When Did You Wave Last
for Bruce Dodd
1,296 words
Mark Morris was flipping thru Cathedral looking for plotting ideas when his cell rang.
“Mark?” It was his x.
“Yeah,” He said as he ran into “Fever” and began to read:
”He’d been in a spot all summer, since early June when his wife had left him.”
“Have you been off this week? Have you been enjoying yourself?”
“Yeah.” He started skimming the story and his eyes fell upon:
“He understood that his life was entering a new period.”
“What have you been doing, relaxing?”
“Yeah.”
“The boys wanted to talk to you.“ Through a muffled phone I could hear,” Joe it’s Daddy.”
While he waited he read:
“In the next breath, he would say, “ I never want to see your face again. I’ll never forgive you for this, you crazy bitch,” Then, a minute later, “Come back, sweetheart, please. I love you and need you.” …It was at these times that he thought he could weep. He thought, you hear about stuff like this happening to other people.
“Daddy!” It was Joe’s jubilant cry. He had to take my glasses off to wipe away the wetness.
“What’s the happs duuuude!” He laughed back. “Fake it until you could make it,” kept popping into Mark’s head.
He began to read before he lost it:
“She told him that if he really loved her, as he said he did, as she really believed-she loved him too, don’t forget-then he would understand and accept things as they were.”
“What’s the happs?” slid by the knot in his throat.
“They be good mon,” mocked Joe in a bad black Jamaican accent.
“What did you do today? He came back, happy that he was taking the divorce so well, or at least faking it for my sake. His eyes fell upon:
“He couldn't’t imagine ever loving anyone again the way he loved her.”
“Swim.” There was a long awkward pause “I miss you.”
“God, I miss you too.”
The glasses were off by this time and the tears blurred everything. He got up and walked to the fireplace away from the other patrons of the library. The connection was bad and Joe was sporadic amidst bursts of static. It was all he could do to keep from crying out to Joe that he loved him and that we were going to be together again as a family. The words weren’t found or could be forced from that lie. He went back to the table and fought to find relief in “Fever.” Through a blurred vision it came to him:
“Then she went on to tell him that her head was in the right place for the first time in a long time. Next she wanted to talk about his head…It was going to improve any time now…”
“Joe can I speak to Nat?”
“Sure dad.” Through a muffled phone I heard Joe cry, “Nat it’s daddy!” He came back and said,” I love you dad.”
“I love you too.”
Joe put the phone down and Mark heard his ex and her parents and her sister’s family all singing the Sponge Bob theme song at the top of their lungs. He could hardly breathe now and had the handkerchief out wiping my eyes, trying to stop the river of snot as it slid toward my lip.
“Hey, daddy.” It was Nat.
“What’s up sugar pumpkin?” He choking on my tears.
“Nothing?”
“Did you go swimming?”
“Yeah.”
“At the pool or on the beach”
“The pool”
“Were your cousins nice to you?”
“Yeah.” He was being distracted by Sponge Bob in the background.
“I think it’s time for me to leave, tell Granny and Granddad I love them.”
“O.K. dad ..and dad?”
“What?
“I love you.”
“I love you too Nat.”
He closed my phone and went outside, leaving Cathedral laying flat on its’ spine on the long table near the beginning of the fiction section. After a walk and a store bought Coke, he went back to the library to finish “Fever.”
Finding the book where I left it he turned on the reading lamp and his eyes fell on this:
“Try writing about what it’s like. Something might come of it… At least you have something to show for it…. You’ve got to translate that into something usable.’’
For some reason He wanted to call his x’s father. He had been a good friend and he needed a friend now. Mark dialed the condo’s number and his former father-in-law answered.
“Bill?
“Mark”
“Something wrong?” Bill said.
“You got a minute?”
“Yes I do. Let me go to the bedroom.”
Mark could hear Sponge Bob grow fainter as the door slammed. In the background was the Pacific Ocean hitting a beach and the wind running through the palms’ leaves like a lover’s hand running through their beloved’s hair.
“Are you ok, Mark?”
“Yes, Bill I am. I know this might sound silly, but I need to read some Carver to you. Is it ok?
“What story?”
“Fever, know of it.”
“Yes, I do. Funny you should pick Carver. I bought Cathedral on the plane to reread.”
“Can I begin?
“Go ahead.”
He began to read in a voice calmed by truth:
”Mrs. Webster, there’s something I want you to know. For a long time my wife and I loved each other more than anything or anybody in the world. And that includes those children. We thought, well, we knew we’d grow old together. And we knew we’d do all the things in the world that we wanted to do, and do them together.” He shook his head. That seemed the saddest thing of all to him now-that whatever they did from now on, each would do it without the other.”
He laid my head down onto the book and cried.
Bill said during a lull,”Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“That was a story, a good story, but it wasn’t your story.”
“But I love her!”
“And it wasn’t enough.”
“But the kids?”
“The kids are strong Mark. They will survive.”
There was a long silence and all Mark could hear was the surf.
“When did you wave to her last?” Bill finally asked.
“Uh?”
“Please read, I think, the second to the last paragraph to me, ok?
“ Why?”
“Please, just do it.”
“OK.” Through a tear scarred throat the words tumbled out:
“Mrs. Webster looked at Carlyle and waved. It was then, as he stood in the window, that he felt something come to an end. It had to do with Eileen and the life before this. Had he ever waved at her? He must have; of course, he knew he had; yet he could not remember just now. But he understood it was over, and felt able to let her go. He was sure their life together had happened in the way he said it had. But it was something that had passed. And that passing-though it had seemed impossible and he fought against it-would be become part of him now, too, as surely as anything else he’d left behind.”
“When did you wave last to Lisa.”
“I can’t remember.”
All he could hear was their breathing.
“Mark,” Bill finally said
“Yes Bill.”
“May I read something to you?
“Yes.”
Mark could hear Bill thumbing through a book until he found what he was looking for. He cleared his throat and began:
“Good. Good for you.” Mrs. Webster said when she saw he had finished. “You’re made out of good stuff. And so is she so is Mrs., Carlyle. And don’t you forget it. You’re both going to be okay after this is over.’
“Good bye Mark”
“Good bye Bill.”
He switched off his phone and walked toward the door.
The End
Comments
384 days ago
the same ediotr said it was "experimental" in nature and didn't want to see a rewrite. She also said that it should be sent to the web zine Narrative. Is this a back of the hand slap at my talent and/or work? I need some feed back to see if it was her or me.
tks.
M.R. Merris