“I didn’t like the way she sounded. Does she seem all right to you?”
“I’m not sure I want to answer that question. If I said no, you might come roaring down to see her, and she doesn’t want to see you. Not as things stand.”
Actually she had answered my question. “Was she okay when she came back?”
“She was fine. Glad to see us all.”
“But now she sounds distracted and says she feels sad.”
“Is that so surprising?” Miz Ellie spoke with asperity. “There are lots of memories here for Sadie, many of them connected to a man she still has feelings for. A nice man and a lovely teacher, but one who arrived flying false colors.”
That one really hurt.
“It seemed like something else. She spoke about some sort of coming crisis that she heard about from-” From the Yalie who was sitting in the doorway of history? “From someone she met in Nevada. Her husband filled her head with a lot of nonsense-”
“Her head? Her pretty little head?” Not just asperity now; outright anger. It made me feel small and mean. “George, I have a stack of folders a mile high in front of me, and I need to get to them. You cannot psychoanalyze Sadie Dunhill at long distance, and I cannot help you with your love life. The only thing I can do is to advise you to come clean if you care for her. Sooner rather than later.”
“You haven’t seen her husband around, I suppose?”
“ No! Goodnight, George!”
For the second time that night, a woman I cared about hung up on me. That was a new personal record.
I went into the bedroom and began to undress. Fine when she arrived. Glad to be back with all her Jodie friends. Not so fine now. Because she was torn between the handsome, on-the-fast-track-to-success new guy and the tall dark stranger with the invisible past? That would probably be the case in a romance novel, but if it was the case here, why hadn’t she been down at the mouth when she came back?
An unpleasant thought occurred to me: maybe she was drinking. A lot. Secretly. Wasn’t it possible? My wife had been a secret heavy drinker for years-before I married her, in fact-and the past harmonizes with itself. It would be easy to dismiss that, to say that Miz Ellie would have spotted the signs, but drunks can be clever. Sometimes it’s years before people start to get wise. If Sadie was showing up for work on time, Ellie might not notice that she was doing so with bloodshot eyes and mints on her breath.
The idea was probably ridiculous. All my suppositions were suspect, each one colored by how much I still cared for Sadie.
I lay back on my bed, looking up at the ceiling. In the living room, the oil stove gurgled-it was another cool night.
Let it go, buddy, Al said. You have to. Remember, you’re not here to get-
The girl, the gold watch, and everything. Yeah, Al, got it.
Besides, she’s probably fine. You’re the one with the problem.
More than just one, actually, and it was a long time before I fell asleep.
The following Monday, when I made one of my regular drive-bys of 214 West Neely Street in Dallas, I observed a long gray funeral hack parked in the driveway. The two fat ladies were standing on the porch, watching a couple of men in dark suits lift a stretcher into the rear. On it was a sheeted form. On the tottery-looking balcony above the porch, the young couple from the upstairs apartment was also watching. Their youngest child was sleeping in his mother’s arms.
The wheelchair with the ashtray clamped to the arm stood orphaned under the tree where the old man had spent most of his days last summer.
I pulled over and stood by my car until the hearse left. Then (although I realized the timing was rather, shall we say, crass) I crossed the street and walked up the path to the porch. At the foot of the stairs, I tipped my hat. “Ladies, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
The older of the two-the wife who was now a widow, I assumed-said: “You’ve been here before.”
Indeed I have, I thought of saying. This thing is bigger than pro football.
“He saw you.” Not accusing; just stating a fact.
“I’ve been looking for an apartment in this neighborhood. Will you be keeping this one?”
“No,” the younger one said. “He had some in -surance. Bout the only thing he did have. ’Cept for some medals in a box.” She sniffed. I tell you, it broke my heart a little to see how grief-stricken those two ladies were.
“He said you was a ghost,” the widow told me. “He said he could see right through you. Accourse he was as crazy as a shithouse mouse. Last three years, ever since he had his stroke and they put him on that peebag. Me n Ida’s goin back to Oklahoma.”
Try Mozelle, I thought. That’s where you’re supposed to go when you give up your apartment.
“What do you want?” the younger one asked. “We got to take him a suit on down to the funeary home.”
“I’d like the number of your landlord,” I said.
The widow’s eyes gleamed. “What’d it be worth to you, mister?”
“I’ll give it to you for free!” said the young woman on the second-floor balcony.
