“Do you love me?”
He was careful to pose the question as an invitation, not an accusation. Perhaps rapprochement wasn’t impossible, despite the rekeyed locks and the garbage bags full of his stuff heaped on the back deck.
But she stiffened, her eyes narrowing into an accusing glare. “You’re the one who left,” Leanne reminded, her demeanour becoming dismissive.
Was she affecting nonchalance to protect herself? Claiming the high ground? Guilt-tripping? All the above?
Prick! he admonished.
Gloria had gone for a coffee. “Back in an hour,” she’d called up the half-flight of stairs from the foyer before closing the front door behind her.
Buddy wasn’t sure what secret mode of mother-daughter communication had passed between them while he and Leanne adjusted to each other’s presence in what had been their front room. But somehow their daughter had determined it was time to let them be on their own for a spell.
Perhaps she’d miscalculated?
The idea of flowers had flitted in and out of Buddy’s thoughts on his way in. A hummingbird-notion. Would a peace offering have made any difference? A single red rose, perhaps? Or a bunch? Potted geraniums that could be planted in the flowerbed out front? Or a gaudy arrangement to stick in a vase on the dining room table?
Absurd, of course, the very thought. Leanne would bin any bouquet of his before the echoes of their not-so-fond farewell stopped reverberating.
“I didn’t leave you, Leanne; I went looking for myself.” Although he meant it, the plea didn’t come across sincerely. His throat was tight, his larynx constricted in a spasm of self-doubt.
Maybe I’m not being sincere, he thought. Maybe I’m lying to myself and everyone else.
“So you embark on this voyage of self-discovery without so much as a goodbye. With a crappy little note, left on the dining room table?”
Mia culpa. Time for a dose of contrition…
He hated the admission—that he’d sized things up and snuck off like a theif.
But it’s true.
“I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me, or at least understand.”
Again, his plea flopped like a flipped pancake.
He was distracted for a moment by images of the contraptions men contorted themselves into before the maiden flight of the Kitty Hawk and the discovery—or was it the invention—of airflow, generating lift over a fixed wing. Buddy imagined himself flailing frantically, Icarus incarnate, falling, even though he believed it must be possible to fly.
Could he will it? Become airborne by simply believing?
“I can’t forgive or forget,” Leanne said firmly. “I think we’re finished, Buddy. I just want to sort through the wreckage, recover any artifacts we can divvy up or share, and move on. Okay?”
It’s one thing to stand on the brink, and look down, wondering if you’re going to jump; quite another to have the ledge crumble beneath your feet before your decision’s made. I must have looked shocked, Buddy thought later. I was shocked!
“I’m sorry, love, but I just can’t get back to where we need to be,” Leanne consoled. “Not after this. I think we’re better off following through on your decision before any more damage is done, while there’s still a chance for us to separate on amicable terms. Don’t you?”
Do I? he frowned.
“So your mind’s made up?” he demanded.
“You made it up for me!”
He made to hug her, but she recoiled, backing away like startled prey.
“Okay!” he sighed. “Okay. But this isn’t what I wanted. I just needed some time.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“This, I suppose. Confronting the truth we both knew was in the wings.”
“I think you should leave, Buddy,” she said, sounding like a TV cop securing a crime scene.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Do you want to take some of your stuff?”
“Later,” he huffed, clomping down the stairs.
His anger subsided as he pulled shut the front door… as if he’d cut an umbilical cord and was suddenly forced to breathe.
Fresh air! he gulped, blinking into the autumn light.
By the time he’d clopped down the front steps, lugged his self-pity across Sunnyside, and yanked open the creaking driver’s-side door of the Matrix, it felt to Buddy like he was going home.
To a camper in Bernice and Harry’s backyard?
For now, he rallied, but eventually to a place I’ve never been and can’t begin to imagine.
He nixed the urge to text Leanne. Say ‘Thanks!’
Home, it seemed in that moment, was not so much a matter of geography and architecture; it was a state of mind—a haven, safe from earthquakes, arsonists, floods, invasions, epidemics of every sort, yet fragile as a spider’s web, glistening with heavy drops of dew. A connective tissue of memories and dreams that could only exist inside him, a something insubstantial as a soul.
Souls, of course, don’t exist in the accepted sense of the word, Buddy reminded himself. His pet hamster Willie had taught him that, not long before he’d graduated from Sunday school. Well, graduated was perhaps something of a misrepresentation, outgrew was more like the truth. He’d started filching the donation money his mother gave him each week, heading down to the Snooker Nook instead of going to church. The Nook was owned by his friend Jerry Amsel’s dad, who let them play pool for free because he wanted to keep his son close. They used the collection plate money to buy Cokes and chips.
One night, without showing any symptoms, Willie died. Buddy woke up next morning, and there was his hamster, laying on its side in the wood shavings at the bottom of his cage, unresponsive.
I didn’t cry, Buddy remembered. But he did mourn Willie’s passing and felt a part of him was being buried too, digging the back yard grave and laying Willie into it.
Having stroked his companion’s fur one last time, Buddy covered Willie up. But he couldn’t staunch the insistent flow of his grieving logic. Thoughts released from the loosened soil insinuated themselves into consciousness, drawing nourishment from his friend’s decomposing remains.
Why is it so easy to love a pet and companion like Willie? Where did Willie go? Are all the cells in his body dead, or do some of them live on? Does Willie continue to exist because I remember him? Is that the only part of his spirit that survives? Am I responsible for keeping Willie alive in my memory? Should I be seeing the world as if through Willie’s eyes, at least part of the time, so he can continue to exist? What does that mean anyway, ‘to exist’?
The questions swarmed like mosquitoes in a swamp. To Buddy, it felt like contagion, infecting him sting-by-sting with an incurable disease that had no proper name, a malaise most of us fail to recognize, which remains a secret denied and misdiagnosed forever.
Weird,’ was the word he would use from then on to describe that day Willie died.
Next: Clinical Truth