Page 13 of The Things We Never Say

“But don’t you think it’s strange that that happened?”

“Very strange,” she said, and then a woman came in with his breakfast tray, and no more was said about it.

It turned out that the man who had saved Artie’s life was called Kenneth Moynihan, and he had only recently moved to town. The younger man with him in his outboard boat was his son, who was visiting from Maine. Kenneth came to see Artie in the hospital; Artie was walking the halls with Evie that last morning there, waiting for his discharge papers so he could go home. It was Evie who saw Kenneth first. “Oh!” she said, letting go of Artie’s arm and moving toward the man. “Hello, hello!” She had met him briefly in the emergency room when Artie was still having delusions. And this man—beaming—walked over to Artie now and introduced himself; he was a nice-looking, vigorous-appearing man. He took Artie’s hand firmly but shook it gently. “Boy, am I glad to see you,” he said, a large smile spreading across his face. Artie placed his other hand over the man’s and said, “Wonderful. Wonderful to meet you. Thank you.”

A few days after Artie got out of the hospital, Kenneth Moynihan telephoned him at home. “You okay? Doing all right?”

“Yes, I am,” Artie said. A real pleasure filled him.

“I was thinking, do you want to go to Spud’s with me one of these Thursday nights? Say in two weeks? My wife has her book club and—sweet Jesus—I like to get out of the house when that happens.”

When Artie walked back into his classroom the next week, a handwritten cardboard sign hung above his desk: WELCOME BACK DAMN-DAM! The sign had a clothesline threaded through it that had then been wrapped around the clock on the wall. His students seemed eager to see him, they looked at him with wide eyes. “What happened?” one young fellow asked, and so Artie told them. His later class, with Rhonda Lazarre and Danny Marino in it, was really abuzz, they had heard the news from other students over the course of the day. “Tell us what happened!” A few students asked this, and so Artie sat behind his desk and told them that he had fallen trying to get into his sailboat, that a man and his son had saved his life. And then he added, raising his eyebrows, “Lucky person, me. I’ll tell you that.”

“Did you black out?” one young man wanted to know, and Artie said that he had.

“No!” It was Rhonda who said this, she was stricken.

“Yup.” Artie stood up and clapped his hands in front of him. “But I’m alive now, so let’s get to work, everyone.”

But they still kept looking at him. Rhonda put her hand up.

“Yes?” Artie asked.

“Did you see anything? I mean, when you were unconscious? Did you see God or anything? Because I watch these things on YouTube about people who almost die, and they see things.”

Artie noticed that no one seemed to snicker, and he looked at her kindly. “I did not see anything, I’m sorry to report.” He added, “But I felt very peaceful.”

“I don’t get it,” Danny Marino said. “How could you feel peaceful if you blacked out?” He seemed to really want to know.

Artie nodded. “Good question. I’m just saying that when I was fully alive again, warmed up, I felt quite rested. Peaceful.”

All the students in the room were watching him.

“Come on, come on now, let’s get to work.” Artie clapped his hands again a few times. “Let’s talk about General Lee. Did you all do the reading? No? Come on, people! Did you all think I was dead? Did you think you wouldn’t have to study history ever again? Well, I’m here and we’re going to do our work.”

They settled into themselves after that, those who had read the assigned work had more to say than they had in the past, and Artie encouraged them. “Exactly,” he said. “Exactly right.”

When class was over, Rhonda Lazarre came over to his desk and said to him, “You know what, Mr. Dam?”

“What’s that?” he asked gently.

She said, very seriously, “You have a guardian angel here on Earth.”

Rachel was a tall young woman.

And she was thin, like Rob. The moment Artie met her, taking her hand in his, he thought: Their kids will be tall and skinny. Rachel said, “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Dam. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Her voice was quiet, and Artie said, “Oh, speak up, my dear girl, or I won’t be able to know who you are!” Rachel laughed—sort of—and looked over at Rob, who was blushing and who smiled at her reassuringly.

“Woman, Dad,” Rob said. “They’re called women now.”

“Didn’t I say that?” Artie asked. He looked over at Evie, who stood to the side and shook her head.

“You said ‘girl,’ ” Evie said. “Honestly, Artie.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” And Artie said, sweeping his hand toward the living room, “Why hasn’t anyone asked you to sit down?”

“This is a really nice house,” Rachel said softly, walking into the room.

It was more awkward than Artie would have thought. Poor Rachel’s very long legs were in black tights, and covering her small bottom was a black skirt, or maybe shorts, Artie could not tell, and she had a tattoo on her left hand that seemed to go up her arm, although the arm was mostly covered with a long-sleeved black T-shirt. At one point she said to Artie, “So you teach about the Civil War. That’s so cool.” It came to Artie’s mind that Francesca was a great deal more self-possessed than this young woman, but then Francesca was older, and had been in the public limelight for years. “I do,” Artie said. There was a gawkiness to Rachel, with her short brown hair (half of it pulled back by a child’s blue barrette), and both Artie and Evie struggled to make conversation.