*
Margaret had been asked by William to perform the nuptials, and so on an evening in the middle of July, Margaret and Bob drove up the steep driveway to the house that William and Lucy lived in by the sea. As they walked to the door, Margaret repeated to Bob what she had told him before, that it was sad the girls had not been able to come up after all, that Aiden had gotten sick, he was fine, but then Becka got sick, and they had all decided at the last minute not to travel.
Lucy answered the door in a blue-and-white pinstriped dress, and she said, “Come in, come in.” Stepping through the door, Bob saw William approaching them, and William was wearing a red tie against a white shirt, and the sight of that tie somehow killed Bob. It just killed him. William had dressed up for his wedding.
Bob was not wearing a tie, but he had showered, and his hair was drying now, it lay across his head in a few waves, it was finally growing out. Margaret wore her long flowery dress. And she was very happy, she hugged both William and Lucy and said, “What a wonderful day this is.”
The sun was setting, and it was glorious as the pinkened glow fell over the porch and into the living room. There was a huge bouquet of peonies and delphiniums on the living room table, and Lucy said, “The girls sent these. Wasn’t that nice?”
And Bob thought: Oh Lucy. He thought this with great compassion, as though she was a child he had known in his youth who had still retained her innocence.
A cake with white frosting sat on the kitchen counter.
“Oh, here—” Bob handed Lucy a card. On the front of it was a dandelion, and inside it said Happy Birthday. Bob had crossed out Birthday and written Wedding. He signed it Love from Margaret and Bob.
Lucy said as she looked at it, “Oh Bob, thank you!”
—
But as they stood in the living room, Little Annie and her big sister the no-name plant off to the side of them, Bob standing slightly off to the left of William, Bob felt as though five panes of glass were between him and the scene. Lucy’s face got pink as she said her vows, and then it was done, and William gave her a tight hug. After William released her, Bob went to Lucy and took both her hands in his—and he was appalled at how ice-cold her small hands were. He lifted them slightly and said, “Lucy, congratulations.” She looked up at him and said, so softly he almost could not hear her, “Thank you, Bob.”
—
The newlyweds were off to Italy the next day for two weeks.
*
Life continued in the town of Crosby.
One of Mrs. Hasselbeck’s sons came to visit her for three days. She told this to Bob with her eyes shining. “Robert, please sit down.” And so Bob sat. And Mrs. Hasselbeck told him about her youngest son, who had come to see her that week. His wife had had an affair, but now the fellow she’d had the affair with was done with her and she wanted to return to Mrs. Hasselbeck’s son. For over thirty minutes Bob listened to this, heard about the kids of this couple, who were teenagers, he listened to it all. Finally, Mrs. Hasselbeck said to Bob, “What do you think of all this?” And Bob said slowly as he stood up, “It’s life, Mrs. Hasselbeck, it’s just called life.”
And Mrs. Hasselbeck said, “I had an affair once.”
Bob thought: I am not going to sit down again. So he stood there as Mrs. Hasselbeck looked up at him and told him how she had had an affair for almost a year when her boys were in high school, and they had found out. And Bob stood listening and then he turned away, saying once again: “It’s just life, Mrs. Hasselbeck, that’s all it is. Life.”
She thanked him for coming, and he said, “Sure.”
*
Matt finished the painting of Bob, and Margaret hung it in the living room, though Bob objected, not because he didn’t like the painting—he did—but because he thought the placement was too prominent. “Nope, it’s staying right there, I love it,” Margaret said. And it was a wonderful likeness of Bob, it caught—in its abstract way—the essence of Bob, the thatch of gray hair on top of his head.
Margaret continued to preach her sermons in her sincere voice. And Bob and Lucy—eventually—continued their walks, though not with the frequency they had done in the past. As they walked, there was still a very slight frisson between them, as though long ago they had been lovers but were now just old friends. But here was something interesting: Each time they parted now, Lucy would say, “Take care, Bob,” and she would reach out and hold his arm, and Bob would say, holding her arm for a few moments as well, “You take care too.” It was gentle, that touch of the other’s arm.
William did not talk nearly as much about potatoes and parasites when the four of them got together.
—
It was not always easy for Bob. Although he somehow understood—and this turned out to be true—that it would get easier with time. And we are talking about his feelings for Lucy. His sense of loss ebbed and flowed but remained manageable. He often walked alone on the river where they walked together, and when he did sometimes a strange calmness came to him. He never sat in the spot where they sat for him to have his cigarette, he walked past that and went all the way to where the river turned slightly, and then he would walk back. Often, he did not have a cigarette at all. He would be deep in thought, but he could not remember later what it was he had been thinking. Except for this: As he was walking back to the parking lot one day, he had a sensation of the air around him being not just air but something full and wonderful. And that’s when he wondered about God, and whether there was a personal God who cared about every living thing on Earth or a much more generalized God who had created the universe, and he thought: It doesn’t matter, it is the same. He understood that this would not make sense to people, and so he did not even tell Margaret about it. But this understanding came to him with great clarity one day. And he remembered it.
*
On a late summer day, when more than one tree had started its turn to red, Bob went to his office in Shirley Falls to clean it out. He brought cardboard boxes into which he put many old files with their bent yellow folders, and in another box he placed his books. He took his desk lamp and bent down to put it into a box that was on the floor. Standing up, he happened to glance out the window, and he saw a man and a woman walking on the sidewalk together. They were both younger than he was (almost everyone was these days), but they were not kids. And the woman was laughing, and once or twice she bumped her hip against the man she was with, and then Bob realized that the man was Matt Beach.
Bob stood at the window and watched them; it was extraordinary. Their faces were happy as they walked side by side, and then Matt reached and held the woman’s hand. Bob watched until they were out of view.
—
Leaning against his desk, Bob thought then of Little Annie, the plant that Lucy had. How Lucy was afraid that the plant had died, but it had not. Every leaf had fallen off, but then it broke through, a tiny little new green leaf at the top of it.
—
What a thing this life force was, Bob thought.
—
He called Margaret and told her what he had just seen. “Margaret, it makes me so glad.”
“It should, Bob.” Margaret’s voice was warm. “And now listen to me, are you listening? You did this, Bob Burgess.”
“I didn’t have a thing to do with it.”
“Bob, listen to me carefully. You. Did. This. You cared for that man after all he had gone through, you encouraged his painting, you got him a cellphone, and you got him to see Katherine Caskey.” She paused. “And that’s because you are Bob Burgess.”
“Okay.”
After they hung up, Bob sat at his desk. What did she mean, he was Bob Burgess? In fact, for Bob it did not mean anything at all.
—
