“I called—I called—” Alison started. The words were on her lips I called five days ago. I actually did call when you could have done something. I told your wife. You never called back. My mother was dying, and your wife didn’t give you the message.
The puzzlement in his face stopped her. And then something else, a breath of understanding, as he figured it out for himself. He flushed. And she rushed in to save him.
“I’m just upset,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything. I know you did what you could.”
“When did you call?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He was struggling, she could see, to put that genie back in the bottle. “I’m just upset, Kyle, seriously. Sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I really didn’t.”
He nodded, looked away. After a moment, there was nothing else to do but plunge ahead. “You think they made mistakes, at the hospital?” he asked.
“I really don’t want to talk about it, Kyle. It won’t bring her back.”
“I would hate to think that.” He sounded so lonely; he always had. It was so easy for him to fall into himself; she’d always had to work so hard to get him to stay in the world. He hid in his head, and it wasn’t good for him, he was always so much happier when she would coax him out of there. He still has a beautiful soul, she thought, there’s so much light in him. She wondered if the two of them would have been less lonely together.
“I heard you had another baby! Congratulations.”
“Yes, a boy,” he said. “Gabe.”
“Gabe. That’s a great name,” she said. A flush of pride passed over his face. It was charming, a whisper of youth and vulnerability. She remembered the moment she first saw him, in a parking lot of some dumb football game.
“I heard you were in a big movie, some Hollywood blockbuster,” he offered.
“Oh, the movie kind of fizzled. I mean, I did it, it was cool, it was kind of a nightmare—but parts of it were cool,” she admitted.
“Are you going to do any more Chekhov? Maybe Shakespeare?” He smiled at her, remembering their last fight. She remembered the hours she spent practicing scenes for high school plays, lying in his arms, memorizing the lines. Beatrice in Much Ado. Helena in Midsummer, those were her parts, the feisty funny ones. Her resolve started to flag. Don’t fall in love with the past, she thought. You don’t live there. Now is when you live.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a brilliant actress.”
Being brilliant doesn’t matter, she thought. What she said was, “How’s the baby business?”
“Fine, fine,” he said.
“You’ll start that clinic someday,” she said. “Maybe when your kids are bigger.”
“Maybe.”
Another silence. Perhaps they were finished, finally. She looked down, took a breath, thinking about saying good-bye.
“Are you happy?” Kyle asked. He seemed to really want to know the answer to that one. He seemed to hope that she was.
“Well,” she said. And then, “My mother just died.”
“She’s with God now,” he told her, as a comfort.
“Yeah, that’s what the priest said, at the funeral.”
“Do you not—believe that?”
“It’s what she believed, so I guess I will believe it for her,” Alison replied, careful.
“I will too.”
“Thanks.” She smiled at him for a moment. “You know what, Kyle?” she said. “I’m glad about you.”
He blinked. Appeared before her. Not so lost that she couldn’t still find him in there.
“I’m glad about you too,” he said.
“I’ll see you, okay?” she added, although she knew that she would not. She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, and felt grateful that he still felt like himself. As he turned and walked away from her, she dreamed for him a journey to South America, mountain villages, people in need. She dreamed of the lives he would save, and the gratitude of a simpler tribe who might call forth his best self. She dreamed children who would jump up and down with glee upon his return from his adventures, and a son who would grow into a partner for him, someone he could teach to be a good man, and in so doing become the better man he had always dreamed of being.