Because the truth is that it’s complicated. It’s thorny. It’s been eighteen years and somehow, my father’s death is still reaching through time and grabbing at my ankles with ugly, bony fingers, but it’s also been eighteen years, and that’s a long time.
“I wanted to say a proper thank you for giving me a ride to Norfolk,” Thalia says, and she pulls a bottle from her bag, holding it by the neck. “It was really kind of you. And it really meant a lot. And I’m sorry that I probably ruined that shirt, and just… thank you.”
I reach out and take the bottle of wine. There’s a ribbon around the neck, a folded notecard hanging from it.
“You’re welcome,” I say, and it feels too formal. I shift the wine bottle to my other hand. It’s a cabernet from 2015, a howling wolf on the label, and I remember our conversation that night, before she got the phone call.
“You didn’t have to,” I say, trying something else, but it also feels wrong in my mouth.
What I want to say is that I’m glad that, by some miracle, I was there when she got the call. I want to say that, despite the awful circumstances, the time we spent in the car might have been the best four hours of my year.
I want to tell her how desperately I wish she wasn’t an undergraduate. I want to tell her that I’d drive her again in a heartbeat, that I didn’t do it for thanks but because I like her and I wanted her to be okay.
“I know, but I wanted to,” she says. “And also, politeness and manners are the glue that hold society together.”
“I thought the glue that held society together was little white lies,” I say.
“We went to different finishing schools, then,” Thalia laughs. “What are they teaching you down here?”
“Mostly how to fix things with nothing but duct tape and fishing line while drunk on Bud Light,” I say, putting an extra twang into my accent. “It’s my understanding that the girls took a course in making flowerbeds out of tractor tires.”
“Practical,” she says, grinning. “Probably more practical than learning to curtsey or waltz.”
“You know those things?” I ask, opening my briefcase and finding a spot for the wine.
“I had to learn before my quince,” she says. “I’d need a refresher before I met the Queen, though. And I’ve got no clue how you make a tire into a flowerbed.”
“Fill it with dirt, then plant flowers,” I say.
“If you ever get tired of math, you could teach redneck finishing school,” she laughs.
I nod at the door, then follow her as she walks for it.
“I’ll consider it my backup plan,” I say, as I close the door behind us.
The hall is still lit but completely quiet, every other door long-since closed. Most nights there’s still someone here until late, but tonight’s Friday, so they’re all gone.
Yet again, I’ve found myself alone with Thalia. I don’t know how it keeps happening. It shouldn’t keep happening. I should be making sure that it doesn’t, but here we are.
“Can I walk you home?” I ask, checking that my office door is locked.
The question comes out of my mouth without me meaning to ask. It’s habit, borne of being mostly raised by my mother: I offer to walk women home, to see them to their cars, make sure they get where they’re going.
“I’m just going next door, to the Crown,” she says, pointing toward the library, though she doesn’t meet my eyes.
“On a Friday night?”
“I’ve got calculus homework to do,” she laughs, but she still doesn’t look at me. We walk through the empty hallway, down the stairs, toward the side entrance nearest the library, talking about nothing.
“You don’t have to walk me to the library, you know,” she says once we’re out of the math building, walking down the sidewalk between the two buildings.
“I’m going this way anyway,” I lie.
“I don’t think I’m going to meet a grisly end in the next five hundred feet,” she says, glancing down the sidewalk, dotted with other students. “And if I do, there’ll be witnesses.”
“You object to my presence?” I ask, dryly, both hands in my pockets as we go up a short set of stairs.
“No, just afraid I’m making your route home inefficient,” she says.
Another hundred feet, and then we’re there at the steps of the Crowninshield Library — aka The Crown — named after some colonial-era bigwig who probably donated a lot of money.
“I guess I trust you from here,” I tell her.
Thalia rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.
“If I require assistance getting into the elevator I’ll call you,” she teases.
“Is this where I curtsey?”
“Thanks for the homework help,” she says. “And sorry I took your whole evening.”
“It was nothing,” I say, and I mean it. I’d teach her math all night if she wanted. “Come back if you’ve got more questions.”