Andrew’s bags were packed and stored in the living space of the apartment. He hadn’t known what to take, so Lucy had helped him. He said he wished he could just take her with him, and Lucy laughed sadly.
“Me, too.”
Now they lay on their sides in bed, watching each other. Both were studying the curves of the other’s face, the shade of their cheeks, the tempo of their breath. They said nothing. To speak would be to move time forward, to bring the morning closer, and neither could bear that.
Lucy reached out and brushed a tear away from Andrew’s wet face. He blinked in surprise at this. He hadn’t known he was crying.
“What am I gonna do without you?” He asked.
“Don’t.” She whispered. “You’re gonna be fine. You were alright before me, you’ll be okay.”
“I wasn’t alright, Luce. I was just surviving. I wasn’t alive. I wasn’t alive before you.”
Lucy’s lip quivered and she tried to turn to face away, but he grabbed her and pulled her close to him. She began sobbing into his chest. In his mind he punished himself severely for making her cry over him. He petted her hair.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll call each other, and I’ll write you letters. It’ll be beautiful, Goose. It’ll be like this great, romantic yearning for one another. And we’ll keep everything. We can make a little treasure box and use it to remember how much we missed each other, and remind us how we never want to be apart again. Okay?”
He was trying so desperately to comfort her that he forgot to be nervous about everything, and he realized that this was it—this was the key to surviving without her: to do it for her. Every action for her benefit.
“We can do this.” He whispered. “I promise.”
They drove through the night to get to the school. They tried at first to talk to one another, as if it wasn’t really happening, but the weight of it was heavy in the air. It pressed down and around them, pulling Lucy’s hair and punching Andrew’s gut. They sat with the radio on for miles.
“I used to write music, you know.” Andrew said.
“What kind?” Lucy asked.
“Mostly kind of folksy stuff, I guess.” He laughed. “A lot of it was pretty depressing. About being alone with yourself and having all these thoughts.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why I did it. I can’t even sing.”
“You have a beautiful voice.” Lucy said. “I love hearing you hum to yourself in the kitchen and while you clean and stuff. It’s nice.”
“Well, that’s just humming anyway.”
“It’s nice.” Lucy repeated.
Andrew reached out and put a hand on her knee. “You’re too sweet to me, Goose.”
They sat silently for a moment. “What else don’t I know about you?” She fiddled with her wedding band, watching him.
“Er—like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“I really don’t have too many secrets, Luce.” He said. “What about you?”
She pursed her lips in thought. “When I was little, I was obsessed with Helen Keller.”
Andrew laughed. “What? Like she was your role model or something?”
“I guess. I know everything about her. Ask me anything.”
“When was she born?”
“June 27, 1880. Easy. Give me a hard one.”
“Okay, what was her favorite color?”
“She was blind, dumbass.” Lucy laughed. “She never saw colors.”
Andrew laughed, too. “Fair enough. I don’t want to know about her anyway. Tell me more about you.”
She paused for a minute. “I’ve never seen the ocean before.”
“Me, neither.” He said.
“I like that.” She smiled. “It’s something we can do together.”
He looked at her for as long as he could before looking back at the road, like she was fresh water and he’d never had a drink in his life.
“We should stop by the beach before we get to Bradford.” He said. “It’s a little out of the way, but it’d be a nice way to…” he hesitated. He didn’t want to say the word goodbye to her, ever. So he said instead: “It’d be a nice way to love you.”
“No.” she said. “I want there to be something for us to look forward to together. That way you have reason to come home to me.”
He pulled over sharply, causing Lucy to panic a bit and grip her seat tightly. He parked the car, took off his seatbelt and in one swift motion leaned over and kissed her deeply and passionately. When he pulled away he left her breathless. He looked at her directly.
“You are my reason. You’re the only thing I need.” He ran a thumb over her lower lip. “Okay?”
She nodded, unable to speak for the moment.
“Okay.” He said. “Good.”
“I’ll say.”
Lucy was so excited to get home to the apartment that when she hopped off of the bus she had to physically stop herself from skipping to the postroom. It was Monday.
That meant mail.
She turned the key in the lock and dug through the bills until she came upon Andrew’s letter. She grinned, tearing the envelope open and sinking against the wall to the floor to read.
Dearest Goose, it read.
My dear, sweet, wonderful Lucy. The world is so grey these days. Literally and figuratively. College is so muted, so lifeless. I’ve gotten so used to living in the color of your world anything else is a jarring experience.
I’m doing well. I know you won’t believe that, but I am. Haven’t had too many attacks lately, and I’m eating regularly. I’ve even started to exercise a little with the boys. Mark’s on a fitness kick so we’re all trying to get a bit healthier. We learned in lecture it’s good for depression, anyway, so I think I’ll try to keep up with it.
Yesterday I tripped on a blind girl’s cane, so obviously we have to leave the country. Too many people saw. Well, two people saw. And she was one of them. And I was the other person. But I’ll know, and that’s enough reason.
God, I miss you. Sometimes at night I put my hand to my chest to feel your heart beating there. I miss sleeping with you. I miss eating dinner with you. I miss the way you told waiters my food was wrong when I couldn’t. I miss tandem bike rides with you. I know we only did it once, but I’d like to do it again, even if it was a disaster the first time. It’s fun to have disasters with you. But literally never any other time. Sometimes not even with you.
I have to go to class now, but I’ll call you tonight. Stay by the phone for me?
Love forever,
Andrew
Lucy raced up the stairs to the apartment. She could hear the phone ringing and she was so nervous she might miss it she dropped her keys.
She rushed inside and picked up the handset.
“Andrew?”
“Hey Goose. Did you get my letter?” The street sounded noisily from his end of the phone.
“I just read it. So, you tripped over a girl’s cane?”
“A blind girl, yes.”
“And now we have to leave the country?”
“Yes.”
“But you’ll always know.”
“Correct.”
“Sounds like we’ll never be able to outrun it. We might as well just stay where we are.”
He laughed and sighed. “I guess so.” She could hear his goofy grin in his voice. “How was your day?”
“Not too bad. I missed the bus coming home so I had to catch a later one. I actually just got back.” She set her purse on the kitchen counter and sat down. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
“Yeah? Anything good?”
“Always.”
“I like it. Keep it up, I might just have to marry you.”
Lucy smiled. “You’re in a good mood today. The exercise is helping?”
He paused. “Yeah. Must be.”
“You hesitated.” She began to pick at the peel of an orange.
“It’s nothing. I know you smell something, but please don’t circle the waters.” He said. “I promise I would tell you if I could.”
“What? Why can’t you tell me?” She tore at the orange more aggressively.
“I couldn’t tell you without messing everything up.”
“I’m your wife. I want to help you if I can.” She said.
“You can’t help me, so don’t worry about it.” He said, and she heard him wince on the other end as he heard it. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m okay, that’s what I meant. I swear it.”
“It’s fine.” She pushed the discarded peel around the counter with the tip of her finger. “I just don’t want any secrets between us, you know?”
“I know Goose, but you’ll like this one.”
“I better.” She teased. The line beeped to warn that he needed to add more coins to the payphone.
“Ah, shit.” Andrew said. She heard him rustle, presumably digging through his pockets. “I thought I had more change.”
“It’s okay, I have to write you a letter anyway.”
“Are you sure?” He asked. “You aren’t upset with me, are you?”
“Not at all.” She reassured him. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They stayed on the line for a few more seconds, hoping one of them would figure out a way to teleport to the other.
“Okay.” He said. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” She placed the phone on the receiver and watched it, hoping he’d find more change and it would ring again. It didn’t.
Andrew pushed around the food on his plate. Beck was droning on about Andrew’s abnormal psych paper again.
“Seriously!” She said. “How do you do it? It’s like you’re in their heads.”
Like I’m one of them, Andrew thought. He shrugged. They’d met as partners for a group project. He had done a good portion of the work, Beck had done some lesser-quality work of her own, and that was it. No one else contributed. She seemed to think this made them compatible in some way.
“You’ve been filling out lately. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Who’re you working out for? Your wife is in Dakota.”
“Lucy’s in Delmarva.” He said. “It’s just south.”
“Whatever. The question still stands.”
He dug a line is his mashed potatoes. He poked two holes in the top and made it a smiley-face, because that’s what Lucy would’ve done. He looked up. Beck was watching him, waiting for an answer.
“I’m just trying to get healthy.”
“Sure you are.” Beck said. “And it has nothing to do with anything in front of you.”
She shifted her legs slightly under the table. He felt her foot slip under the hem of his pants and softly rub his leg. His blood fell out of his body and he felt like he was going to be sick.
“Can you please not do that?” He asked with all the confrontational spirit he could muster. “I don’t want that.”
“What do you want?” She purred, leaning closer over the table. “Not your wife, or you’d be with her. That’s the kind of guy you are, I can tell.”
He stood and walked away at this. He left the cafeteria without clearing his area, something he would feel awful about later.
He stopped at one of the payphones outside the campus library and called home. Lucy picked up on the first ring.
“Horne residence, may I ask who’s calling?”
“Do you think I don’t want to be with you?” His hands were shaking as he held the phone to his ear.
“Andrew, what are you talking about? I know you want to be home. You tell me all the time. Hell, you didn’t want to go in the first place, remember? I made you.”
Andrew breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Goose.”
“Of course. What’s this about, anyway?”
“Beck said I must not want you because I was eating lunch with her.” He rubbed his temple. “I just got nervous that you might think that.”
“Beck from your abnormal psychology class?” She laughed. “I told you she had a thing for you.”
“I know, Luce. You were right.”
“So she tried something, then?”
“Yeah.” He laughed—things seemed funny to him now. “She tried to play footsie with me under the table.”
“That’s hilarious. Bet you didn’t mention that you won’t even take off your socks until you’re in bed. Weirdo.”
Andrew smiled and rolled his eyes. “It’s not weird, you walk on your feet—they get dirty. Feet are dirty.”
“Yeah, but you shower.”
“And then you walk to bed.” He said. “Ergo: more dirt.”
“We don’t live in a hut, Andrew. The floors have carpet. You will survive if your bare feet step on them.”
“Carpets are worse than dirt. You can never get them really clean.” He sighed. “I should’ve said something to Beck. All I did was ask her to stop and then I walked away.”
“Do you want me to drive up there? I can take care of it. I don’t mind.” Lucy joked. “I’ll tear her ass to shreds.”
Andrew smiled. He wished she could. He almost asked her to. A man’s voice sounded from Lucy’s end. Where did you want this? It said.
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, that’s just Brandon. He’s helping me with some rearranging.”
That should be me, Andrew thought. I should be the one moving furniture with you.
“Oh. Cool.” He said instead.
