You tried to clean up before we left for the airport, but I wanted to get started. I do not understand why I was so anxious.
The night before we had the train back to the suburbs practically to ourselves. Oh, a few people sat in a jolting, distant, silence. An older gentleman sat across from where we stood. We stood for fear we would fall asleep and miss our destination. You had your back to him. I watched him watching us.
Your hair pinned, somehow, high upon your head, soft curling strands falling down upon the curve of your neck — small glints of silver gray, unashamed, glistened upon your temples. Your eye makeup, slightly smudged from blinking and rubbing fatigue from your face, only seemed to make your appearance softer. I looked away from you to hide a smile and caught the old man looking at us — his expression mournful.
So I turned back to you, looked down upon your face, pale, sleepy, beautiful.
Letting go of the cold metal, vertical bar that I clung to, I clasp the one you were leaning into. You blinked, and you looked up at me. A small frown between your eyes and I realized you were questioning me. Was I inviting you to step forward, place your head upon my shoulder, lean in? Gently, I inclined my head toward my shoulder.
Trust me a little.
You did.
You moved forward, and I lost sight of you, but for the first time, beyond the casual handshake or the quick friendship hug, I felt you. Your body against mine, resting. I felt no sexual urges, no dominating triumph, rather I absorbed your sense of weariness.
I lowered my arms along the vertical bars to encase you further against me. A small child you became, me your protector.
I continued to watch nothing out the window, the flash of lights as the train moved quickly to the old city to where I lived, alone in the new housing community where solitary artist and couples with an abundance of well-mannered children lived. Adobe colored garden pots of all sizes lined the stairs leading to wooden front doors and hung from fences. No grass covered the small patches of ground, but sapling fruit trees and rows of herbs and potatoes bulged and bubbled the ground.
The train stopped and the rattle of the doors opening and the cold air of late night, early morning, coursed into the car. I glanced back. The old man was watching, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at you. We stepped toward the door and your hand was in mine.
The doors shut behind us and we began moving away from the platform, toward my house, my small world I had let you invade, on my invite, for a few days.
“Do you think he rides just to pass the time?” You asked, expecting no reply from me.
I looked away from your face, but re-gripped your small hand in mine and said nothing. I did not realize you had even noticed the old man.
The street was dark, my house darker. My hand trembled as I inserted my key into the lock and opened the door. I stepped aside and let you in first.
You walked down the long narrow hall. You placed your hand deep within your hair and pulled out the magic that held it aloft upon your head. I watched your hair cascade down and brush your shoulders. You placed the magic absent-mindedly upon the small narrow table that belonged to my Mother and seemed destined for this narrow tall house, deep within this bohemian, suburban, sprawl.
Your back still to me, your hands rubbed your temples and I could imagine your face, eyes closed and worried about the old man on the train.
Next morning you told me not to stay with you at the airport, that you’d be fine and I honestly felt that you meant it. You seemed relieved to be there, to be boarding a plane back to your beloved Chicago. Dark circles under your eyes and your hair disheveled and sexy. The waiting area for your flight suddenly seemed to lift your spirits.
A call to board the plane. I asked you what the weather was like in Chicago. The weather.
“Cold and gloriously gray and gloomy along that big fresh-water lake.”
And now I’m standing in this house, sunlight streaming into the windows, dust motes floating in the air and the sound of a distant city on a Sunday afternoon.
The dust in the house caught in the sunlight streaming through the windows floated along in bored, mindless circles. There he stood, the old man from the train the night before standing across the street. Did he sense my sudden awareness of him? He moved on down the uneven sidewalk, moving aside for a large family taking a Sunday afternoon stroll.
I grabbed my keys, locked the front door and started walking toward a coffeehouse down the street with deep old wooden chairs and little round tables. I was on my second cup when I noticed the old man in the back of the place, huddled up in the only small booth the place offered. He was looking out at nothing, his coffee steaming in front of him.
How did we appear sitting there, me a middle-aged man and he old and cold looking? Were we some cosmic example to some young man contemplating the ring in his pocket and the girl across the table from him? I looked about; there was no one just us. An electric taste of fear coursed through my mouth. My hand shook, and the coffee was suddenly stone cold.
“Are you afraid of ghosts?” he asked me.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said.
“Neither did I,” and he wheezed and laughed his reply. “She’s gone son, it’s time to let her go and let her live again, you’ve been haunting her long enough.”
