bears in captivity.
I can see how she is making him love her. It is in the way she sits with one foot on the floor and one crossed over her lap. The way she is slouched over the table with her head propped on hand and elbow. And it is in the way her long sun-touched, brown hair hangs carelessly down the right side of her tilted head, her left hand periodically sweeping it back and then adjusting horn-rimmed glasses. She is captivating, this young woman.
He practices the conversation in his head and his lips move involuntarily with each thought. He repeats the same phrase under his breath, changing his tone and the height and angle of his eyebrows with every new effort.
He opens a spiral notebook and begins to write. It is the furious scribble of a man angry with himself and I can only guess that he is cursing his own lack of courage. His head wiggles as he writes—side to side, front to back—the way I imagine Mozart must have looked when possessed by the succubus of new music, only the ink and quill missing.
He does not see her approach.
“Excuse me,” she says.
Startled, he literally jumps out of his chair.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says with a giggle and a slight touch of his arm. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just, I wanted to see if you had a pen I could borrow.”
“A what? A pen?”
Then looking at his hand like it has something stuck to it that he does not quite recognize, he says, “A pen. Sure, take this. This is a pen.”
They are sweet and it seems to me that something big is happening that neither of them can fully understand. They do not know what lies ahead of them, these two panda bears. They are about to find love in each other. And in the way an alarm clock reminds you not to sleep, they have reminded me of my own slumbering love. I head back to Grandpa and Grandma’s to call my wife.
“Tam, I talked to Grandpa and Grandma and they’re fine with it.”
“Fine with what?”
I switch the phone receiver to my other ear. A sharp pain shoots up my side and it feels like Edie’s knuckles are still grinding against my ribs.
“Fine with you and Tory coming here to stay, too. With them. With me.”
I inhale deeply and silently exhale all the pain from Edie and everything else. I pull up my shirt to check for bruising, or perhaps a splintered bone sticking out of my skin.
“I feel different here, Tam. In my old home, my old town.”
“Away, you mean. You feel better being away.”
“Yes, away. But not from you and not from Tory.”
A few seconds tick away before she finally responds.
“Okay.”
“Okay? You’ll come? You’ll stay?”
“For a while. I don’t know, a week or two maybe. We’ll come tomorrow.”
“I love you, Tam.”
In the maples in front of Grandpa and Grandma Gaines’ house a brown bushy-tailed squirrel scampers across the telephone wires. I can hear the sound of kids playing baseball off in some distance—or at least what passed for distance in Willow Grove. In some further distance than that, a dog barks.
I rock on the porch swing and wait for Tammy and Tory to arrive. My eyes keep watch of the railroad tracks that my two ladies will soon be rumbling over. Three trains come and go. Each of them blare their horns faintly, then loudly, then faintly again.
Swinging back and forth, I think back to the day we brought baby Tory home from the hospital. We were living in a two-bedroom mobile home that I refused to call a trailer. We were young and happier than I realized—recognizing when I’m happy is something I’ve never been good at. Then all of a sudden, into our lives comes this tiny little something that I instantly realize has my entire world stashed inside of it. I remember thinking that very thought the day we brought her home from the hospital. We walked inside and I set Tory atop the breakfast bar in her car seat. I looked at her and I thought to myself,
Everything—the whole damn world—right there
.
Tam and I laughed as our
I can see how she is making him love her. It is in the way she sits with one foot on the floor and one crossed over her lap. The way she is slouched over the table with her head propped on hand and elbow. And it is in the way her long sun-touched, brown hair hangs carelessly down the right side of her tilted head, her left hand periodically sweeping it back and then adjusting horn-rimmed glasses. She is captivating, this young woman.
He practices the conversation in his head and his lips move involuntarily with each thought. He repeats the same phrase under his breath, changing his tone and the height and angle of his eyebrows with every new effort.
He opens a spiral notebook and begins to write. It is the furious scribble of a man angry with himself and I can only guess that he is cursing his own lack of courage. His head wiggles as he writes—side to side, front to back—the way I imagine Mozart must have looked when possessed by the succubus of new music, only the ink and quill missing.
He does not see her approach.
“Excuse me,” she says.
Startled, he literally jumps out of his chair.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says with a giggle and a slight touch of his arm. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just, I wanted to see if you had a pen I could borrow.”
“A what? A pen?”
Then looking at his hand like it has something stuck to it that he does not quite recognize, he says, “A pen. Sure, take this. This is a pen.”
They are sweet and it seems to me that something big is happening that neither of them can fully understand. They do not know what lies ahead of them, these two panda bears. They are about to find love in each other. And in the way an alarm clock reminds you not to sleep, they have reminded me of my own slumbering love. I head back to Grandpa and Grandma’s to call my wife.
“Tam, I talked to Grandpa and Grandma and they’re fine with it.”
“Fine with what?”
I switch the phone receiver to my other ear. A sharp pain shoots up my side and it feels like Edie’s knuckles are still grinding against my ribs.
“Fine with you and Tory coming here to stay, too. With them. With me.”
I inhale deeply and silently exhale all the pain from Edie and everything else. I pull up my shirt to check for bruising, or perhaps a splintered bone sticking out of my skin.
“I feel different here, Tam. In my old home, my old town.”
“Away, you mean. You feel better being away.”
“Yes, away. But not from you and not from Tory.”
A few seconds tick away before she finally responds.
“Okay.”
“Okay? You’ll come? You’ll stay?”
“For a while. I don’t know, a week or two maybe. We’ll come tomorrow.”
“I love you, Tam.”
In the maples in front of Grandpa and Grandma Gaines’ house a brown bushy-tailed squirrel scampers across the telephone wires. I can hear the sound of kids playing baseball off in some distance—or at least what passed for distance in Willow Grove. In some further distance than that, a dog barks.
I rock on the porch swing and wait for Tammy and Tory to arrive. My eyes keep watch of the railroad tracks that my two ladies will soon be rumbling over. Three trains come and go. Each of them blare their horns faintly, then loudly, then faintly again.
Swinging back and forth, I think back to the day we brought baby Tory home from the hospital. We were living in a two-bedroom mobile home that I refused to call a trailer. We were young and happier than I realized—recognizing when I’m happy is something I’ve never been good at. Then all of a sudden, into our lives comes this tiny little something that I instantly realize has my entire world stashed inside of it. I remember thinking that very thought the day we brought her home from the hospital. We walked inside and I set Tory atop the breakfast bar in her car seat. I looked at her and I thought to myself,
Everything—the whole damn world—right there
.
Tam and I laughed as our
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