Graham hadn’t especially wanted to date the Rottweilers; he really didn’t want to date the Theos. What it came down to was that he was too old for picking up girls in bars, too old to serve spaghetti marinara. He just didn’t have the energy.
Even more depressing than the idea of having Theo’s parents over for dinner was the knowledge that they would do so. Just as they would have the parents of the friend after Theo, and the friend after that, too. Then eventually, Matthew would have girlfriends and wives and in-laws and it would all involve a lot of spaghetti marinara, but Graham would do it. He would do it because that was what you did when you loved someone. You kept pushing until you broke on through to the other side, as Jim Morrison may have said. Only Morrison didn’t add that on the other side, you found another obstacle and had to keep pushing. Forever.
Graham was so busy thinking about this that he would have kept walking if Audra had not tugged his arm to stop him.
A workman outside a flower shop had dumped an enormous white pail of soapy water on the sidewalk and people on both sides of the stream had paused so as not to get their feet wet. Graham looked down at the rainbow pattern in the oily water—a dark sunburst edged with color, like a reverse paparazzi flash—and, just for a moment, it seemed to him to contain all the future joy and sorrow in the world, in equal amounts.
“My new shoes!” Audra said with a little moan, and then took his arm again. “Come on.”
They began walking again, slowly, clutching each other and concentrating on the ground in front of them. Graham took very short steps, and Audra tottered next to him, holding out her free hand, fingers splayed, for extra balance. He wondered what other people thought of them. He and Audra must look like the newest of lovers, or the frailest of seniors, or the drunkest of partygoers—or anything, really, other than the survivors they were.