saddest tear I’ve ever seen, & I had and resisted the urge to touch it.
What do you mean, I asked her. But she shook her head & she would say no more. Instead she talked about school & work & how she planned on balancing the two, & how she had never been happier than she was now in her life, coming to school in the city, starting her life in the world. It was what she called it. Making her life in the world. I knew what she meant.
She stood up shakily at the end of the meal and raised one finger in the air as if testing the wind & she pointed it at me smiling.
I have always loved aggrieved & unbeautiful women. I have always loved beautiful women too, but it is the unbeautiful ones that haunt me & find me & abide, whose images I see before me when I go to sleep. My mother was unbeautiful. Charlene was unbeautiful. Marty.
None were invisible to me. Furthermore I don’t believe I was invisible to them, & this has remained, for me, an anchor in the world. Charlene, in her letters to me, told me things about myself I had never been told before. She made me feel noble & worthy. She told me once that I was a hero of hers. For years, our correspondence allowed me to feel connected, still, to Charlene Turner. Even after she stopped responding. Even then. I thought of her, & remembered her fondly, feeding the ducks, sipping her drink, walking swiftly wherever she had to go. I thought of her & I felt she was surely also a member of my club. & so I did not blame her for losing touch. I really didn’t blame her at all.
When, years later, she called me, it was a surprise but I realized that I had been expecting it all along. My innermost self had been expecting it.
She said to me, He’ll call you. And so I began to hope. I did not hesitate to. I did the foolish thing of imagining a life with Charlene & her son. This led me to Yolanda. & Yolanda broke my spell of solitude. I feel somehow, I can’t explain it, that my diminishing loneliness caused Charlene’s to increase. I have felt, always, that we are connected by that thread.
She named her son Arthur. It breaks my heart. It touches me deeply & yet I feel that some chance has been wasted.
The first time we met for coffee, the fabric of her purple down coat got stuck in the teeth of its own zipper. I helped her. I moved her hands away from it with my own & I pulled the fabric loose without a tear. Thank you she said.
• • •
They’re there when I arrive, Gerard Kane, his assistant Sarah—not as pretty as she sounded, a little plain—and another kid, a black kid, about my age, maybe a little older than me. I don’t know who he is. A few other men stand around chatting with them. They could work for the facility, I’m not sure.
They’re all sitting in the lobby, a large plain room with rough carpet. Like the lobby of a church, high-ceilinged, skylights letting sun in. Mr. Kane is drinking coffee. He’s leaning forward in his chair, his arms resting on his knees. Even in the winter his sunglasses hang around his neck on a string. His face is sunburned except for around his eyes. His mustache is as neat as I remember, his forearms as huge. He’s wearing a pullover windbreaker with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
Kel! he goes, when he sees me. How are you, kid?
He stands up to shake my hand and I set my things down.
This is Marcus Hobart, he says, indicating the kid sitting down next to him. He’ll be pitching to you today.
When Marcus stands up I see he is even taller than I am. Definitely stronger.
How’s it going? he asks me, and suddenly I realize he’s there for the same reason I am.
Locker room’s there, says Mr. Kane. Come on out when you’re ready.
Marcus and I go in together. He pulls off his jacket and his tear-away pants and I see that he’s wearing a summer-league uniform too. This makes me feel better.
You play for the Jays? I ask him.
Played, he says.
Cardinals, I say, pointing pointlessly to my uniform.
Cool, he says. You in school still?
Yeah, I say.
Where at?
Pells Landing, I say. But I