‘You’re chewing it like a plug of tobacco.’
‘Enough!’ he said. ‘My earthly goods are stacked on the back porch. Give them to the Salvation Army.’
‘The Geographies too?’
‘Yes, damn it, the Geographies ! Now stand aside!’
‘If you’re going to die, you won’t need that suitcase full of clothing,’ she said.
‘Hands off, woman! It may take some few hours. Am I to be stripped of my last creature comforts? This should be a tender scene of parting. Instead – bitter recriminations, sarcasm, doubt strewn to every wind.’
‘All right,’ she said.’ Go spend a cold night in the woods.’
‘I’m not necessarily going to the woods.’
‘Where else is there for a man in Illinois to go to die?’
‘Well,’ he said, and paused. ‘Well, there’s always the open highway.’
‘And be run down, of course; I’d forgotten that.’
‘No, no!’ He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. ‘The empty side-roads leading nowhere, everywhere, through night forests, wilderness, to distant lakes’
‘Now, you’re not going to go rent a canoe, are you, and paddle off? Remember the time you tipped over and almost drowned at Fireman’s Pier?’
‘Who said anything about canoes?’
‘You did! Pagan islanders, you said, paddling off into the great unknown.’
‘That’s the South Seas! Here a man has to strike off on foot to find his natural source, seek his natural end. I might walk north along the Lake Michigan shore, the dunes, the wind, the big breakers there.’
‘Willie, Willie,’ she said softly, shaking her head. ‘Oh, Willie, Willie, what will I do with you?’
He lowered his voice. ‘Just let me have my head,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, quietly. ‘Yes.’ And tears came to her eyes.
‘Now, now,’ he said.
‘Oh, Willie …’ She looked a long while at him. ‘Do you really think with all your heart you’re not going to live?’
He saw himself reflected, small but perfect, in her eye, and looked away uneasily. ‘I thought all night about the universal tide that brings man in and takes him out. Now it’s morning and good-bye.’
‘Good-bye?’ She looked as if she’d never heard the word before.
His voice was unsteady. ‘Of course, if you absolutely insist I stay, Mildred –’
‘No!’ She braced herself and blew her nose. ‘You feel what you feel; I can’t fight that!’
‘You sure?’ he said.
‘You’re the one that’s sure, Willie,’ she said. ‘Get on along now. Take your heavy coat; the nights are cold.’
‘But –’ he said.
She ran and brought his coat and kissed his cheek and drew back quickly before he could enclose her in his bear hug. He stood there working his mouth, gazing at the big armchair by the fire. She threw open the front door. ‘You got food?’
‘I won’t need …’ He paused. ‘I got a boiled-ham sandwich and some pickles in my case. Just one, That’s all I figured I’d…’