’ almost anybody but Helen, and out of fingers (Katrina had fingers like that) that run themselves around and over your face and down your neck, and out of the grip you take on her shoulders, especially on them bones that come out of the middle of her back like angel wings, and out of them eyes that keep openin’ and closin’ to make sure that this is still goin’ and still real and not just stuff you dream about and when you know it’s real it’s okay to close ‘em again, and outa that tongue, holy shit, that tongue, you gotta ask where she learned that because nobody ever did that that good except Katrina who was married and with a kid and had a right to know, but Annie, goddamn, Annie, where’d you pick that up, or maybe you been gidzeyin’ heavy on this lumber pile regular (No, no, no, I know you never, I always knew you never), and so it is natural with a woman like Annie that the kiss come out of every part of her body and more, outa that mouth with them new teeth Francis is now looking at, with the same lips he remembers and doesn’t want to kiss anymore except in memory (though that could be subject to change), and he sees well beyond the mouth into a primal location in this woman’s being, a location that evokes in him not only the memory of years but decades and even more, the memory of epochs, aeons, so that he is sure that no matter where he might have sat with a woman and felt this way, whether it was in some ancient cave or some bogside shanty, or on a North Albany lumber pile, he and she would both know that there was something in each of them that had to stop being one and become two, that had to swear that forever after there would never be another (and there never has been, quite), and that there would be allegiance and sovereignty and fidelity and other such tomfool horseshit that people destroy their heads with when what they are saying has nothing to do with time’s forevers but everything to do with the simultaneous recognition of an eternal twain, well sir, then both of them, Francis and Annie, or the Francises and Annies of any age, would both know in that same instant that there was something between them that had to stop being two and become one.
Such was the significance of that kiss.
Francis and Annie married a month and a half later.
Katrina, I will love you forever.
However, something has come up.
o o o
“The turkey,” Annie said. “You’ll stay while I cook it.”
“No, that’d take one long time. You just have it when you want to. Sunday, whenever.”
“It wouldn’t take too long to cook. A few hours is all. Are you going to run off so soon after being away so long?”
“I ain’t runnin’ off.”
“Good. Then let me get it into the oven right now. When Peg comes home we can peel potatoes and onions and Danny can go get some cranberries. A turkey. Imagine that. Rushing the season.”
“Who’s Danny?”
“You don’t know Danny. Naturally, you don’t. He’s Peg’s boy. She married George Quinn. You know George, of course, and they have the boy. He’s ten.”
“Ten.”
“In fourth grade and smart as a cracker.”
“Gerald, he’d be twenty-two now.”
“Yes, he would.”
“I saw his grave.”
“You did? When?”
“Yesterday. Got a day job up there and tracked him down and talked there awhile.”
“Talked?”
“Talked to Gerald. Told him how it was. Told him a bunch of stuff.”
“I’ll bet he was glad to hear from you.”
“May be. Where’s Bill?”
“Bill? Oh, you mean Billy. We call him Billy. He’s taking a nap. He got himself in trouble with the politicians and he’s feeling pretty low. The kidnapping. Patsy McCall’s nephew was kidnapped. Bindy McCall’s son. You must’ve read about it.”
“Yeah, I did, and Martin Daugherty run it down for me too, awhile back.”
“Martin wrote about Billy in the paper this morning.”
“I seen that too. Nice write-up. Martin says his father’s still alive.”
“Edward. He is indeed, living down on Main Street. He lost his memory, poor man, but he’s healthy. We see him walking with Martin from time to time. I’ll go wake Billy and tell him you’re here.”
“No, not yet. Talk a bit.”
“Talk. Yes, all right. Let’s go in the living room.