by M. O. Walsh
And if anyone thought that what he had done was outlandish, that it was such an overly complicated way to try and win the heart of a girl, then, Deuce knew, that person had never been in love.
* * *
—
And on one of the quietest streets in Deerfield, as Douglas helped Cherilyn down from the firetruck, the Hubbards also knew that this night was not an end to their day.
They walked together through the front door, something they rarely did, and took two unexpectedly different routes to the kitchen, where they found themselves together again.
Cherilyn took off Douglas’s coat, folded it neatly beside the sink. She then took up a coffee cup, turned on the water, and, without saying a word, washed it out with a stiff sponge. She set it on the rack, dried her hands, and looked at Douglas. “Now,” she said. “How about some music?”
Douglas watched her walk to the pantry door and open it, as it was well past midnight and neither of them had eaten. How about some music, he thought, and before he started to whistle or even think of his trombone, walked over to Cherilyn and held her from behind. It had been far too long, he thought, even though it hadn’t been very long at all, since he had held her. Cherilyn leaned her head back against his shoulder and they stood that way in the pantry door for minutes, not speaking at all, only moving back and forth to a song that no one else could hear.
“I have an idea,” Douglas finally said, and let her go. He went to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of olive oil. He set it on the counter. “And that idea is eggplant,” he said.
Cherilyn smiled and walked to the refrigerator, where she pulled out four large lemons and four eggplants. She set them on the cutting board as her husband walked to the breakfast table. On the floor, she saw, by his foot, his trombone case. Douglas looked down at it, too, and Cherilyn wanted, very badly, for him to pick it up.
“Picture it,” she told him. “Lights down. Radio City. Show me what you’ve got.”
What did Douglas have? he wondered.
He was a whistler, he thought. He was a teacher. His wife was a queen.
All of these things were undeniable.
Knowing this, Douglas did not feel like a jester at all. He instead felt like a man who needed to trust himself, to remind himself that everything he had been up to this point, every decision he had made, in all of their individual and unremarkable glories, had made him the headliner in the only show he ever wanted to play. And so, if what she wanted from him was music, Douglas thought, he would give it to her.
He opened the lid of his case and took out the glowing trombone. He attached the slide and wiped the bell and stood up at the ready position.
“Wait,” she said. “Where’s your hat?”
“It turns out,” Douglas told her, “that a beret doesn’t provide any particular skill.” He readied himself for a deep breath. “You should know,” he said. “I might never be any good at this.”
Cherilyn sliced the four lemons into pyramids and set them down in a bowl.
“Well, then,” she said. “You can whistle it for me later.”
“You’re right about that,” he said.
Douglas then put his lips to the mouthpiece and blew and the sound that emerged was so low and untamed that it made Cherilyn put her hand to her chest. Still, Douglas kept going. He pulled the slide out to position and got the rhythm and blew that thing until the windows rattled and, outside, a neighbor’s dog began to bark. But Douglas did not stop. He instead stomped his feet up and down to the music and marched in place as he played every single note he could recall of “Seventy-six Trombones.”
Hell yes, he thought. A march, on a night like this.
By the time he finished Cherilyn had sliced up the eggplant and garlic and clicked their modest stove to a flame.
“Now,” she said. “There’s something I want you to do for me.”
She walked the bowl of lemons over to the table and sat down.
“Please help me,” she said, “get this stuff off my hands.”
“I will,” Douglas told her, “if that is what you want me to do.”
Cherilyn crossed her legs and spread her arms out on the table, her left hand on top of her right as if she hadn’t even heard him.
“Come on, now,” she said. “Supper’s cooking.”
Douglas laid his trombone on the kitchen table between the birdhouses and sat in front of her. He took a lemon from the bowl and squeezed it over her hands. He then used his thumb to rub it into her skin and in that moment had no idea if he would ever confess to her his readout, or confess to knowing hers, or if he would tell her what he suspected about Deuce, even, about the impossibility of knowing who you are truly meant to be, and thought instead of a way that he could preserve their little slips of blue paper, somehow, to perhaps punch a hole in their tops so he could one day present them to her like another thing they had survived together, had grown through together, like the two flattened coins in his suit pocket.
Douglas stayed that way in this night that was like the daytime until, behind them, the sizzle of the stove lifted the scent of garlic about their home. It ran through the vent and into the air-conditioning and spread itself throughout the house. It slid beneath doorways and climbed up walls. It wrapped itself around curtains and settled into bedsheets. It scented all they would touch from there out, and everything that would remain out of reach.
Answer:
How can you know that your whole life will change on a day the sun rises at the agreed-upon time by science or God or what-have-you and the morning birds go about their usual bouncing for worms?
How can you know?
You cannot. No one can.
So, then. What do you do?
The answer is simple.
You close the book.
You look up.
You see me standing here. You see all of us standing here, loving you.
You recognize us.
And together, into the unknowable day, we venture out.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first person I would like to thank is you, whoever you may be, for taking the time to read this. Our lives are made of hours and you lent me some. I won’t forget it. Thank you for every book you’ve ever read and will read from anyone at any time on anything. It’s important; what passes between humans on pages. Never stop.
Otherworldly thanks go to Renee Zuckerbot and Sally Kim, both for your trust in me and for your kindness. Also, of course, for your belief in this novel, which would just be another file on my computer without you. You both mean more to me than you know. Thanks to Ivan Held and G. P. Putnam’s Sons, as well, and to Katie McKee, Alexis Welby, and Gabriella Mongelli for your continued faith and energy.
Thanks also to librarians and booksellers; the safeguards of joy.
Aside from my kitchen counter, this book was written in two specific places I am extremely grateful for. The first is the Sundress Fine Arts Academy in Tennessee. Thanks to Erin Smith for letting me feed the animals. Enormous thanks, as well, to Mary Ann O’Gorman and the Twisted Run Retreat in Mississippi, where huge chunks of this novel were written. The quiet there saved me. Again and again. I had so much fun in my head.
I am also thankful to John Prine, whom I never met, yet who seemed to know me better than I do. Mr. Prine, if you can hear me up there, your songs are the soundtrack to my best memories. Your lyrics are like friends. Not a day goes by without one of your phrases spinning through my head and brightening my world in some way. On behalf of all the whistlers, strummers, and hummers who feel the same: I thank you.
I am also thankful to my students and colleagues at the Creative Workshop at UNO and The Yokshop in Oxford, MS. To every wonderful weirdo at The Parkview Tavern. Y’all keep me going. To Sean Ennis, as well, the first person I let read this whole thing, who kindly laughed at all the right parts bef
ore asking all the right questions. To every writer who believes in Art as the empathy machine. Come on, now. We’ve got this.
Most importantly, I thank my parents and stepparents, sisters and grandparents. The whole smiling and supportive lot, both here and away. What did I do to deserve you?
And, as always and forever, to Sarah and Magnolia and Sherwood:
My growing hearts.
My best blue tickets.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.O. Walsh's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Oxford American, The Southern Review, and Best New American Voices, among others. His novel My Sunshine Away was a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. He is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Mississippi and currently directs the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans.
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