“All right, George. Sounds like a plan.”
Mr. Callahan and I walk to a sandwich shop nearby, and he insists on buying my lunch. To tell the truth, I have leftover pizza waiting for me in the office refrigerator, but it didn’t seem appropriate to mention that. As Mr. Callahan and I sit down at the small café table, we open our sandwiches.
“So, let’s hear it, miss. Tell me something interesting! Anything at all.”
I put down my sandwich and wipe the mayonnaise from my lips. “What do you want to know?” I ask.
“Oh, anything. Anything interesting that’s happened to you. I don’t care if it’s sad or funny, scary or stupid. Just something. Anything I can go home and recount to my wife. We’re starting to bore each other to tears.”
I laugh like I think Mr. Callahan is expecting, but to tell the truth, I want to cry. Ben never bored me. God, how I wish I’d had time to find him positively mind-numbing. When you love someone so much that you’ve stuck around through all the interesting things that have happened to them and you have nothing left to say, when you know the course of their day before they even tell you, when you lie next to them and hold their hand even though they haven’t said one interesting thing in days, that’s a love I want. It’s the love I was on target for.
“You look sad,” he says, interrupting my one-person pity party. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” I say. “I just . . . got a funny bit of mustard I think.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You’ve looked sad for some time. You think I don’t see things because I’m an old fart, but I do.” He brings his finger to his temple and taps it. “What is it?”
What’s the point in lying? Who benefits from it anyway? Propriety says not to discuss such intense matters in public, but whom does that serve? This man is bored and I am broken. Maybe I’ll be a little less broken in telling him about it. Maybe he’ll be a little less bored.
“My husband died,” I say. I say it matter-of-factly, trying to work against the intensity of the conversation.
“Oh,” he says, quite surprised. “That’s heartbreaking to hear. It is interesting, like I asked, but just terrible. I didn’t realize you were married.”
“You met him,” I say. “A few months ago.”
“No, I remember. I just didn’t realize you were married.”
“Oh, well, we had only just married when he died.”
“Terrible,” he says, and he grabs my hand. It’s too intimate to feel comfortable, and yet, it doesn’t feel inappropriate. “I’m sorry, Elsie. You must be in such pain.”
I shrug and then wish I could take it back. I shouldn’t shrug about Ben. “Yes,” I admit. “I am.”
“Is that why you were gone for a while before?” he says, and my face must change. It must convey some sort of surprise because he adds, “You’re my favorite person here and I’m here every day. You think I don’t notice when my favorite person isn’t around?”
I smile and bite into my sandwich.
“I don’t know you very well, Elsie,” he says. “But I do know this: You are a fighter. You’ve got chutzpah. Moxie. Whatever it is.”
“Thank you, Mr. Callahan.” He gives me a disapproving glance. “George,” I correct myself. “Thank you, George.”
“No thanks needed. It’s what I see. And you will be okay, you know that? I know you probably don’t think it now, but I’m telling you, one day you’ll look back on this time and think, Thank God it’s over, but I got through it. I’m telling you.”
I look doubtful. I know I do because I can feel the doubt on my face. I can feel the way it turns down the corners of my mouth.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asks, picking up his sandwich for the first time.