Vengeance

EPILOGUE

Sally and I went to a movie, something at Burns Court, something in French set in the distant past, costumes, horses, palaces, love, tragedy. We ate popcorn. My mind was on a beach.

Both of us ate lightly at the Bangkok Restaurant. I couldn’t finish my pad thai. I always finished pad thai.

“Lew, where are you?” she asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m coming back.”

“Remember,” she said. “I told you the kids are away for the weekend.”

“I remember,” I said.

She played with her food for a few seconds and looked at me.

“I’m not ready, Lew,” she said.

“I’m not either.”

The restaurant was Saturday-night crowded. No one was paying any attention to us. Sally had worn a blue dress with a wide belt. Her earrings dangled with blue stones that caught the light. Her dark hair looked different than it had the day before. It had been cut and brushed back off of her ears.

“Let’s be friends for a while,” she said. “See where it goes. See when we’re ready. I don’t even know if my body remembers how to do it.”

“I’ve heard you never forget.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yes and no. Relieved in a way. You want to talk about your husband?”

“Yes, if you want to listen.”

“I want to listen.”

“You want to talk about your wife?”

“I think so.”

“You want to go first?” she asked.

The waiter brought us more tea and I said,

“Catherine. Her name was Catherine.”