Love in the Present Tense (22 page)

The message changes. We hear the click of a new message and we stay silent and we wait. First there's nothing. No voice. Like it's going to be a hang-up.

Then three words. Just three. In a voice so familiar I could cry.

“I loved you.”

It makes my scalp tingle in a weird way and I decide it would be a good idea to go sit down on the couch, so I do.

Leonard says, “That sounded like Barb.”

“It was.”

“Why was she saying it in the past tense like that?”

I breathe deeply. As deeply as I can around this big boulder in my chest.

I've been so focused on Leonard, and that's been very convenient. A way to cover another crushing loss, but it's still out there, I know. Waiting for its moment. Waiting to come inside. To insist it be felt.

Like now.

“Thing is,” I say, “that sort of evaporated, too.”

“Just like that?” he asks.

He looks small in his wheelchair in the center of the room. His huge leg cast is propped straight out. His hair has begun to grow back around the head wounds. Now that he's sad for me, he looks smaller and more wounded.

“Just like that.”

“Poor Mitch,” he says. “After all those years.” Then we sit quietly for a moment and he says, “Even so, though. I don't see why the past tense. I mean, she didn't stop loving you just in the past few days. Did she?”

“I don't suppose so,” I say. “I think it's just a shield she uses. To be able to say a thing like that at all.”

Leonard nods. I can see him fitting this together in his head, meshing it in with a lot of other information he's seen with his own eyes and knows to be true.

“Poor Mitch. You really lost everything, huh?”

“No,” I say. “Not everything.”

I wheel him into his room and help him over onto his new bed. It's hard, because if I hold him tightly I'll hurt his ribs. And if I don't he might fall.

I do the best I can, and he barely makes a noise, but I can tell it's not a pleasant moment for him.

“It's weird,” he says. “I really don't remember pulling myself onto that glider. I was pretty sure I was in the water when I passed out.”

“You must have really wanted to survive.”

“I did,” he says.

“Obviously,” I say.

LEONARD,
age
18:
love in the present tense

Why do I feel so young right now? I really haven't figured that out. I don't even think I'm trying. More giving in to it. Letting it have its way.

It's about midnight, but I'm not asleep. Of course, I've been sleeping all kinds of crazy hours. Like all day.

But now it's night, and it's dark. And I'm alone. And it makes me just a little bit lonely and scared.

“Mitch?” I call it out pretty loud. His room is right upstairs from mine. If I could just reach that high I'd knock on the ceiling. Because it's important. “Mitch?” It hurts my ribs to yell. But I still do.

It's amazing how much this already feels like home again.

A minute later he comes stumbling in, looking at his watch. It's not on his wrist. He's just holding it in his hand when he comes through the door. Looking at it. There's just enough light for me to see him doing that. Not enough for him to see what time it is.

“I think it might be too early,” he says.

Which seems a little bit confusing. Because if anything I'm calling for him too late at night.

“Too early for what, Mitch?”

“Your pain medication.”

“That wasn't it.”

“Oh. What?”

He sits on the edge of my bed with me. And then I feel sheepish and strange.

“I don't want to sleep alone. Can I sleep in your room like I used to sometimes?”

I hear him breathe in the dark, and then he says, “I don't know how we'd ever get you up to the loft.”

“We could do that piggyback thing. Where I hang around your neck.”

“Leonard. That was a really swell trick when you were five. Right now I'd worry about dropping you. What if I brought the rollaway bed in here and slept right here in your room?”

“Okay,” I say. “That would be good.”

After he's all moved in, just before he settles in to sleep, I say, “Light a candle. Okay, Mitch?”

I'm hoping he's awake by now so that we can talk for a while. I really don't feel like going to sleep.

He has to bring a candle down from the loft.

Then, when he lights it, I realize that I'm about to get the answer to a significant question. And I feel scared, like I'm not ready to know yet. So I keep my eyes squeezed tightly shut.

I'm lying on my back facing the ceiling, watching the flickery glow against my closed eyelids.

“You know what else is weird,” I say. Like we never stopped having that old conversation in all these hours since we last talked. “I keep looking at those pictures of me and Pearl. And she looks so worried. We were having this wonderful day that was nothing but fun. But she looks all distracted and scared. And now I don't know why.”

“She was a grown-up,” Mitch says. “An extremely young one, but still. Grown-ups always have some unfortunate thing on their minds. Why are your eyes all squeezed shut? Are you okay?”

“Tell you later,” I say. “Tell you when you tell me what happened to your face.”

“Ah,” Mitch says. He doesn't sound sleepy. “I see. Are we moving into one of those new phases where we tell each other the God's honest truth?”

“Maybe so,” I say. “I think so.”

“Okay. I guess I can deal with that. Harry broke my nose.”

“Oh.”

“Because he found out about me and Barb.”

“Oh.” I sit on that for a while and then say, “Who would have thought Harry was capable of all that passion?”

“That's what I thought,” he says. He sounds excited to have his thinking seconded like that.

It feels good that we're talking. Really talking. About things that matter. About things that are true, even if they don't show us in the most flattering possible light.

My eyes are still shut tight.

I say, “He must've been crushed.”

“Yeah,” Mitch says. “I really hurt the guy.”

“So we're both feeling pretty guilty right now.” He doesn't even ask. Just waits patiently. Gives me time to gear up to elaborate. “I know I've put you through a lot, you and Jake and Mona and the other kids. All the people who love me. I know this has been really hard on you. I'm sorry for being so stupid.”

“Apology accepted,” he says, and we lie quietly for a long time.

I still haven't opened my eyes.

Then Mitch says, “Can I ask you a really important question?”

I think I know what he's going to ask. Even though it's a mile from anything we've just been talking about.

“You want to know if Pearl is still with me.”

“How did you know I was going to ask that?”

“I don't know. I just knew.”

“So. Can I ask?”

“I'm not sure.”

“You're not sure if I can ask?”

“No. You can ask. I'm not sure if she's still with me. I'll tell you in a minute.”

I open my eyes. I look at the candle flame and know. It's a sweet, good-feeling kind of knowing, even though it isn't quite the answer I want. The flame has this openness to it, like it still contains a sacred space, but right at the moment it isn't occupied by any sacred person, place, or thing in particular.

“No,” I say. “She's not still with me.”

“Oh.”

“But thank you for believing that she was.”

“Anytime, Leonard.”

“You know what this means, don't you?”

“No. What does it mean?”

“It means I'm going to be okay. Because no way would Pearl move on unless she knew for sure I was going to be okay.”

“Agreed,” Mitch says.

Then we're quiet for so long that I think he's fallen asleep.

Just so I'll know for sure if we're done talking, I say, “Mitch. I love you.”

“I know,” he says. “I love you, too, Leonard.”

“Right now,” I say. “In the present tense.”

“I knew that's what you meant. That's the only kind of love you do. That's why we keep you around.”

“Oh, is that why you keep me around.”

“That and the cool tattoo,” Mitch says.

LETTER FROM CHET MILBURNE:
april
10

First off, I just want to say it's weird to write a letter when you hardly even know to who. I mean, you can't even say, “Dear so and so,” like you would normally do. You can't even figure out how to start. But I guess I started, anyway, so here goes.

The other thing is weird—in my head I see you as being about four or five years old, because the only time I ever saw you, that's what you were. I know you're a grown man now, probably thirty or close to it, but I still close my eyes and see that kid with the hair that stuck up. Since that's all I know of you, all I saw with my own two eyes. I just saw you that one time.

I know I'm doing a terrible job of this and I'm sorry.

What I want to say is that I know what happened to your mother that night, and you got a right to know, and should have, long before this, and for that I'll always be sorry. At least, as long as I live, so I better be sorry pretty fast, but I'll get into that more as I go on.

Another weird thing is to be writing so much from the heart to someone who probably won't ever get this. Also knowing you'll hate me if you do. But probably you won't even get it. I'm going to give it to my daughter and have her take it by that house where you and your mom used to rent a room. Maybe that lady will remember. Seems to me when somebody rents a room to a young girl who disappears without a trace one day (leaving her kid behind) that would leave an impression and probably you wouldn't forget.

I've never forgotten where the house is, because I went by there four or five times that first year. Once I sat outside for almost an hour, smoking cigarettes and wondering should I just go inside and tell the truth. But I guess you can see how it worked out. I guess it wasn't right when I said I saw you only that one night. I saw you through the window of the house next door. A couple weeks later I guess. You were sitting on the couch watching TV with that guy who lived there. I wonder if he still does. Maybe my daughter should give this letter to him. Unless he's moved on. It was such a long time ago. Twenty-five years by now. But I remember, though. You had thick glasses and your face was so small it just broke my heart.

I got kids of my own. Just so you know. They're all grown now, like you. I just wanted you to know.

Brace yourself for what I'm about to say. You probably know it already, in some part of you, but it's different when you hear it straight out, like a fact.

Your mother died that night.

I didn't kill her, but I didn't stop it happening either, which I know I should have done. Actually, I tried. More than once I tried. But as soon as it was the next morning and the sun was up and life was supposed to go on from there, I could see real plainly that I didn't try nearly hard enough.

I just can't tell you how sorry I am.

I know the question you must have on your mind now, and I don't blame you. Of course you want to know why, and I don't blame you one bit for needing to.

I don't really want to tell you because I don't want it to seem like I'm talking bad about your mom, but you deserve to know.

My partner knew for a fact that she killed a very, very close friend of his a few years earlier. His partner, which is a very sacred thing, which I don't expect you to understand. Benny was not a bad man. I know that's a hard one for you to swallow, but it's true. He was an angry guy and he did a lot of things wrong but always on the way to trying to do them right. And we went out there that night thinking no one would get hurt.

Can you understand what I just said? Most people probably wouldn't, especially with their own mother. Hell, if it was my mother I'd kill him, no matter what he meant by it.

But you can't kill Benny, because it's way too late for that. He took care of that for you, years ago. I won't say it was all about what happened with your mom, because Benny had lots of problems, but that sure didn't help. Guilt does funny things to a person. See this is why you should be careful of the things you do. Because if you do something you know in your gut isn't right, you'll start to feel like you don't deserve good things. Like you don't deserve anything. You don't do right for other people, you do it for yourself. Can you understand what I just said with that?

Not that you need a lesson in living from me. Not that I got a right to tell anybody else what a right life is. Only, sometimes you can learn what not to do, and that helps. I could give you a lot of life directions in what not to do.

There's a reason things got out of hand, and it's a little delicate, so please try to hear this and take it the right way. It seems that her relationship with this guy who got killed (Benny's partner who I mentioned before) was personal in nature. And since she was a young girl and Len (that was Benny's partner who got killed) was married and had a couple kids, Benny thought it was important to Len's family that this delicate part of what had happened not come out. So he was just trying to get her to change the story.

I think now that he was wrong about that, that people need to hear the truth whether it'll feel good to hear it or not, because it's still the truth. Which is why I'm writing this to you now. But Benny believed that with all his heart, and thought he was doing the best thing out of a lot of possible bad things (if that makes sense). Not that he thought it was right exactly, more that he thought everything else was even worse wrong. Benny was really big on justice, and sometimes a guy like that can do a lot of harm, because justice isn't really our job (if you know what I mean). But I gotta say again that what he intended was just to change her story. He was not a monster. He was not an awful man.

I kept my mouth shut so I wouldn't be turning him in. But it wore on me. I mean that for a fact.

I know you're probably thinking, okay, but what about when Benny died? I thought about it. I thought about coming clean, even though I knew I'd lose my job and go to jail. But I didn't, and I'll tell you why not. Because I got a wife and four kids, and my kids were just going into college and my family needed me, and it was not their fault. They were the real innocents in all this, them and you. I couldn't see getting it off my chest to bring relief to myself when they were the ones that would suffer the most. It didn't seem right.

I guess you wonder why I'm coming clean now.

Well, it's pretty easy to explain. About four years ago I got lung cancer. I had surgery, and so much chemotherapy I thought it would kill me, but it looked real good. Doctor thought maybe we pulled it off. But now it's back and it's everywhere, in my belly, in my bones, even in my lymph glands. Now the doctor doesn't have much to say.

All he says to me now is, “Get your affairs in order, Chet.”

I never exactly knew what that meant. What affairs, and what order are they supposed to be in?

I finally just asked him. He said it means that you have to do up anything you left undone, like tell your wife you love her and tell people stuff you should have told them a long time ago, but you've been putting it off. Because you can't put it off much longer. You know who the first person was I thought of? You. Really, you. I'll have to tell my wife I love her and tell my kids I'm proud of them (all except the one but I will think of something nice to say to him anyway) but the first person I knew I had to get my affairs in order with was you.

I really hope I can get this to you somehow.

I'm putting my return address on the envelope, and if you get this in time, if you want, you can come see me.

I know you'll have a lot of rage, and if you want to come over and take it out on me, that's okay. I'm a dying man and I'm in bed and can't fight you back, but seriously, if you want to come beat the crap out of me you can. I owe you that much.

I can't give back what I took from you and no amount of “I'm sorry” will mean much but if you want to do something to me to get all that anger out of your system I can let you do that, and maybe that's something.

Even if you want to strangle me. I hope you don't of course but if you do I deserve it and I guess I was going soon enough anyway.

What else can I say to you? I really wish I knew.

I'm sorry for my part in what happened.

         

Yours sincerely,

Chet Milburne