The Cloud of Unknowing (22 page)

“Thank you,” he said over and over as they made love. At first she shushed him, but she felt it too: gratitude. After a while, his words became sighs.

Kitty waited at the curb while the_lettuce unlocked the door to his apartment. He looked like a little kid with his backpack and short pants. He turned and waved, and she waved back until he was inside. The light came on in the living room and a cat jumped up on the windowsill—the one with feline leukemia, she supposed. She did a three-point turn in the wide street and drove past the train station. The lot was empty now.

Kitty thought of the strange movie about the Scottish fishing village—the one that made her and Isaac cry. At a stoplight on Montgomery Ave she dug her cell phone out of her pocketbook, but then she remembered the bumper stickers. Best not to risk a ticket. She pulled up to a meter and put the van in park. She considered whether to tell Isaac about the_lettuce. After all, they were nothing like that couple. Isaac wasn't paralyzed and she wasn't a young bride.

While she dialed Isaac's number, she pictured the_lettuce shrugging off his backpack, pouring himself a glass of milk, uncapping his rapidograph pen at the kitchen table. She wondered if he would move to Delaware. She hoped not. She didn't know what she did hope for him, but not that.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First thanks go to Mike McGonigal and Steve Connell, and to Caleb Rochester for being my muse and my buddy. Thanks also to Leslie Epstein, Sigrid Nunez, Xuefei Jin, David Brainard, Soo Yeon Hong, Joy Harris, Bonnie Jo Campbell, James Parker, and Peter Doyle for their advice and moral support; to Jenny Davidson, Katya Apekina, and Mairead Case for their help with the manuscript; and to the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the membership of one or more secret cabals. Most of all, I am grateful to my mother, Joanna Herlihy; my siblings, Sonia, Nate, and Sam; and my first literary role model: my father, the late, great Alexander Lipson.