A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 54

IT WAS SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND SNOWING gently in Boston. there was an applewood fire going in the fireplace, and bread baking in the oven, and my apartment smelled like Plimoth Plantation. On television the Redskins were pasting the Giants. I stood at the front window and looked down at Marlborough Street as the snow began to accumulate. A brown and white taxicab pulled in off Arlington Street and parked and Susan got out and paid the driver and walked toward the front door carrying a lavender garment bag and a dark blue suitcase. I buzzed her in and in a minute she was at my door. I opened it and took her suitcase and put it on the floor behind the couch. She put the garment bag carefully over the back of the couch and turned and smiled at me.

“This is the way my grandmother’s house was supposed to smell,” she said.

“But it didn’t,” I said.

“No,” she said. “It smelled mostly of mothballs.”

“So I don’t remind you of your grandmother,” I said.

Susan came and put her arms around me and put her head against my chest.

“You don’t remind me of anyone,” she said. “I’ve never met anyone even a little like you.”

I held her lightly against me. “How’s your mental health?” I said.

“I’m all right,” she said. “Nobody’s a hundred percent. But I’m in the high nineties.”

“You through seeing Dr. Hilliard?”

“Yes, at least for now. Maybe forever.”

“And we don’t have to get the children off the streets?” I said.

She shook her head against my chest. “I may get occasionally restless,” she said, “during the time of full moon, but I don’t think I’m a danger to anyone.”

“Russell?” I said.

“I saw him once, right after Boise. He came to my condo in Mill River and we said good-bye. And he left, and I haven’t seen him or heard from him.”

“He going to run the family business?” I said.

“I hope not,” Susan said.

“Maybe he’ll go back to his wife,” I said. “He has before.”

“I hope he does. I hope he doesn’t destroy himself. His life has been…” She shook her head again. “I don’t want to talk about that relationship anymore.”

“Okay,” I said. “How about this one? How are we doing?”

“We are doing very well,” she said. She raised her face and I kissed her. When we stopped kissing she said, with her face still very close to mine, “Are you okay? Is anyone going to arrest you?”

“Not for Mill River,” I said. Our lips brushed lightly as we spoke. “Ives actually fixed it.” Behind me on the television Dick Stockton described John Riggins running twenty yards for a score.

Susan kissed me again. It was not a sisterly kiss.

“I have flown six hours,” she murmured with her mouth against mine. “I need to take a bath, fluff up my body a little.”

“Un huh.”

“And then maybe we might make love,” she murmured.

“Un huh.”

“And drink champagne.”

“Un huh.”

“And make love again.”

“I take it we are together again,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Forever?” I said.

“Yes,” Susan said. “Forever.”

“Go run your bath,” I said.