only moderately about the future, and most of all I wasn’t numbly trudging half-awake through some mediocre semblance of a life. I was present, and not just as a bystander but as a passionate participant.
“Joe,” October said groggily. “I need me some Joe.”
I straddled her on the bed but she pushed and slapped at my chest. “No. I need a cup of Joe, not a cup of Joe.” She laughed at her joke and playfully demanded I go make her a cappuccino.
I leaned down close to her face and said, “You’re not the boss of me.” Then I laughed at my joke, adding, “Oh, wait. You are.”
I drifted back into the kitchen to make the cappuccinos. This was a process, and I took my time with it. I had to fill the fancy Italian machine with water and wait for it to heat up. I had to grind the beans. And once the machine was hot enough, I had to pull the espresso shots individually, emptying and refilling the portafilter each time and waiting in between each shot for the machine to heat up again.
I pulled four shots, poured two into one mug and two into another. Next I steamed the milk, poured that into the mugs, and carefully spooned the foam on top like I used to do at Caffe Strada.
The whole time I was making the cappuccinos, I could feel myself grinning, and I remember thinking: This is art. This is love. It’s simple and I get it. I can do this. And way back in a usually quiescent part of my mind, I heard a voice say: You gave up so much for so long. You’re not going to do that anymore.
Not even the guilt I had over what I was doing behind Cal’s back daunted me then. I had reasoned it all out in my head to justify the situation. Cal will be fine, I decided. He has women at his beck and call. He doesn’t need a life here with October, because he has everything he’s ever wanted.
Let me have this one thing, I thought.
The rest of that day remains lodged in my mind like an indelible song. Each moment is a note, and if I conjure up the first one, the whole tune comes back to me: what the day looked like, what it tasted like, what it smelled like, what it felt like. My skin was alive, and it transcribed every feeling in a way that went deeper than memory. Memories are fragments. Unreliable. This was an experience that seemed to exist inside of me before it happened, and it remained inside of me when it was over. In my heart and behind my eyes I can still see it, not as bits and pieces, but as a whole composition.
Here’s another important distinction: I felt entirely myself that day. And I don’t mean my best self. I don’t mean I was pretending to be some ideal version of Joe Harper so that October wouldn’t change her mind. I was the same awkward, insecure, overly sensitive Joe Harper that I’ve been for as long as I can remember. But the other Joe showed up too. The man who can be thoughtful, witty, and charming when he gets his head out of his ass.
I kicked off my sneakers, and October and I sat against the headboard drinking our cappuccinos. The window was open, and a light breeze was blowing into the room. Our legs were parallel, my right one touching October’s left as we watched a gray warbler foraging on a branch outside. The bird’s little head moved in quick, jerky tics like the second hand on an old watch, its beak a tiny jackhammer.
“Do you think he’s looking for breakfast?” October whispered, as if her voice might scare the creature off.
“He is a she,” I told her. “The males have black throats. See how hers is a whitish gray?”
October dipped her head toward me and smirked. “It turns me on when you talk like the Audubon Society.”
I smiled. Bob Harper was good for something.
The late-morning sun was starting to flood the room, and even though the breeze was cool, I felt warm and content, the scene calling to mind an old Johnny Cash quote I’d read somewhere online. Johnny had been asked to describe his idea of paradise. He’d pointed to his wife, June, and said, “This morning. With her. Having coffee.”
This is simple, and I get it, I thought again. Then I put