Long Made Short (5 page)

The plane by now couldn’t be seen. Others could, going different ways, but none seemed
to alter their routes for us no matter how much waving I did. It was a clear day,
blue sky, no clouds, the sun moving very fast. She said “What’s that?” pointing down
and I said “Keep your arm up, we have to continue flying.” She said “I am, but what’s
that?” and I said “Looks like a ship but it’s probably an illusion.” “What’s an illusion?”
and I said “What a time for word lessons; save them for when we get home. For now
just enjoy the flying and hope for no sudden air currents’ shifts.” My other arm held
her tightly and I pressed my face into hers. We flew like that, cheek to cheek, our
arms out but not moving. I was worried because I hadn’t yet come up with any idea
to help us make a safe landing. How do we descend, how do we land smoothly or crash-land
without breaking our legs? I’ll hold her legs up and just break mine if it has to
come to that. She said “I love you, Daddy, I both like you and love you and always
will. I’m never going to get married and move away from home.” I said “Oh well, one
day you might, not that I’ll ever really want you to. And me too to you, sweetie,
with all that love. I’m glad we’re together like this. A little secret though. For
the quickest moment in the plane I thought I wouldn’t jump out after you, that something
would hold me back. Now nothing could make me happier than what I did.”

We left the ocean and we were over cliffs and then the wind shifted and we were being
carried north along the coast. We’d been up at almost the same distance from water
and land for a long time and I still had no idea how to get down. Then along the coastal
road I saw my wife driving our car. Daniel was in the front seat, his hand sticking
out the window to feel the breeze. The plane must have reported in about the two people
sucked out of the plane, and when Sylvia heard about it she immediately got in the
car and started looking for us, thinking I’d be able to take care of things in the
air and that the wind would carry us east.

“Look at them, sweetheart, Mommy and Daniel. He should stick his arm in; what he’s
doing is dangerous.” She said “There aren’t any other cars around, so it can’t hurt
him.” “But it should be a rule he always observes, just in case he forgets and sticks
it out on a crowded highway. And a car could suddenly come the other way. People drive
like maniacs on these deserted roads and if one got too close to him his arm could
be torn off.” “But the car would be going the other way—wouldn’t it?—so on Mommy’s
side, not his,” and I said “Well, the driver of another car going their way could
suddenly lose his head and try and pass on the right and get too close to Daniel’s
arm—Daniel,” I screamed, “put your arm back right now. This is Daddy talking.” His
arm went back in. Sylvia stopped the car, got out and looked up and yelled “So there
you are. Come back now, my darlings; you’ll get yourselves killed.” “Look at her worrying
about us, Judith—that’s nice, right?—Don’t worry, Sylvia,” I screamed, “we’re doing
just fine, flying. There’s no feeling like it in the world, we’re both quite safe,
and once I figure out a way to get us down, we will. If we have to crash-land doing
it, don’t worry about Judith—I’ll hold her up and take the whole brunt of it myself.
But I think it’s going to be some distance from here, inland or on the coast, so you
just go home now and maybe we’ll see you in time for dinner. But you’ll never be able
to keep up with us the way this wind’s blowing, and I don’t know how to make us go
slower.” “You sure you’ll be all right?” she yelled, and I said “I can hardly hear
you anymore, but yes, I think I got everything under control.”

We flew on, I held her in my arm, kissed her head repeatedly, thinking if anything
would stop her from worrying, that would. “You sure there’s nothing to worry about,
Daddy? I mean about what you said to Mommy,” and I said “What are you doing, reading
my mind? Yes, everything’s okay, I’m positive.” We continued flying, each with an
arm out, and by the time night came we were still no closer to or farther away from
the ground.

They’re sitting. “It’s wrong,” she says. He says “I know.” She stands, he does right
after her. “It’s all wrong,” she says. “I know,” he says, “but what are we going to
do about it?” She goes into the kitchen, he follows her. “It almost couldn’t be worse,”
she says. “Between us—how could it be? I don’t see how.” “I agree,” he says, “and
I’d like to change it from bad to better but I don’t know what to do.” She pours them
coffee. She puts on water for coffee. She fills the kettle with water. She gets the
kettle off the stove, shakes it, looks inside and sees there’s only a little water
in it, turns on the faucet and fills the kettle halfway and then. And then? “Do you
want milk, sugar?” she says. This after the water’s dripped through the grounds in
the coffee maker, long after she said “I’m making myself coffee, you want some too?”
He nodded. Now he says “You don’t know how I like it by now?” “Black,” she says. “Black
as soot, black as ice. Black as the ace of spades, as the sky, a pearl, black as diamonds.”
“Whatever,” he says, “whatever are you talking about?” “Just repeating something you
once said. How you like your coffee.” “I said that? Those, I mean—I said any of them?
Never. You know me. I don’t say stupid or foolish things, I try not to talk in clichés,
I particularly dislike similes in my speech, and if I’m going to make a joke, I know
beforehand it’s going to get a laugh. But to get back to the problem.” “The problem
is this,” she says. “We’re two people, in one house, with only one child, and I’m
not pregnant with a second. We have a master bedroom and one other bedroom, so one
for us and one for the child. We have no room for guests. We have no guest room. The
sofa’s not comfortable enough to sleep on and doesn’t pull out into a bed. We have
no sleeping bag for one of us to sleep on the floor. I don’t want our boy to sleep
in the master bed with one of us while the other sleeps in his bed. One of us has
to go, is what I’m saying.” “I understand you,” he says. “The problem’s probably what
you said. It is, let’s face it. One of us has to go because both of us can’t stay,
and traditionally it’s been the man. But I don’t want to go, I’d hate it. Not so much
to leave you but him. Not at all to leave you. I’m being honest. Don’t strike out
against me for it, since it’s not something I’m saying just to hurt you.” “I wouldn’t,”
she says. “I like honesty. And the feeling’s mutual, which I’m also not saying just
to get back at you for what you said. But I’m not leaving the boy and traditionally
the man is, in situations like this, supposed to, or simply has. We’ve seen it. Our
friends, and friends of friends we’ve heard of, who have split up. The child traditionally
stays with the woman. And it’s easier, isn’t it, for the one without the child to
leave than the one who stays with it, and also ends up being a lot easier on the child.
So I hope that’s the way it’ll turn out. I think we both agree on that or have at
least agreed on it in our conversation just now.” “Our conversation, which is continuing,”
he says. “Our conversation, which should conclude. It wouldn’t take you too long to
pack, would it?” “You know me,” he says, “I never acquired much. Couple of dress shirts,
two T-shirts, three pairs of socks, not counting the pair I’m wearing, three or four
handkerchiefs, a tie. Two undershorts, including the one on me, pair of work pants
in addition to the good pants I’ve on. Sports jacket to match the good pants, work
jacket and coat, hat, muffler, boots, sneakers, the shoes I’m wearing, and that should
be it. Belt, of course. Bathing suit and running shorts. Anything I leave behind—some
books except the one I’m reading and will take—I can pick up some other time. The
tie, in fact, I can probably leave here; I never use it.” “You might,” she says. “Anyway,
it’s small enough to take and not use. Take everything so you’ll be done with it.
So you’re off then? Need any help packing?” “For that amount of stuff? Nah. But one
last time?” “What, one last time?” she says. “A kiss, a smooch, a feel, a hug, a little
bit of pressing the old family flesh together, okay?” “You want to make me laugh?
I’ll laugh. Cry? I’ll do that too. Which do you want me to do?” “Okey-doke, I got
the message and was only kidding.” “Oh yes, for sure, only kidding, you.” “What’s
that supposed to mean?” he says. “Oh you don’t know, for sure, oh yes, you bet.” “If
you’re referring to that smooch talk, what I meant was I’d like to be with my child
for a few minutes before I go. To hug, squeeze, kiss and explain that I’m not leaving
him but you. That I’ll see him periodically, or really as much as I can—every other
day if you’ll let me. You will let me, right?” “For the sake of him, of course, periodically.
More coffee?” “No thanks,” he says. “Then may I go to my room while you have this
final get-together with him? Not final; while you say good-by for now?” “Go on. I
won’t steal him.”

They move backward, she to the couch, he to the chair. They never drank coffee, never
made it; never had that conversation. They’re both reading, or she is and he has the
book on his lap. Their son’s on the floor putting a picture puzzle together. It’s
a nice domestic scene, he thinks, quiet, the kind he likes best of all. Fire going
in the fireplace—he made it. A good one too, though fires she makes are just as good.
It doesn’t give off much heat, fault of the fireplace’s construction, but looks as
if it does and is beautiful. Thermostat up to sixty-eight so, with the fire, high
enough to keep the house warm, cozy. He has tea beside him on the side table. On the
side table beside him. Beside his chair. A Japanese green tea, and he’s shaved fresh
ginger into it. Tea’s now lukewarm. Tastes it; it is. He’s been thinking these past
few minutes and forgot about the tea. She has a cup of hot water with lemon in it.
Not hot now—she might even have finished it—but was when he gave it to her. About
ten minutes ago she said “Strange as this must sound”—he’d said he was making himself
tea, would she like some or anything with boiling water?—“it’s all I want. I wonder
if it means I’m coming down with something.” He said “You feel warm?” “No.” “Anything
ache—limbs, throat, extremities?” “Nope. I guess I’m not,” and resumed reading. “What
could you be coming down with, Mommy?” the boy said. “Your mommy means with a cold,”
he said. “Oh,” the boy said and went back to his puzzle. I wonder, the man thinks,
what that long parting scene I imagined means. It’s not like that with us at all.
We’re a happy couple, a relatively happy one. Hell, happier than most it seems, more
compatible and content and untroubled than most too. I still love her. Do I? Be honest.
I still do. Very much so. Very much? Oh, well, most days not as passionately or crazily
as I loved her when I first met her or the first six months or so of our being together
before we got married or even the first six months or so of our marriage, but close
enough to that. She still excites me. Very much so. Physically, intellectually. We
make love a lot. About as much as when we first met, or after the first month we met.
She often initiates it. Not because I don’t. Lots of times she does when I’m thinking
of initiating it but she starts it first. She doesn’t seem dissatisfied. I’m not too.
What’s there to be dissatisfied about? A dozen or so years since we met and we still
go at it like kids, or almost like kids—like adults, anyone—what I’m saying is, almost
as if sometimes it’s the first. I have fantasies about other women but what do they
mean? Meaning, they don’t mean much: I had them a week after I met her, they’re fleeting
and they probably exist just to make it even better with her, but probably not. They
exist. That’s the way I am. As long as I don’t act on them, which I’d never do, for
why would I? Which is what I’m saying. And she tells me she loves me almost every
day. Tells me almost every day. And almost every night one of the last things she
says to me, in the dark or just before or after she turns off the light, is “I love
you, dearest.” And I usually say “I love you too,” which is true, very much so: I
do, and then we’d briefly kiss and maybe later, maybe not, after I put down my reading,
make love. So why’d I think of that scene? Just trying it out? Wondering how I’d feel?
How would I? Awful, obviously. I couldn’t live without her. Or I could but it’d be
difficult, very, extremely trying, probably impossible, or close. And without the
boy? Never. As I said in the scene, I want to see him every day. He’s such a good
kid. I want to make him breakfast every morning till he’s old enough to make his own,
help him with his homework when he wants me to and go places with him—museums, the
park, play ball with him, take walks with him—with him and her. Summer vacations,
two to three weeks here or there, diving off rafts, long swims with him alongside
me. Things like that. Libraries. He loves libraries and children’s bookstores. Really
odd that I thought of that scene then. Just trying it out as I said, that’s all, or
I suppose.

He gets up and gets on the floor and says “Need any help?” “No, Dad, thanks. If I
do I’ll tell you.” “Sure now?” “Positive. I like to figure things out myself. That’s
the object of the puzzle, isn’t it?” “Well, sometimes it’s nice to do it with other
people—it can be fun. But do what you want. And you’re pretty good at this.” “So far
I am. I want to get up to one with a thousand pieces. This is only five hundred. But
that’s still two hundred more than the last one I did, which was two hundred fifty.”
“Two hundred fifty more than the last one,” he says. “Two hundred fifty times two
hundred fifty—no, I mean times two; or two hundred fifty plus another two hundred
fifty equals—” “Five hundred. I know. Two hundred fifty times two hundred fifty is
probably fifty thousand, or a hundred.” “That’s good. You’re so smart.” He touches
the boy’s cheek. “Okay, but if you need any help, whistle.” “What for?” “I mean—it’s
just an expression, like what you said before: if you want me to help you’ll tell
me.”