Mystic River

In more than a year, he'd never spoken to anyone about Lauren? not his parents, his few stray friends, not even the police psychologist the commander had made a brief and pointed mention of once Lauren's moving out had become common knowledge around the barracks. But here was Annabeth, a stranger who'd suffered a loss, and he could feel her probing for his loss, needing to see it or share it or something along those lines, needing to know, Sean figured, that she wasn't being singled out.

"My wife's a stage manager," he said quietly. "For road shows, you know? Lord of the Dance toured the country last year? my wife stage-managed. That sort of thing. She's doing one now? Annie Get Your Gun, maybe. I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. Whatever they're recycling this year. We were a weird couple. I mean, our jobs, right, how further apart can you get?"

"But you loved her," Annabeth said.

He nodded. "Yeah. Still do." He took a breath, leaning back in his chair and sucking it down. "So the guy I gave the tickets to, he was?" Sean's mouth went dry and he shook his head, had the sudden urge to just get the hell off this porch and out of this house.

"He was a rival?" Annabeth said, her voice delicate.

Sean took a cigarette from the pack and lit one, nodding. "That's a nice word for it. Yeah, we'll say that. A rival. And my wife and I, we were going through some shit for a while. Neither of us was around much, and so on. And this, uh, rival? he moved in on her."

"And you reacted badly," Annabeth said. A statement, not a question.

Sean rolled his eyes in her direction. "You know anyone who reacts well?"

Annabeth gave him a hard look, one that seemed to suggest that sarcasm was below him, or maybe just something she wasn't fan of in general.

"You still love her, though."

"Sure. Hell, I think she still loves me." He stubbed out his cigarette. "She calls me all the time. Calls me and doesn't talk."

"Wait, she? "

"I know," he said.

"? calls you up and doesn't say a word?"

"Yup. Been going on for about eight months now."

Annabeth laughed. "No offense, but that's the weirdest thing I've heard in a while."

"No argument." He watched a fly dart in and away from the bare lightbulb. "One of these days, I figure, she's gotta talk. That's what I'm holding out for."

He heard his half-assed chuckle die in the night and the echo of it embarrassed him. So they sat in silence for a bit, smoking, listening to the buzz of the fly as it made its crazy darts toward the light.

"What's her name?" Annabeth asked. "This whole time, you've never once said her name."

"Lauren," he said. "Her name's Lauren."

Her name hung in the air for a bit like the loose strand of a cobweb.

"And you loved her since you were kids?"

"Freshman year of college," he said. "Yeah, I guess we were kids."

He could remember a November rainstorm, the two of them kissing for the first time in a doorway, the feel of goose bumps on her flesh, both of them shaking.

"Maybe that's the problem," Annabeth said.

Sean looked at her. "That we're not kids anymore?"

"One of you, at least," she said.

Sean didn't ask which one.

"Jimmy told me you said Katie was planning to elope with Brendan Harris."

Sean nodded.

"Well, that's just it, isn't it?"

He turned in his chair. "What?"

She blew a stream of smoke up at the empty clotheslines. "These silly dreams you have when you're young. I mean, what, Katie and Brendan Harris were going to make a life in Las Vegas? How long would that little Eden have lasted? Maybe they'd be on their second trailer park, second kid, but it would hit them sooner or later? life isn't happily ever after and golden sunsets and shit like that. It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But, shit, you roll up your sleeves and work? at everything? because that's what growing older is."

"Annabeth," Sean said, "anyone ever tell you that you're a hard woman?"

She turned her head to him, her eyes closed, a dreamy smile on her face. "All the time."

* * *

BRENDAN HARRIS went into his room that night and faced the suitcase under his bed. He'd packed it tightly with shorts and Hawaiian shirts, one sportcoat and two pairs of jeans, but no sweaters or wool pants. He'd packed what he'd expected they wore in Las Vegas, no winter clothes, because he and Katie had agreed that they never wanted to face another windchill or thermal-sock sale at Kmart or windshield crusted with ice. So when he opened the suitcase, what stared back up at him was a bright array of pastels and floral patterns, an explosion of summer.

This was who they'd planned to be. Tanned and loose, their bodies not weighted down by boots or coats or someone else's expectations. They would have drunk drinks with goofy names from daiquiri glasses and spent afternoons in the hotel swimming pool and their skin would have smelled of sunblock and chlorine. They would have made love in a room iced by the air conditioner, yet warmed where the sun cut through the blinds, and when the night cooled everything off, they would have dressed in the better of their clothes and walked the Strip. He could see the two of them doing that as if from far away, looking down from several stories at the two lovers as they strolled through the neon wash, and those lights swept the black tar with watery reds and yellows and blues. And there they were? Brendan and Katie? walking lazily down the middle of the wide boulevard, dwarfed by the buildings, the chatter-and-ching of the casinos rattling out through the doors.

Which one you want to go to tonight, honey?

You pick.

No, you pick.

No, come on, you pick.

Okay. How about that one?

Looks good.

That one it is, then.

I love you, Brendan.

I love you, too, Katie.

And they would have walked up the carpeted stairs between the white columns and into the clamor of the smoky, clanging palace. They would have done this as man and wife, starting their lives together, still kids really, and East Buckingham would have been a million miles behind them and receding a million more with every step they took.

That's what it would have been like.

Brendan sat down on the floor. He just needed to sit for a second. Just a second or two. He sat and pulled the soles of his high-tops together and gripped his ankles like a little boy. He rocked a bit, dropping his chin to his chest and closing his eyes, and he felt the pain soften for an instant. He felt a calm in the dark and in his rocking.