Page 46 of After His Eulogy
He opens the door before I knock. He has been doing this. The opening before the knock is a habit now. He does it on Tuesdays and on Thursdays and on Saturdays and tonight is Wednesday and he is doing it on Wednesday too. He opens the door. He is in a sweater I know. He has been waiting. He looks at me. He looks at me for a half-second and his face registers something before I have said anything.
“What,” he says.
“Hi.”
“What.”
“Can I come in.”
“Of course you can come in.”
I come in. The throw blanket is on the back of the couch. The lamp in the bedroom is off, which means he has not been planning to make tonight one of those nights. He has been planning to make me dinner. The smell is in the kitchen, something with garlic. He has been listening for me on the stairs. He has been waiting for me. He has been making me dinner. I cannot look at the kitchen.
I had not thought about the dinner. I had thought about the sentence. I had thought about the sentence on the walk over, and at the desk before the walk, and on the train back from the registrar last week when the sentence first showed up uninvited.I had told myself I was not going to say it. The sentence is in my mouth and the dinner is in his kitchen and .
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“Sit down.”
“I’d rather stand.”
“Sit down. Reed. What’s happening.”
I sit down. I sit down because he has told me to and because if I keep standing I am going to lose my nerve. I have the nerve right now, in this moment, sitting on his couch with his throw blanket near my knee. If I get up the nerve is going to leave me. He sits down on the chair across from me. He does not sit on the couch. He has read the room and the room is telling him not to sit on the couch and Griffin reads rooms.
“Talk.”
“I have to stop.”
He looks at me.
“Stop.”
“This. Us. I have to stop.”
He does not move. He does not move for a long second and his face stops, the still version, the processing version, the version where and the rest of him is held.
“Why.”
“I…“
“Why, Reed. Tonight. Why tonight.”
“Mendez called.”
His face changes. Just at the corner of the mouth. He has heard the name once before. He knows what it means.
“What did he say.”
“Nothing. It was a check-in. They are routine. He calls every two months.”
“Okay.”
“He asked if there was anyone in my life.”
“And.”
