That will look good too . . . won’t it?
Except perhaps glass isn’t the best choice either. Seems I have to spray the tabletop clean twelve or three hundred times a day.
I swing my gaze to where the replica Eames chair sat and . . . dammit.
Why did I keep that when it’s already acquired so many nicks and scratches?
Maybe it could go in the office of my new practice?
Right. Sure. Great idea. A place crawling with literal animals is no better than a place crawling with one particular species—the dastardly and destructive variety known as a young boy.
Shit.
I should have donated all of my stuff. Maybe I can find a home for it. Who out there wants leather, glass, and steel furniture? Bachelors in need? Playboys furnishing their man pads? Perennially single men in the city?
No one. Absolutely no one.
I groan, cursing myself for holding on to those things. Keeping them three years ago made sense. Keeping them now is the height of foolishness.
But no matter.
Once I’m in California, I’ll pop into an IKEA. Replace everything. Be in and out with new stuff in a jiffy.
Except I’ve only been in an IKEA once. I needed a map and a flashlight to find my way to safety.
I’ll gird myself this time. Study the routes, plot in advance. Surely I can navigate a big-box store, even a labyrinthine one.
I take a breath, talking back to my momentary furniture panic.
Everything will be fine.
All I need to do is get through this final look-see, and then I’ll be on my way.
Ready to make the best of a tough situation.
I pace across the apartment, making sure nothing was left behind. That’s what I came to do this morning—not wonder about the suitability of a stylish sofa or a sleek table.
I step into the bedroom that was home to my king-size bed mere days ago.
That, too, is in transit.
So is my son’s twin bed. A bed that I didn’t need until a few years ago. But now it’s making its way to the other coast, along with the black comforter set, because Thor sheets are no longer cool, dinosaur sheets were decidedly uncool the first time we went shopping for bedding, and apparently all the other colors at Bed Bath & Beyond are unacceptable to the discerning fourth-grader.
I never thought I would know about the sheet preferences of the grade-schooler set. Now I do, as well as whether “dope” or “epic” is the cooler word (“dope” is).
I turn into the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet and checking the shower one more time. There’s nothing left.
I am well and truly ready to go.
I need to go. And I want to go.
Still, it’s hard. I try to shake off that clutch of longing, that knot in my chest that wants to tether me here, to this city that’s been my home.
I head to the front door and set a hand on the knob for the last time. “Goodbye, bachelor pad,” I say. But it hasn’t been a bachelor pad for a few years.
Stepping out, I tug the door shut behind me, closing the book on this story.
I bound down the steps, slipping away from my Manhattan life that was once rich with dinners out five nights a week, two-hour visits to the gym, and shows, concerts, wine and cheese tastings, plays and parties, art galleries, and dates, lots of dates.
Out on a sun-drenched Park Avenue, cabs and buses trundle by. My son punches my cousin Oliver’s arm, adamantly making a point, it seems. Aunt Jane stands next to them, regarding the two with amusement over the top of her glasses. Quick-witted, gossip-loving, cat-collecting Aunt Jane—she’s another part of this city that I’ll miss.
“No! Steve Trout is the greatest player of all time,” my son insists.
Indignation spreads across Oliver’s face, as it well and truly should at the suggestion that a modern-day baseball player could be the greatest of all time—especially someone who plays for the enemy.
“How could you even say such a thing?” Oliver stares at Ethan, bewildered, then at me, thrusting a cup of coffee in my hand. “What have you been teaching him, Liam?”
I shake my head and raise my free hand, denying responsibility for my son’s terrible choices when it comes to baseball hero worship. “Trust me, I didn’t teach him that sort of blasphemy.” I take a vital drink of the coffee, needing the blast of energy it’ll bring me. Oliver hands me a bagel next, and I nod my thanks.
My son looks up at me, all big blue puppy-dog eyes and shaggy blond hair. He’s hardly like me at all, but the DNA test made it clear that neither hair color nor eye color matter. He’s mine, and I’m his. “Dad, you like Steve Trout, don’t you?”
I set a hand on his forehead, as if I’m checking his temperature. “Liking a Dodger? Are you feeling okay?”
