(I don't mean to keep dribbling this out in drabbles.....but it just keeps happening this way.)After the Call
(July 2003)
The artist got up from the table, got some water, slowly drank it, and sat back down. He took the black and tan scarf back from Ennis, and twisted in his hands. He continued explaining. “I went to see him as soon as he called. I never heard him sound like that before. It was a little more than two years ago, two since he left. It was in the early spring, when I got there. I saw crocuses blooming all over, and Easter bunnies in the windows of the stores in town. Those bothered me.”
“He picked me up at the airport. I was shocked when I saw him. He lost a lot of weight. He was just skin and bones. He looked as if he hadn’t stopped crying for days. He came right into my arms when I got off the plane, and we stayed that way for a long time, right there in the airport.”
“He told me that his mother had just been in an accident, she didn’t make it. But that was almost was a blessing because she was sick anyway, that was why he left New York, to take care of her. He didn’t tell me that before. But still he was all broken up.”
Ennis stood up and walked around the kitchen. He turned on the faucet and washed his hands in the cool water. He looked out of the window, it was fully light out. That didn’t matter, he went to the ranch when he pleased. He turned and leaned back on his heels.
“I still can’t understand, what does it have to do with me?” Ennis asked again. He was real tired now and wide awake too.
The artist held out the scarf to Ennis across the room. “His mother gave him the scarf, when she was pretty sick, but before the accident. He never saw it before. She said that she put it away for years. She couldn’t bear to see it. But she wanted him to have it. He gave it to me. He said it was very special. That’s why he gave it to me, just before I left.”
Ennis sat back down at the table “Ya didn’t get back together?”
The artist looked directly at him. “No, I could have stayed, maybe, if I had wanted to.” He folded and unfolded the scarf in his hands. “I must have been crazy to leave and not try, but when I was with him again, by then it seemed it wouldn’t be right. Maybe he changed, maybe I did. Maybe I learned how to be on my own, for real.” His voice grew softer “I don’t know, I don’t, but I had to go, I now had something that I had to do. It was more important than being with him at the time.” The artists’ pale eyes glowed brightly in his nearly white face, reflecting the light now streaming in from the window.
“What could have been more important?" Ennis asked, thinking of missed chances.
“Finding you” the artist replied.
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