I see here that I have written very little of Desiree. Almost nothing. The catalogue of small habits and qualities that I have taken note of in my thoughts are not here at all.

What was I thinking? Haven’t I proved this matter over and again? If it’s not written, it’ll be forgotten. Did I think that my love for her was enough? Stupid man.

What was the first thing, then?

After we met, I had given her my phone number. I wrote it on a beer coaster at the bar when she had abruptly gotten up to leave. I had no reason to expect that she might call me. What did she need with a lout?

Still, I thought about her many times over the weeks afterward. Her face came easily to mind then. Unbidden. Unexpectedly.

When Desiree did call me at last, I think the shock must have shown on my face. I was with Becky, in the office at Harvard, waiting for her to finish up something. Becky had asked me to take her to lunch. That was an odd moment, with Becky looking over at me as I spoke to Desiree on the phone.

I had been sitting there watching Becky write an e-mail, when my cell phone rang. The voice did not say hello. She did not even say who she was. What she said was, “Alright then. Would you like to take me to dinner tonight?”

I said, “Yes.” Just like that. My mind went blank under the attention of Becky’s eyes.

Desiree said, “Where?”

I said, “I have no idea. I don’t eat out very much.”

She said, “I know a place. In the South End. I’ll call them to see if they’re open. We can meet there. Is seven o’clock okay?”

I told her it was fine.

She said, “Take my number. Call me at six. I’ll be out of work by six.”

I had grabbed a pencil from Becky’s desk and taken the note pad there to write the number down. I still have that square of paper. Beck’s name ‘Dr. Rebecca Sawyer’ printed at the top, but Desiree’s number written below.

I don’t think that is a proper representation of irony, but it feels like irony should when I look at it now. They are incongruous together. A brief contradiction of information. But not opposites.

Part of the irony is actually present in how similar Becky and Desiree are. They both have that sense about them that the world is theirs. It’s hard to imagine what either of them sees in me.

I have known Desiree for three months. Less. If I take off the first two weeks after we met because she did not call, and take away the last two weeks since she has disappeared.

I have known Rebecca for most of my adult life. Less, if you take away all the years of my marriage to Mary Ellen. Yet, when I am with Rebecca, it feels like we have known each other all along. Desiree is always new. Unexpected. Unpredictable.

Another odd thing. I said that to her the very first night.

A Canadian wind had brought a September cold spell. We had walked from the restaurant, both of us pretty quiet. The sky was not the usual city gray but a hard black punctuated with stars, even standing there in the Public Garden. Trees shadowed the lights.

I said, “This is extraordinary. There are stars there you can almost never see.”

She was standing close to me for warmth, holding my arm. I looked down from the sky and kissed her. Just like that. I just did it, without a thought.

It made her laugh. More than a giggle. But she had kissed me back, so I was not about to apologize. When she quieted she took my hand back.

She said, “I was hoping you would. I was thinking you should do it right then. And then you turned and you did it. It’s very funny. Like predicting something.”

I said, “You are very unpredictable, yourself. I’m surprised I caught you in passing. Like grabbing a shooting star out of the sky with my hand.”

She stood close again, looking right up at me. She said, “That’s very ‘writerly.’ You should write women’s novels with stuff like that.”

I said, “I suppose I should. Nothing else seems to sell.”

She said, “No. I’m just joking. You should finish writing about the girl in the well. I want to know about her. I want you to tell me all about her.”

I said, “I will.” Her smile was gone then. It was a very seriously made request. I repeated the promise. “I will.”

She pulled me by the hand.

“Is it a long way to where you live?”

I said, “Your place is closer.”

She said, “I’d rather not. Let’s go to yours.”

Just like that.

What had we talked about in the restaurant?

She liked the food there. She said it was authentic. She had been to France. That is a bit of history, isn’t it? She had lived there. She had taken odd jobs. For a year she had worked part time as a guide for American tourists at a cemetery in Normandy. She seemed to have no need of a steady income. She had even traveled for a time to Spain and Italy. Languages came easily to her.

What else.

She did not like being a lawyer. She liked research. As someone else said, she liked details. She was good at gathering information together that completed a case.

I told her, “Maybe it’s you who should write. You have the best instincts for it. I’ll bet you could write great novels.”

She did not hesitate over the thought.

“I’ll bet I could. Maybe I will. Tell me how you do it. Tell me how you write. Tell me what you’re writing now.”

And I did.

I loved her right then. A totally selfish impulse I suppose. She was interested in me. She wanted to know what I did.

Now I see why I was afraid to write this down–as if the very act would put a jinx on it, like some kind of foolish sports fan. Stupid man.

But at least I told her. At least I told her I loved her.

Could that have been a cause for her to leave?

That Sunday, when she had told me she had to go, I asked her to stay. I told her I loved her then.

Had I told her before, as well?

Yes. At least once before that. Maybe more than once. What do you say in passion that you remember? But had she said it to me?

No. I would remember that.

She had brushed the back of her hand gently against the pigeon feathers that decorate the frame of the van Gogh print there by my bed, before she said it.

“I have to go.”

“Why? Can’t you stay a little longer?”

“No.”

“Can I go with you?”

She laughed at that. That’s something else I like. She laughs so easily. So few people do.

“No. I have to go. I’ll call.”

“Let me walk you to the subway.”

“Alright. If you want.”

What else?

She mentioned her father once. Which one? I think it must have been her real father. He carried her into the ocean and taught her how to fly, she said. He held her out across his arms so that she could float at the very surface of the water and rise on each wave that came. She had dreamt of it one night when we were together and she told me about the dream in the morning, because she had had it before.

And another time, she said, “He taught me to ride. He owned land out beyond Fallbrook. An old ranch of fat black oaks and high grass and pebbled gullies. I fell in a gully there and he plucked me out from atop his horse, like a rodeo cowboy snatching a hat from the ground, and sat me right up on the saddle. I had skinned my knees and the blood was streaked on my legs but he didn’t wipe it off or fuss over it at all.” Her head tilted with the thought as if seeking some sound of that moment in her mind. “I guess he must have gotten off the horse then because I remember him walking ahead. He just set me up there on the saddle and said, ‘I think you can ride.’ And I did. I held the reins and he walked out in front of me. I can see him there in the sun. Just a blackened shadow in a blinding sun.”

I have never learned to ride a horse and that must have been when she promised to teach me. I was looking forward to that.

I told her, “I had a opportunity once, when I was in the Army, at Fort Benning. But I was stupid. I missed the chance.”

She shook her head at me. “I don’t like that word. ‘Stupid.’ Don’t say that.”

And another time I had used the word again. I think I had left something behind at my apartment and I had said it. She scolded me.

“It’s a word my mother uses. She called my father stupid. I don’t know why. I don’t like it.”

On another day, when it had warmed again in October, we had taken a Boston Harbor ferry out to the Islands. These had been favorite places for me as a boy, but that was before they were part of the National Parks and we used to use my Dad’s boat. I probably went on about those times too much. But she listened. They were good times. And she had mentioned her father then as well.

We were high on a granite wall on George’s Island and I was pointing out where we used to fish. I told her about our boat nearly overturning one day by Peddock’s in the wake of some big stink-pot. I thought the story was humorous but her face was stricken with the idea of it.

I asked her what was the matter, and she had said it was because of her father.

She said, “He drowned.”

I asked, “How?”

Her face went slack with the thought, “I’m not sure.”

“When?”

“I’m not sure. I was little. I was six. He went fishing. I think he fell overboard. That’s the story I was told. They found his body, later, but my mother wouldn’t let me go to the funeral. I think I was probably inconsolable. I have no real memory of it at all.”

Later that day, as we returned, we stood in the open on the top deck of the ferry with a hard warm wind on our faces, I asked, “What happened to the ranch?”

She said, “I don’t know. I think the economy was bad and he was in debt. I think it was sold for the debts. My mother wouldn’t talk about it. And whenever I think about it, the only thing I remember is my father holding me there, high in the water. And my thought is always the same silly thing I must have asked myself way back then when I was little: Why couldn’t he fly above the water the way he showed me to?”