They drove home by way of country roads, largely in silence, the local public radio station playing its 11 pm ambient playlist hosted by John Diliberto. The interior of the car was lit by blue moonlight and orange dash lights. Cornfields zipped by windows on either side – silhouetted against the night sky. She could tell things weren’t right, but how could they be? She did not yet possess the wisdom or skill to fix it. She only knew that she wanted it fixed.
Soon the city streetlights welcomed them, rhythmically shining through windows, and cascading over the cabin when they turned on to Blackstone Ave.
They got out of the car. The hum of a sodium vapor streetlight almost lost under the cool breeze bringing impending rain.
Winnie stepped up to the stoop, Rowe followed.
She turned around. This was it. Time to say goodbye.
They shared a long look. So much to say, but unable to find the words.
“I had fun today,” he said, with a little bit too much upbeat confidence. Like an uncle talking to his nephew. “Despite all my rants,” he added. He might as well have winked and made a little gun gesture with his hands. She wanted to talk to the man who fixed her electrical box at 5 am, the man who dropped to his knees to apologize in the diner, the man who laughed with her atop the water tower. But he just managed a halfhearted smile.
“Me too,” she smiled softly.
This was madness. There were moments today she was able to be herself – wholly herself with a man – something she had not yet experienced, and now they were stumbling through what could be their last goodbye.
“Who knows, in another life, we could have been good together,” he said.
She didn’t like the air of finality in his words. She wanted to correct him. But how? And why? What did she want? She had just stated they couldn’t end up together. Her brain might have reminded her heart of this fact, if it had her heart’s attention, but it was too preoccupied with the moment before her.
“Are we not gonna see each other again?” she blurted it out, hearing too much emotion in them, trying to dial it back.
“I’m sure we’ll keep in touch,” he said with a shrug – shifting his weight, preparing for the inevitable exit.
The indifference in his words stung. Yes, she had pushed him into this position, but why the standoffish formality? It was a defense mechanism. Her mind raced and it started raining, just single drops, spitting in the breeze. The stoop did not cover him entirely. He was going to get wet. She wished time could stop. Life moves too fast. There are choices we make that we ponder for hours when alone, but when we’re in the moment, time doesn’t slow down for us, it keeps racing by. There was a dizzying array of possible futures. Some in which they walked away never to see each other again, others where she pressed her lips against his, each of these images were fleeting in her mind. Just stay.
She couldn’t say it out loud, but something in him could see her turmoil. He was good with things like that.
Rowe’s eyes softened. In an instant, she could see him again. It was as though his shell was suddenly imbued with the man she had spent the entire day with. He wrinkled his brow, pained – concerned.
“There’s a reason you made that deal… with the big man upstairs before you left this morning,” he offered.
There’s a reason I want you to stay, she thought but was unable to speak. She felt herself nodding like an actor, going along with the script that there was nothing wrong. Her heart ached but part of her brain was relieved. No drama, she couldn’t even imagine the scandal of bringing him back to her Yazoo church. Yes, her apartment was lonely, but it was familiar and safe. She had Netflix; she didn’t mind sleeping alone. If she were older and wiser, she’d identify this voice as that of fear, but she was nineteen and still learning.
He studied her as one would who is trying to soak in the Grand Canyon one last time before leaving it forever. Yes, he wanted to stay, but he reminded himself of her rejection of him at the carnival. Her words were clear. He inhaled deeply summoning resolve.
“Goodbye Winnie,” his voice was quiet and sincere.
“Goodbye,” her voice was weak – almost a whisper.
He turned and walked into the rain. Which now consisted of slow, large drops. She did not move until he closed the car door, at which point, she felt her emotion swell enough that it nearly forced her to run after him. She fought the impulse, spun, entered her door, closed it behind her, and leaned into staring up at the ceiling. She often did this when she fought tears. As a child and the youngest in her family with an aversion to being called a “crybaby,” she would actually lie on her back on her bed and hang her head off the edge so that tears would not run down her cheeks. Now she just looked up at the ceiling. It didn’t work, of course, she soon tasted a single salty tear in the corner of her mouth, but childhood habits shape our adult selves.
She finally slid down the door to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest, put her head in her hands and turned the world off.
What just happened? The myriad of possible futures each dissolving with a pop.
It’s easy to think about life choices in the abstract. To imagine long-term goals in a career or relationship, but life doesn’t happen in the abstract, it happens in real-time, in moments like this, where two doors are open, and you have to choose one. She closed her eyes and just as when she was 12 and the compressed carnival lights would playback on his eyelids at night in bed, the day’s events came back to her in an amorphous montage of memory. Lying side by side in the graveyard, Rowe’s leg against hers in the cart of the haunted house, his hand on the small of her back at the Book Loft.
Outside her apartment, Rowe pulled to the stop sign at the corner of Blackstone and High. There were no other cars, but he didn’t move. It was raining in earnest now and he let it beat on the sunroof as he laid his head back on the headrest, inhaling deeply – centering himself. He turned the radio on but quickly turned it off. There was no assuaging his discomfort. Now that he was alone in his car, he could take his armor off, those defenses meant to protect his heart had only left it hurt and alone. His mind, as well, was a collage of possible futures, each one popping out of existence like popcorn leaving nothing but loneliness in its wake. In truth, it wasn’t altogether clear to him yet what had just happened, what had happened just now, nor what had happened this day. All he knew was that he felt sharp pangs of regret. He glanced into his rearview mirror at Winnie’s house.
One by one, the windows lit up with warm glowing yellow lights, looking cozy in the rainstorm.
He stared at the glow – not with a look of pain, but one of longing. Her amorphous shadow passed from window to window as she walked from room to room until suddenly, in perfect unison, every window in the house went dark.
Not only was every light in her house out, but the lamp post outside her house went dark as well. This, he knew, was on an optical sensor that he had installed himself. Her power was out. He froze, let it sink in. His logical mind could conjure many reasons and explanations for what just happened, but somehow he didn’t want to listen. There was a deeper voice inside of him – one that had faith that this could mean more than the facts suggested, and for the first time in his life, he found it quite persuasive.