Killer, Come Back to Me

Silence. At last: “You,” said Jonathan Hughes. “You.”

* * *

The car rounded a turn in the night. The woman, the old man, the young, swayed with the motion.

“What did you say your name was?” the young woman said, above the rush and run of country and road.

“He didn’t say,” said Jonathan Hughes quickly.

“Weldon,” said the old man, blinking.

“Why,” said Alice Hughes. “That’s my maiden name.”

The old man gasped inaudibly, but recovered. “Well, is it? How curious!”

“I wonder if we’re related? You—”

“He was my teacher at Central High,” said Jonathan Hughes, quickly.

“And still am,” said the old man. “And still am.”

And they were home.

He could not stop staring. All through dinner, the old man simply sat with his hands empty half the time and stared at the lovely woman across the table from him. Jonathan Hughes fidgeted, talked much too loudly to cover the silences, and ate sparsely. The old man continued to stare as if a miracle was happening every ten seconds. He watched Alice’s mouth as if it were giving forth fountains of diamonds. He watched her eyes as if all the hidden wisdoms of the world were there, and now found for the first time. By the look of his face, the old man, stunned, had forgotten why he was there.

“Have I a crumb on my chin?” cried Alice Hughes, suddenly. “Why is everyone watching me?”

Whereupon the old man burst into tears that shocked everyone. He could not seem to stop, until at last Alice came around the table to touch his shoulder.

“Forgive me,” he said. “It’s just that you’re so lovely. Please sit down. Forgive.”

They finished off the dessert and with a great display of tossing down his fork and wiping his mouth with his napkin, Jonathan Hughes cried, “That was fabulous. Dear wife, I love you!” He kissed her on the cheek, thought better of it, and rekissed her, on the mouth. “You see?” He glanced at the old man. “I very much love my wife.”

The old man nodded quietly and said, “Yes, yes, I remember.”

“You remember?” said Alice, staring.

“A toast!” said Jonathan Hughes, quickly. “To a fine wife, a grand future!”

His wife laughed. She raised her glass.

“Mr. Weldon,” she said, after a moment. “You’re not drinking?…”

* * *

It was strange seeing the old man at the door to the living room.

“Watch this,” he said, and closed his eyes. He began to move certainly and surely about the room, eyes shut. “Over here is the pipestand, over here the books. On the fourth shelf down a copy of Eiseley’s The Star Thrower. One shelf up H. G. Wells’s Time Machine, most appropriate, and over here the special chair, and me in it.”

He sat. He opened his eyes.

Watching from the door, Jonathan Hughes said, “You’re not going to cry again, are you?”

“No. No more crying.”

There were sounds of washing up from the kitchen. The lovely woman out there hummed under her breath. Both men turned to look out of the room toward that humming.

“Someday,” said Jonathan Hughes, “I will hate her? Someday, I will kill her?”