The Last September: A Novel

Finally, Ladd must have seen himself and what he was doing—perhaps in the blood I could feel draining from my face. With a step backward he let go. I snatched my hand—myself—back. As I ran out the door without collecting any of my things, I could hear Ladd falling back into his chair. I knew him well enough to understand he would shift from anger at me to despair over what he’d done. I had come to his house to end things, and Ladd—ever the gentleman—had finished the job for me.

THE REST OF THE day, I tended to business. Replaced my cell phone. Renewed my lease. Replenished groceries, enough for two, remembering Charlie was a chef, buying things like fresh parsley and cilantro. Not just food, but ingredients. I didn’t allow myself to consider the possibility that he wouldn’t come back, not until night descended and I lay in bed holding an ice pack against my throbbing wrist, my landline and cell phone silent. Tab, grateful for my return, positioned herself on my chest, the weight and fluff keeping my heart firmly in place, perhaps the only reason I got to sleep that night at all.

She was still there when I woke, stubbornly unmoving. Sunbeams slanted through the plastic slats of the window blinds and I tried to stretch, my spine sore from having been pinned so long in the same position. The ice pack had fallen to the floor, and my wrist still throbbed. Tab let out an indignant “mep” as I pushed her off of me. For the first time since last April, the boards felt cold against my bare feet. When I peered through the blinds, I saw the car, the wood-paneled station wagon, one of the last of its kind, parked across the street, packed full to the brim.

It took a minute to fish my robe from the back of my closet and would have taken even longer to find slippers, so I just put on flip-flops. I had the presence of mind to brush my teeth and hair. When I got downstairs, there he was, sitting on the front stoop, wearing a khaki field coat with a dark corduroy collar, drinking coffee from a take-out Starbucks cup. As I opened the door, he turned and smiled, his face breaking open with pleasure at the sight of me. I hadn’t yet seen him smile this way at anyone else. I smiled back, feeling overjoyed when I saw a second cup perched beside him. He handed it to me and I sat down next to him.

“You came back,” I said, not caring what these words revealed.

“Sure,” Charlie said. “I told you I would. Didn’t I?”

I nodded, thinking that perhaps now everything had changed and he always would follow through on stated promises. Maybe it was just the unspoken ones that gave him trouble. Charlie kissed me, and I leaned forward to hug him, my arms around his neck, conscious that I not let my grip be alarmingly tight, or thankful. As I pulled away, he glanced at my left arm, then gently took hold of it for closer inspection. For a six-inch span, a pale brown bruise, punctuated by four ragged purple circles. Charlie held my arm in his lap, his curls falling forward as he inspected it.

“What happened here?” he finally asked. Ladd’s voice would have been sharp, urgent. But Charlie sounded calm.

I shrugged, not wanting any controversy to interfere with his return. My idea of the day stood very clear in my mind. We would go upstairs and make love while more coffee brewed. Then we would carry his belongings from the car to my apartment, establishing him here, my residence now Charlie’s, too.

He ran his fingers very lightly over my injury. “Looks like somebody grabbed you,” he said.

I stared down at my arm, examining it closely for the first time. The sight of the bruises didn’t make me angry. Ladd hadn’t meant to hurt me. But I couldn’t be sure Charlie would see it that way. “It was an accident,” I said.

“Ladd? Did Ladd do this?”

“When I went to give him back his things. And the ring.”

The closest we ever came to discussing my broken engagement. Charlie didn’t look at my face. He kept his eyes firmly glued to my injury. It throbbed dully. I thought of a line from a James Wright poem, “delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.” How easy for Ladd to damage that expanse of skin, with just the slightest loss of attention to his own wounded interior.