A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [14]
Gordon felt he knew everything about Albert Smick. He used to think Delores had to be in love with the man, until he realized she was that effusive about everyone she liked.
After she left, he plumped the flattened sofa pillows. The wrinkled arm cover was on the floor. Leaving ripples in her wake, she disturbed things, left indentations in the rug, the door ajar, his heart beating uneasily. He never dared breathe too deeply when she was near. It wasn’t her fault, he knew, but his. Her kindness always frightened him, and now he felt guilty. He hadn’t even thanked her for all the pastry. He waited a few minutes, then called.
Breathless, she answered on the first ring. She said she had just gotten the key in the lock when she heard the phone. He hadn’t finished thanking her before she was thanking him for being such a good friend all these years; he would never know how much his letters had meant. And as she was driving home just now, it had started to sink in that he was really here. He was home. Her best friend in the whole world was finally home! After an awkward silence, he said good-bye. Wait, she said before he could hang up. Would he like to come to dinner Friday night? She’d bought a prime rib, because she knew that was his favorite meal—he’d told her once, medium rare, right? With baked potatoes and green beans. He didn’t remember ever telling her that, but it was true. He said he couldn’t. He said he had to go to Dennis’s that night.
“Oh!” There was a pause. “Well then, do you need a ride?”
“No. Thanks. I’m taking the bus.”
“Don’t do that. All those stops, it’ll take forever. I can get you there in ten minutes.”
“But I want to take the bus!” He paused to quell the panic in his voice. “I don’t mind the stops. I was looking forward to it. I haven’t been on a bus in such a long time.”
“That’s right. There must be so much you want to do now,” she said slowly. “But if you need something, whatever it is, will you call me? Please?”
CHAPTER 3
In those first days at the Market, the two women plied Gordon with questions. His reticence intrigued them, his shy discomfort eliciting not just their own secrets, but customers’. The lady over there in the miniskirt, Allie, nice legs, huh? Well, she was really a man. And Leo, the butcher, he had been depressed ever since his wife ran off with the eighteen-year-old girl who used to live downstairs. From Gordon’s terse answers they learned that he had grown up in Collerton, then moved to the western part of the state. Hilldale, he said when they asked where.
“Hilldale! I never heard of that,” Serena said.
“Yes, you have!” June turned quickly back to him. “The prison’s there, right? Fortley. That’s where the worst ones go.”
The state prison, where everything was hard-core: the crime, the time, the men. He had few illusions. Exposure was inevitable, but for now he needed the anonymity of those blank spaces so that while pretending to be a normal man, he might learn how to be one. What he wanted most was to feel something. Anything but this deadness. For twenty-five years he had allowed himself only the present, this moment, this day. It was all he deserved or dared expect of time. He had not realized how strange freedom would be, how alien he would feel. They knew that he had worked in a library, a hospital, a laundry, a sign factory, that his parents were dead, that he lived alone, that he’d never been married. “No, never come close,” he’d answered when Serena asked.
“Really?” June said with an eager smile. She wanted him to meet her sister, who was single—well, divorced. She had four kids, but none of them lived at home now. Yes, Serena confided later, because they were all wards of the state. Not the kind of person he would want to get involved with. Serena was one to talk, Leo said the minute