And by the time the last bottle of wine was uncorked and poured, the three had settled into a smiling, gasping, beautiful silence. The son lifted his glass in a toast.
“Here’s to boredom!”
Which set them all off again, firing guffaws, sucking air, pounding the table, eyes gumme
d shut with happy tears, knocking each other’s ribs with their elbows. “Well, son,” said the father, at last, quieting. “It’s late. We really must be going.”
“Where?” laughed the son, and grew still. “Oh, yes. I forgot.”
“Oh, don’t look so down in the mouth,” said his mother. “That place isn’t half as bad as Father makes out.”
“But,” said the son, quietly, “isn’t it a bit—boring—also?”
“Not once you get the hang of it. Finish the wine. Here goes.”
They drank the last of the wine, laughed a bit, shook their heads, then walked to the restaurant door and out into a warm summer night. It was only eight o’clock and a fine wind blew up from the lake, and there was a smell of flowers in the air that made you want to just walk on forever.
“Let me go part way with you,” offered the son.
“Oh, that’s not necessary.”
“We can make it alone, son,” said the father. “It’s better that way.” They stood looking at each other. “Well,” said the son, “it’s been nice.”
“No, not really. Loving, yes, loving, because we’re family and we love you, son, and you love us. But nice? I don’t know if that fits. Boring, yes, boring, and loving, loving and boring. Good night, son.”
And they milled around each other and hugged and kissed and wept and then gave one last great hoot of laughter, and there went his parents, along the street under the darkening trees, heading for the meadow place.
The son stood for a long moment, watching his parents getting smaller and smaller with distance and then he turned, almost without thinking, and stepped into the phone booth, dialed, and got the answering machine.
“Hello, Helen,” he said, and paused because it was hard to find words, difficult to say. “This is Dad. About that dinner next Thursday? Could we cancel? No special reason. Overwork. I’ll call next week, set a new date. Oh, and could you call Debby and tell her? Love you. ‘Bye.”
He hung up and looked down the long dark street. Way off there, his parents were just turning in at the iron graveyard gates. They saw him watching, gave him a wave, and were gone.
Mom. Dad, he thought Helen. Debby. And again: Helen, Debby, Mom, Dad. I bore them. I bore them! I will be damned!
And then, laughing until the tears rolled out of his eyes he turned and strolled back into the restaurant His laughter made a few people look up from their tables.
He didn’t mind, because the wine, as he finished it, wasn’t all that bad.
Lafayette, Farewell
There was a tap on the door, the bell was not rung, so I knew who it was. The tapping used to happen once a week, but in the past few weeks it came every other day. I shut my eyes, said a prayer, and opened the door.
Bill Westerleigh was there, looking at me, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Is this my house or yours?” he said.
It was an old joke now. Several times a year he wandered off, an eighty-nine-year-old man, to get lost within a few blocks. He had quit driving years ago because he had wound up thirty miles out of Los Angeles instead of at the center where we were. His best journey nowadays was from next door, where he lived with his wondrously warm and understanding wife, to here, where he tapped, entered, and wept. “Is this your house or mine?” he said, reversing the order.
“Mi casa es su casa.” I quoted the old Spanish saying.
“And thank God for that!”
I led the way to the sherry bottle and glasses in the parlor and poured two glasses while Bill settled in an easy chair across from me. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose on a handkerchief which he then folded neatly and put back in his breast pocket.
“Here’s to you, buster.” He waved his sherry glass. “The sky is full of ‘em. I hope you come back. If not, well drop a black wreath where we think your crate fell.”
I drank and was warmed by the drink and then looked a long while at Bill.