Slide - Kyle Beachy [115]
She said that was nice, then was silent for a minute before saying hers had to do with movement, with borders and how they define, or fail to define, and also how the world is overflowing with men who have no idea what to do with a full-size penis.
We drove with the toys to the Goodwill office downtown, following one-way alleys until we found the donation dock. There, teams of men wearing thick leather gloves unloaded furniture from a flatbed truck. To begin the process, I handed over an envelope containing the five hundred dollars my mother had given me at the mall. A woman with a clipboard asked if I wanted a receipt. I said no thank you, then Audrey and I began removing toys from my trunk. Call it atonement or call it generosity Poorly veiled selfishness. Call it buying my way out or really call it anything at all. I focused on a thought of a boy or girl holding a new toy. The unloading went quickly with two of us, and soon we'd filled two industrial laundry carts with shiny and sharp-edged boxes, everything but the two baseball gloves I asked her to leave in the backseat.
There was no sex. What brief physical contact we had was for photographs, plus a few passing touches to a wrist or a shoulder to confirm presence: a refresher course in object permanence. Sex, as I'd come to understand it, was driven primarily by speculation. Our bodies by now had adjusted to a certain distance between them, and they had learned that desire for sex brought about the consequences of sex. Although, had she chosen to cross the hall late one night from the guest room, certainly I would have loved her.
For the most part, our time together was passed in loaded, but not unpleasant, quiet. When she first arrived, our timing was stuttered and awkward, but with each hour we settled into the shape we'd cleared over the course of the summer, one of comfortable mystery. Only once did I look at her in a way designed to convey the remorse I felt. In her return look I saw that she neither expected nor desired further apology, nor nor did she especially want to apologize for anything of her own. Her immediate plan was to spend time in Portland before even considering what to do next. Settle into her familiar role as youngest daughter. I mentioned that I'd been thinking about moving to Louisville, Kentucky. She laughed and asked why. I said no real reason.
On her last day we drove north, across the Missouri River to Elsah and along a road that bent with the path of the river. We stopped to watch levees fill and empty, found stores that called themselves antiques stores, and ate fried catfish at a riverhouse of dark impressive wood. We posed for an on-site photographer, leaning against a railing on the second-floor deck so that the wooded bluffs, and the river, and the whole country could be seen behind us. Two prints cost us nine dollars, buy one copy get a second half price.
And then she was gone.
Someday soon I will figure a way to get the last of the toy-store purchases into Ian's hands. Anonymously, or under the veil of a third party, so he will accept them for what they are.