The Goodbye Summer

  “Hi,” she said, letting a note of amazement harmonize with the gladness, a vocal invitation to explain why he’d been all but mute for four days. “How are you? What’s been happening?”

  He sounded harried, but as soon as she heard his voice she calmed down. Oh, everything was fine. She pictured him at his desk, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder while he sifted through files and papers. Her Christopher, the same as always, and she’d been an idiot to get so worked up. “Hi,” he said, “yeah, it’s really been nuts around here, everything coming down at once.”

  “Well, I figured. I’ve missed you. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, fine, just incredibly busy.”

  “Sure. Sure. Well, would you like to do something? Come to dinner tonight or something? I can cook, you know.” He never came to her house; they always ate at his place or went to a restaurant.

  “No, sorry, it’s impossible tonight. I’m snowed.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, maybe one night over the weekend. Hey, I could bring you dinner,” she realized. “You have to eat sometime, and that way you wouldn’t waste time—”

  “Let me call you, okay? It’s so hectic right now, I can’t plan.”

  “That’s fine, I love spur of the moment. Well, so. How are you? I’ve been playing some of the CDs you lent me. I love the Saint-Saëns especially. It’s really—”

  “Caddie, I can’t talk right now.”

  “Oh!”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Okay!”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  “Great.”

  That was on Thursday. He didn’t call that night. She skipped her usual Friday morning visit with Nana in case he called then, but he didn’t. Not on Saturday, either. She couldn’t believe it; if one of her students hadn’t called to reschedule a lesson, she’d have thought her phone was broken. She spent Saturday evening reconstructing everything they’d said to each other—which was almost nothing—since he’d dropped her off six days ago, kissed her goodbye on the front porch, and driven away, promising to call. “I’ll call you.” He’d said that after she’d told him what a lovely time she’d had, the best. He’d agreed—“I had a great time, too, Caddie. I’ll call you.”

  Sunday morning, she woke up with a headache. Rain sluiced down the kitchen window from a stopped-up gutter, and on the bird feeder a thrush or a sparrow or something huddled under the slanted roof, pecking at damp seed. She was washing the greasy popcorn pot from last night’s dinner, not thinking about anything, when all of a sudden she turned off the water and reached for the phone, hands dripping. Christopher’s number rang four times before his machine picked up.

  “Oh, hi, it’s me. Caddie. Just calling to say—hi, hope you’re fine. Call when you get a chance. See you. Bye.”

  Maybe he was on his way over. Sunday morning—he was probably either out walking King or on his way over. “I look awful!” she said to her reflection in the watery window, and she ran upstairs to get dressed. She put on jeans and the dark green blouse he’d admired once. She washed her face and put on lipstick. “Bleck.” She looked like a corpse with a red mouth. She wiped the lipstick off.

  She took Finney out, hoping he would take care of his business among the sculptures in the yard and scamper right back inside; that’s what he usually did when it rained. But not today, oh no, all he wanted was to drag her behind him down the sidewalk, and he didn’t mind strangling himself to do it. She’d come out without her umbrella; by the time they returned from a trip around the block, she was as soaking wet as if she’d taken a shower in her clothes. Drying Finney off with a smelly old towel, the thought came to her that she might’ve just missed Christopher. He’d had exactly enough time to arrive, run up to the door in the rain, knock, get no answer, race back to his car, and drive away.

  She waited fifteen minutes, plenty of time for him to get home. Then she dialed his number again.

  No answer. She didn’t leave a message.

  Wake House was quiet, practically empty downstairs, and no one was on the front porch because of the rain. She waved to Cornel in the Red Room and started for the stairs, but just then Brenda came into the hall from her office, heading for the kitchen. She had a wrench in one hand and a plunger in the other. The plumbing was always on the fritz somewhere, and unless it was a major breakdown, she was the plumber.

  “Hey, Caddie. Looking for Frances? She went to church. Good thing, because the elevator’s acting up. I’ve got the man coming any second.”

  Caddie paused with her foot in midair on the first step. “Nana went to church?”

  “Yeah, Claudette took her in the van with Bea and Edgie and the others. Mrs. Brill, Bernie—”

  “What church?”

  “Unitarian.”

  Ah.

  “It’s the only one they could agree on.”

  “Is Thea here?”

  “She’s sleeping.” Brenda looked wistfully out at the gray day. “Isn’t it a perfect day for a nap?”

  So then Caddie didn’t know what to do with herself. She’d have tidied up Nana’s room, but she’d been forbidden to touch anything—so had the cleaning staff; they were only allowed to change the sheets and clean the bathroom—so there was no point in going up there.

  Magill—he must be here. Except when he went to see Dr. Lieberman, he was always here.

  Through his open door, she saw him lying in bed with the covers up to his chin. “You asleep?” she whispered under the sound of an old movie on his TV set.

  He smiled even before he opened his eyes. “Caddie. Hey.” He hoisted himself up by the elbows. “Come on in.”

  “Just for a minute, I have to—Oh, no! What happened to you?” Through his shaggy hair, she could see a bandage over his right eyebrow half covering a swollen, plum-colored bruise. He had a black eye, too. “Yikes, what did you do?”

  “Fell. It’s not interesting.” He patted the side of the bed. “Sit.”

  “How? Where?”

  “Second-floor landing. Missed a couple of steps, whap.”

  “Why didn’t you take the elevator?” She sat down on his bed gingerly, in case he’d injured parts she couldn’t see. “I bet you weren’t wearing your helmet, either. What else did you hurt?”

  “You left out, ‘Were you drinking?’ Then you’d be Brenda.”

  “Yes, but she’s probably worried about a lawsuit.”

  “And you’re worried about me.” When he lifted his eyebrows hopefully, he winced.

  “Well, look at you. Look at all this food.” The tray on his bedside table hadn’t been touched. “How are you going to get well if you don’t eat?”

  “Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in a month.”

  “You saw me last week. What else did you hurt?”

  “Nothing, my knee. How was your weekend with Timmy?”

  She studied her fingernails. “Great. We saw the monuments, went to some interesting restaurants. Walked around.” She met his eyes for a second, then looked away. “It was great.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Nothing, I told you. Don’t call him Timmy.”

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “Thanks. Look who’s talking.” Both of his eyes, not just the black one, were bloodshot. The pillow had pushed his hair up in patches, and the disreputable beard stubble on his cheeks made him look more unstable than rakish. Thea didn’t believe his problems were physical, or not all of them. She thought he’d shut down his senses after the accident to punish himself. That’s why he couldn’t hear sometimes, couldn’t taste or smell his food, literally couldn’t see straight—he thought he belonged in prison, she said, so he’d made one out of his own body.

  “What good does making yourself sick do?” Caddie blurted out.

  “What?”

  She looked down, afraid she’d crossed a line. “I just want you to…straighten up.” She laughed, to show she knew that sounded unsympathetic but that she meant well.

/>   He didn’t smile back. “Oh, thanks. I’ll be out of here tomorrow. I’ll straighten up and be on my way.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, thanks, thanks for the advice, this is great. Hey, when I think of all the time I wasted on Lieberman when I could’ve come straight to Caddie Winger.”

  “I just—I know you’ve got guilt feelings, but—”

  “Look, don’t psychoanalyze me. I can hardly afford one shrink.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I wish you weren’t here. That’s all, I wish you were in your factory making feet.”

  He slid down on the bed and pulled the sheet over his head.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “So what went wrong with you and your boyfriend?” With each word, the sheet puffed up under the narrow wedge shape of his nose. “Trouble in paradise?”

  She turned away. On the television, two women in shoulder pads were exchanging staccato bursts of words. Outside, rain plopped in heavy, stolid splashes on the concrete floor of the porch, puddling in the cracks and gurgling in the leaky gutters. Caddie sighed, feeling dreary and wilted.

  Magill pulled the sheet down to his lips. “What happened?” he said in his normal voice, not the sarcastic one.

  She took a long time answering, thinking of ways to phrase it. But then she just admitted, “I don’t know. I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Sometimes guys…”

  “What?” Tell me, she thought, give me the answer. At the same time, though, she had no hope that somebody like Magill could know what was going on in Christopher’s mind.

  “Sometimes we act like jerks. Women don’t even have to do anything to make us feel, you know…”

  “What?”

  “Crowded.”

  “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything. Just the opposite.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  She and Christopher had stayed in bed late on their last morning, reading the papers and eating room service breakfast. Caddie had showed him a feature on married couples having their golden anniversaries—because it was interesting, it had the wedding photos right next to pictures of the same couples today. “Before and after,” Christopher had called them, and she’d had to agree; it was both fascinating and appalling to see what time had done to the natty, hopeful, sweet-faced brides and grooms. Some were completely unrecognizable, but most were simply vague, bleached-out versions of their younger selves. They’d turned white. Their close-mouthed smiles weren’t jaunty or cocky anymore, as if faith in the future was something else they’d run out of in fifty years.

  “Imagine being with the same person for half a century,” Caddie had marveled. “I’m not even sure it’s natural.”

  “My grandparents have been together longer than that,” Christopher had said, sounding proud.

  “Do they still like each other?”

  He’d thought for a second. “Not much.” They’d laughed.

  “You see? People shouldn’t have to promise each other their whole lives. If we lowered our expectations, we wouldn’t have to disappoint each other.”

  “So you’re against marriage?”

  “In its present form,” she’d declared. “We should have renewable contracts, every five years.”

  “What about kids?”

  She couldn’t tell how seriously he was taking this. But she wasn’t saying it to please him, hadn’t been trying to paint a picture of herself as an independent woman with no hidden designs on his freedom. She’d been trying to confide something it was hard for her to admit, something she’d never even told anyone before: she was against marriage. Not because it wouldn’t be grand—how wonderful to be one of the old ladies in these pictures in the newspaper, standing beside one of these bald, portly, doughy old men, still going strong, still holding hands on the way to their certain future. It was just that that kind of permanence wasn’t for her. Winger women lived their lives without long-term partners, and Caddie fit comfortably in the family tradition.

  “Kids,” she’d said. “That’s a problem.”

  “Don’t you want children?”

  She’d looked into Christopher’s clear green eyes, searching for a hint to what he wanted her to say. She wasn’t cynical about men, far from it, but she’d had a feeling this was a trick question. Still, what could she tell him except the truth?

  “Not really. I mean…” She’d started to equivocate, then gave up. “No, I don’t. I’m not cut out to be anybody’s mother. Some people are, some aren’t. I’m not.”

  Was that the right answer? He had three sisters; his grandparents had been married for over fifty years; he came from Iowa. Of course he wanted children.

  “What about you?” she’d said, reaching for her cold coffee cup, feigning extreme offhandedness. “You probably want five or six kids.”

  “What makes you say that?” He’d started on the sports page; he was losing interest in the conversation.

  “Because you’d make such a great father.”

  He’d nodded slowly. “I would. But I don’t want kids, either. It’s too bad—the ones who’d make the best parents never want children.”

  She’d felt flattered—he must be including her in that assessment. She’d wanted to ask why he thought she’d make a good mother, but she’d wanted to seem nonchalant on the whole subject even more. So she’d let it drop and started the crossword puzzle.

  “The guy’s an ass,” Magill said. “Forget about him.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “No, he’s not. All he did was not call me.”

  “I rest my case.” He folded his hands over his stomach.

  She smiled. “Silly.” It was tempting to go on, get more sympathy, but she refrained. “I should go. Do you have any dope?”

  “Say what?” He sat up on his pillows.

  “Dope, grass. Do you have any marijuana? It’s not for me.”

  “Who, then? Christopher? No, I don’t, what do you take me for? Do I look like a dope dealer?”

  She almost laughed, since the answer to that was absolutely yes. “No, not Christopher, somebody else. I don’t want to say who.”

  “Someone I know?” He looked shocked, then intrigued. “Who?”

  “I’m not saying. Never mind, you don’t have any, so forget I asked.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Nobody. I’m not telling.”

  “Frances?”

  “My grandmother?” She burst out laughing.

  He rasped his chin whiskers in a thoughtful, calculating way. “Okay, I know somebody. All I have to do is make a phone call.”

  “Oh, great. Well—will you?”

  “Happy to. On one condition.”

  “Uh-oh. No—”

  “You have to tell me who wants it.”

  “No! No fair.”

  “No deal.”

  “Blackmail! Okay, I’ll tell you, but you won’t believe me.” She paused for dramatic effect. “It’s Thea.”

  “Thea.” Magill’s face spread in a slow grin. “I believe you. And now I’ve got another condition.”

  She drove by Christopher’s house on the way home. Not exactly on the way; technically it was a mile and a half out of the way. The rain made it hard to see whether the lights were on behind the closed blinds in his front window, so she turned at the alley and drove around the back. What if he was walking King in the backyard or taking out the garbage, what if he saw her? She’d die. But the rear of his first-floor apartment was as shuttered and dark as the front, and his car wasn’t on the concrete pad beside the fence.

  Maybe he was out of town. A family emergency, something so urgent he hadn’t had time yet to tell her about it.

  Since Thursday?

  She spent the evening practicing her violin. She was working on Dvovák’s Romance in F minor, but she found it echoed her achy mood too closely, she couldn’t stay with it for long. She began to play the intense, insistent first movement of the A-minor con
certo of Vivaldi; she’d learned it for a long-ago recital, and she still loved to dig into it, that urgent six-note repetition. But tonight it sounded more anxious than joyful, and she had to abandon that, too.

  An irritating melody had been running through her brain for days, since Angie’s last lesson. She found herself fingering the first few mournful notes of “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Angie wanted to play the song wrong, anyway, jolly and rollicking, singing along, almost like a jig—Caddie wasn’t sorry she’d talked her out of it. If you were going to play it, play it without double stops. Single notes only in a hopeless, yearning circle. Make the tune hard and bitter, mountain music, primitive and sad and slow. She half hypnotized herself with the plaintive melody; there seemed no way to end it, it kept rounding back and starting over. Angie was crazy to think this was a good song for the pageant. It was much too sad. It was tragic. Caddie finally ended it by setting her instrument down.

  The house was so quiet. “Too quiet,” she said to Finney, who followed her from room to room like a little white ghost. People talked about dogs being attuned to their moods, exhibiting canine empathy when they were blue or depressed, nudging them with their paws, licking tears from their cheeks. Finney wasn’t that kind of dog, usually. Humans were useful to him for food, play, petting, and walks, and as long as you provided enough of those your mood was irrelevant to him. Tonight he wasn’t himself, though. He wouldn’t leave her alone. She touched his nose to see if it was hot. No; but still, it seemed more likely that he was sick than that he knew she was. Sick in the heart.

  She hadn’t been lonely in a long while. Weeks. She hadn’t had this tightness just below the chest that wasn’t pain, exactly, more like nothing, an empty pocket of air at the center. I’m by myself again. Worse now, because she thought she’d been rescued.

  In Washington she’d been so brave, speaking right up to strangers, waiters and shopkeepers and people like that, in the bold, arch, humorous way she admired so much in others. Being with Christopher had given her the courage, made her feel assured and strong, as if she were anybody’s equal. It was like being drunk. On the street, glimpses she caught of herself and Christopher in store windows had made her feel proud because they were so obviously a couple. Everything added up, like a math problem or puzzle pieces fitting together. Completion, a mystery solved.