She was surprised

She was surprised to see him there.

More than that, she was surprised that she actually recognized him. He had changed. Physically, enough to be a different man. And as she entered the church and suddenly found his eyes looking back, she was just as certain it was Keith as she was that he had not actually changed from the man he had been. How was that? A look of the eye? The way he held his head as he looked back at her?

Kate did not hesitate in her step, though it felt as if she had. The organ music kept the order to it all. Her daughter, Carey, followed, holding John’s arm. Kate wanted desperately to turn and see Keith’s eyes as he looked at Carey. And just as suddenly as that, Kate was angry because he had done it again, as he had done before. As he had always done in her thoughts since. He had intruded. He had put himself in a place he did not belong. After twenty-three years.

She ignored Keith after that. She did not look again to that side of the congregation when she went forward from the front pew and stood in the small group beside her daughter and Eric as they took their vows. She could not look at Father Francis, as if he might see something of her thoughts in her face. He had that ability some priests have. She kept her eyes on her daughter, or on her husband, John, who was beaming and quite obviously happy.

And she refused to look in Keith’s direction as she left the church with John, just behind the best man and bridesmaid, following her daughter and Eric. She was glad it was such a small ceremony. Eric’s parents, and his sister Lori, John’s mother and father, her own father, the two boys, and a few dozen friends. Forty-nine in all. It made ignoring Keith that much more obvious. She wanted him to know she did not like his being there, without saying a word. But she had made the mistake of looking at Pat. Pat had not smiled back but taken one of her great breath’s—the kind she had always taken when faced with difficulty in the old days. She had seen Keith.

Afterward, at the reception, he did not show up. He had not been invited, of course, but he might have come on his own, as he had to the church. But he did not. Thankfully, Pat had said nothing to Kate, and spent most of her time talking to John’s mother. They were closer in age and had that much more to talk about in any case. Kate was sorry her own mother could not have been there, and then had the passing thought that it might be for the best. And then chastised herself for the thought. She focused on keeping the boys away from the food table and telling the photographer what pictures to take.

That night, Kate had time to think about it all over again in one large piece. All the fragments that had wandered through her mind, since she had first seen Keith that day, came together in a manageable sum. Some of those fragments repeated themselves. True. Some were more sharply felt than others.

Almost immediately after they were finally home again from the reception, John wanted to make love. He had not stopped smiling all day, and it was hard to deny him. Carey and Eric were long gone in the limousine. Both she and John had had a great deal to drink. He had taken her coat as soon as they came in the door, and somehow managed to unhook the back of her dress in one motion. Denying him would have allowed Keith that one additional intrusion into their lives, and she would not let that happen. She made love with John in return as fiercely as she ever had in recent memory. She let the anger out with her embrace, and their every move. Afterward John had held her on top of him and said he wished he had more daughters to give away if it would get the same reaction out of her.

There was no need for John to ever know. No fact that could make any difference now. He had been a good father. A good husband. She loved him and he had always loved her, since high school–and those facts made everything else trivial. Didn’t they?

She had not been married when she met Keith. There was no vow broken. No commandment. John had not yet even proposed at that time. He was in the army then and called her constantly, true enough. He wrote everyday. It was assumed, perhaps, that they would get married when John returned, but nothing had been said.

Still, she felt unfaithful, and that was the root of her anger. She was at fault. She was always more angry when the mistake was hers.

Kate was still living at home then. John had unexpectedly gotten leave and showed up at her parent’s door right out of the dark, just two days before Christmas. Had actually shown up out of the blue, after a nine hundred mile bus ride, with only one day to spare, and asked her to marry him. What would have happened had he not done that?

Why had everything changed so suddenly that week before?

No. It had all started weeks before that.

The day after Thanksgiving was actually the day everything had gone wrong. She had worked late at Pat’s. She was at once tired but full of energy. Just the way she so often got at college at the end of semesters when she had her tests. She could never sleep with all of it in her head to do.

Keith was the temp help hired to get them through the season. He had been lanky-thin then. Not the man in the church this day. No mustache. The same head of dark hair, but much longer. That was definitely predicable. That thick head of hair. That in itself was an affront. John was so sensitive now about his balding. Not even his fault. John’s father was nearly bald.

Pat had paid for the beers that Friday night when they went out after closing the shop. It was the biggest sales day of the year and they had all been going non-stop. In those days Pat’s shop was twice the size because they used to carry books as well as the stationary and cards. There were six of them that night. And Kate would bet now that if Pat ever said a thing to her about the past, it would just be about that. Why, oh why, had she taken them all out for a drink that night? So much trouble over an innocent gesture.

More importantly, why had Keith shown up today? What did he want? In fact, what did he actually know? Had he seen Carey before? Had he seen her eyes? It was the cornflower blue eyes right out of the Crayola box that made the case, wasn’t it. The fact that she was as tall as John, and taller by an inch than her brother Will, was incidental. The fact that she had the same square to her shoulders as Keith, was less apparent unless one looked for that. He could not have just decided to show up on a whim. He must have known.

And yet she had never told him.

That first Friday night after they had closed the shop and gone together to The Pub, Keith first spoke to her, and she to him, one after the other–really for the first time, but more like old friends. How long? A couple of hours—they had eaten hamburgers there, so maybe it had been three. They were the last of the shop staff to leave. Because it was late, he had walked her home. He made no advance. He had assumed nothing. He had presumed nothing. He had not tried to kiss her. She remembered that too clearly.

She had wanted him to kiss her, and he had not. Hadn’t she?

The following week they had spoken briefly at work a few times. Perhaps more. They had not really spoken at all during the week before Thanksgiving but she had seen him looking at her. That following week she might have spoken to him each day–a couple of times. And they had lunch together down at Fred’s. Only twice. They were both going there anyway, so why not? She was sure of that. It was odd, though. She remembered the feeling even now. She had looked forward to getting to work each day–to see him. To speak with him. Just for the incidental conversation anyone might have.

That was her fault, of course. She could have avoided that. And she had no idea how he felt.

The following Friday they had met on the street after work. No. He had met her. He had run from a bank machine on the next block to catch up with her. And then he had asked her if she’d like to get a beer. But she had wine. It had seemed the more innocent thing to have at the time. Everything was so innocent. But it wasn’t.

Innocent was an unlikely word. She could not remember now thinking anything else than that it was good to be talking to someone. Especially someone who listened. But nothing had happened that next Friday either. Again, he had not tried to kiss her. He had not taken her hand. Nothing.

That was a fact that she could not deny. Perhaps the previous week she had not really wanted him to kiss her. But the second Friday she had. For sure. And he had not.

The week after that, they had lunch at Fred’s Diner together every day. Everyday, except Sunday when Pat’s was closed. Each day he had asked her again to go to lunch with him, very politely, just after the noontime crowd had finally lessened in the shop, and she had said yes. He had not presumed. She had chosen to say yes. She could have said no at anytime, and it would have ended it.

And by then, he knew how things were. She had told him about John. More than once. She had started to compulsively speak about John in every conversation. At least once, every time. She had made a point of it. She had tried to make it clear that she had another commitment. But he had not turned away.

Had she fallen in love, all of a sudden? She wasn’t sure what that was all about. She had always loved John, or seemed to in memory. What did she know about Keith? Almost nothing. He liked beer but not wine. He was three years older, but still in school. That was because of the army. He was studying to be an architectural engineer. That fact was hard to miss. He used to stack things, like the salt and pepper shakers, on the table as they talked at lunch. He could balance the stainless steel forks on end and top them off with a sugar shaker. He did that while he listened to her, and she thought at first he was not listening, but he was. Afterwards, she had asked him his opinion about one thing or another she had spoken of and he had all the details right. No. More than that. She had agreed with his opinion.

He was probably just trying to show off. Once, she remembered, John had stuck a spoon on his nose at Fred’s and tried to walk out the door with it. Men were stupid like that.

But Keith used to say odd things as well.

One day—was it that first week in December?—No, the second–he had taken the plastic menus and built them in a narrow column four or five feet high. At least that high. And Fred had come out from the kitchen and watched and then bet Keith the price of his lunch if he could add another level, but Keith had not taken the bet. He had said, “It is written: ‘Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.’ A good engineer must appreciate the limits of his work.” He had taken the structure down then, while everyone in the diner had booed at him with their disappointment. He laughed and took a bow anyway. And then he had turned to Kate and said, “I suppose it’s the same with people. Don’t you think? What are your limits? Do you know yet?”

And what had she answered? She had said she didn’t know. She was pretty certain of that.

And they had argued once that week, hadn’t they? What was that about? She could not remember. She had said something Keith could not believe. Dramatically, he threw up his hands while at the table. The gesture had spilled his coffee. He had gotten angry at that. What had it been about? Something she was unable to tell him? She could not remember. But she had been surprised at his reaction. Was he angry at spilling his coffee or at her? Whatever she had said was probably innocent enough.

He was very precise about so many matters. Not opinionated so much as exact. He believed in certain things. ‘Values, he called them. Not rules. Yet she could not remember if he was religious. Oddly, given her own Catholic upbringing, his religion had never come up. Not that she could recall now–no. There was something. He had in fact said something once. He had been sick as a child and nearly died and had prayed to God. But the story was too vague now to recall.

But then, that might have been intentional. Avoiding the subject, to avoid argument. He probably had his aim set on her by then and didn’t want to say anything that would cause a disagreement.

By the end of the second week she was sure he was interested in her as more than a friend.

No. That was not true either.

She knew that very first Friday. It was in his eyes. She knew that right then.

But the second Friday, when he did not kiss her it had its affect. She could think of nothing else the following week. “All hormones and no brains,” her grandmother Molloy used to say in that Irish brogue that reduced the words to ‘ormuns’ and ‘brans,’ so that Kate never understood the condition until she was old enough to be beset with it.

That week Kate had tried to learn more about him. Somehow, the conversation always turned to her. Keith seemed curious about all sorts of little things. He seemed to want to know about nearly everything. And Kate was certain that next week she had hardly mentioned John at all.

That third Friday was when everything fell apart.

They had gone to the pub again. They had eaten hamburgers again. And as they left, he had taken her hand. Just like that. Without a word.

Well, they had been talking before, true. They had been talking about so many things. And it was true that she had taken his hand at the same moment. She could remember that. They had both laughed at the timing. It was cold. The street was iced. He might have made the excuse that he was holding her hand for safety, but he hadn’t. Odd how she remembered that so well.

They had walked slowly, just then, without a lot say. Or perhaps with a lot to say but unsure how to say it. And when they reached the house, he had kissed her for the first time. And she had kissed him. More than kissed.

The house was dark. Her parents were at a Christmas party at her father’s office. She had invited Keith in. He had not asked.

They had been standing in the cold in the darkened doorway and kissed as passionately as she had ever kissed anyone in her life. And then she had invited him in, but never turned on the light.

Why? Because she knew then exactly what would happen? Or just because she didn’t want the neighbors to notice anything? Whatever the reason, she had wanted him to make love to her and they had done that, right there on the living room couch, exactly where she and John had made love before. In exactly the same place.

Afterwards—Afterwards, he had left only when she had realized that it was after midnight and her parents would be home soon. Kate had tried to clean the cushions and turned them over so that no one would notice but of course her mother had. Kate could remember her mother’s face. Her mother had come into the kitchen that next morning with a frown, but had never finished the question—had stopped in the middle of a word–before turning away again and going back to the living room to finish whatever she was doing.

Her mother had known. Her mother had always known. And never said a thing in twenty-three years.

The following week at the shop had been more than difficult. Love is such an odd thing. So painful. So mindless. They had tried to keep it all from everyone else—especially Pat. But Pat had picked up on it already. Perhaps, from the first. That was clear enough.

Keith had kissed her twice—maybe more—in the stockroom. He had brushed too close behind her when they were both in back of the counter.

After work each day the next week they had gone to different places to eat. Never fancy. He was saving money for school and she was waiting for her teacher’s certification and needed to save money for her masters….But that never happened. Maybe she should get her masters now. The boys were old enough.

That next week, each day, after hot dogs or pizza or something else, they had taken the bus to his little apartment over on Montgomery, before he walked her home. Every day. They had made love every single day. And she remembered each day. So clearly.

She remembered all the talking, even if the exact words were lost now.

He had spoken about sailing. He had grown up on Long Island Sound and learned to sail from the time he could swim. There was something about his father. His father had died in Vietnam. Or been hurt. No. He was dead. But she had done most of the talking. She was very intent on getting her English degree then and had ambitions to write poetry as well….God! She had read her poetry him! She had forgotten that. She had never read any of her poems to John. She never had.

Whenever she drove by there now to take the boys to soccer, she could not help herself from looking up at the second floor window of that house on Montgomery. Like a reflex. That was part of the intrusions as well.

Kate could not recall exactly what he said that week, but she could remember the oddest facts of his body. They had made love with the lights on—perhaps as part of completing the discovery they had first begun in the dark. All the moles, birthmarks, scars, and freckles were accounted for. Like a geography, she had said to him. ‘Landmarks.’ She remembered that.

And he had offered one of his little facts. “Seventy percent of the worlds surface is water.” And then said, “Women are like the sea.”

She had tried to include that in one of her poems, hadn’t she?

And then suddenly, that week too was done.

That Friday, after work—the Friday just two days before Christmas she had given Keith a gift. It was a brush for his hair. English made. She had gotten the idea from a story she had read. And as she handed him the box—at that same moment–he had given her a ring.

It had surprised her so.

During all those days, she had never once thought about marriage, and only briefly of John. She had known the thinking had to be done, but she had put it off. There was so much else to consider. She needed time. And then there was no time at all. Keith asked her to marry him.

She had not stayed with him that night. She had asked him to take her home instead. She needed to think.

She could not remember any of those thoughts now.

Two men had proposed to her on the same night. How her grandmother Molloy would have laughed!

And Kate had never slept. And then, the next day, the Saturday, when she had gone in to work, Keith was not there. He had called in to the shop and said he had to leave. He did not tell Pat where, or if he had, she had never related the information. Pat simply said that he had quit.

How odd that was.

She had been up all night with all those odd thoughts about what was right and what was not. She could not bear to hurt John. She could not stand the thought of losing Keith. And just as suddenly, the decision was made for her. He was gone.

Keith had said two things to her that last night that she remembered now exactly. Well, almost exactly….After he had given her the ring he had said that he loved her. He had said that as plain and simply as those words. “I love you.”

Then he said something else, after that, as she stood there in stunned silence. And at the time she had thought he was referring to the quality of the stone in the ring, as he waited for her answer.

He had often repeated little bits from his text books. A trick he called it. “A way to remember the things that mattered in context to what was real life and what was not.” It was only weeks later that she first realized he might have been saying something else. Later, the reason for it was clear. When she had not answered immediately—when she had stood there so surprised–he had said, “You have to see the flaw before a stone is set in place. It’s always best to test the stone first.” It might have actually been something from one of his text books after all. But that was not why he had said it.

But still, why had Keith returned now? How could he have really ever known about Carey?

All those years he had intruded on her thoughts as the young man he once was. All those years Kate had always thought of him as he had been. And then, there he was. This day. A middle age man. Apparently healthy. Robust even. Well dressed.

At least he wasn’t fat. That would have been terrible. Tall men fill out in middle age so badly when they get fat.

As she considered this last fact, she suddenly wondered if this new look of him would be what entered her thoughts now whenever she re-considered her life and the decisions she had made.

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