“Well, get one. Because, Hart?” She lifted my writing hand, then kissed, like a strand of lucky pearls, every single knuckle.

“Hart? You figure you can make something out of it? Our all ending up like this?”

“Yeah. Slow learner, but he learns. Yes ma’am. Believe I can.”

My saying that, it worked on her like the finest of all drugs. Across a beloved face that had only been confusion—I saw something slip—something like the warmth of a whole new career.

“Say ‘I do,’” I said.

“‘I do.’”

“Okay then. Because our bed is huge.”

I could see the crowd near the depot watching. I felt conspicuous. What matter? She was here. So, then, propping each other up, we hobbled toward the Gustafsons. Best behavior, the little hardened-sugar couple came down off the wedding cake. I soon noticed that, behind us, a stewardess was bringing Angie’s lost high heel; I saw how that pretty uniformed girl was lifting it aloft, as if it were some valuable slipper that meant something in a fairy tale. Which this was. Is. —The princess’s shoe that’ll fit only one gal in the kingdom and deserves, due to magic, respect. Then I spied, tucked beneath the hostess’s other arm, a glossy brochure. For its cover, an Angie painting reproduced big in living color, then inscribed to the stewardess. I decided, with a mixture of betrayal and delight, “They Know Who She Is. Thanks to HER, They Know. And Thanks, I Guess, to US.”

We approached Robert’s tall blond mother and his short white-collared father, both of them freely waving, crying some. Maybe from watching us out there. Worried, guessing. We’d been being fully who we were, I think, at least in part for them.

Angie neared them first, gloved hand out, poise itself. “Reverend and Mrs. Gustafson—Bob, Beka, I am so sorry. He gave us everything he had, didn’t he? Held nothing back, our love. —How are you all bearing up?”

Other passengers lingered, turning back this way. Angie’s widow’s weeds must’ve helped make plain at least her role in this. Strangers appeared a bit confused, but they surely acted interested. They seemed to understand at least a few things—somebody important had just arrived, someone who could use this whole town’s epic caretaking. I still felt embarrassed, but why?

Let them learn a little.
We were worth it.
Let them go ahead and stare.

Payday

urns out, there are at least four days in the history of Manhattan: the day you first see it, the day you get to move there, that day you—far smarter, far less intact—still find the strength to leave; and the morning you go back, as New York’s most loving, humbled, overqualified tourist.

Been here, done this, know which train.