one with the Japanese father.
Dresses had been stained, shoes had been ruined, but the guests spoke of the storm with fondness.
And then I bumped right into and Mitch just took off like and so lovely, to just listen to the piano.
It would be what they told everyone back home.
Before they’d all left for the island, it had been that the bride was part of a cult, and upon their return, that a storm had cut the power, that they had eaten their cake in a candlelit room, that they’d sung together in that soft glow.
Joel realized he would have to talk about the wedding.
His coworkers would ask seemingly harmless, banal questions about his time away.
The thought made his chest constrict, but he told himself he would brush them off, make excuses.
In his cramped office, he would find solace in someone else’s errors and how to fix them.
But with his friends, he’d have to push himself to tell the truth, to not hide this part of his heart any longer.
The waiter cleared his plate. The dining room was emptying, the tables littered with half-full coffee cups and half-eaten slices of toast. From Joel’s vantage, he saw Ken descending the main staircase, his leather bag tucked under one armpit.
One of the groomsmen was beside him, the one whose name Joel still could not recall.
Having caught sight of Joel, Ken stopped in front of the dining room’s doorway, the other man two steps ahead.
They’d be on the same ferry, but both knew they wouldn’t speak to each other.
They were never meant to be friends and would likely never see each other again.
Or maybe they would on some city sidewalk, each on their way somewhere, a woman beside them, or a colleague, or a child with their fingers threaded in their own, but they would have nothing left to say.
Most people were part of his life for no more than fleeting moments. He would have to make peace with this.
Ken gave him a small smile, and Joel nodded. They lifted their hands in farewell.