The morning after, he woke up to find himself sprawled on the living room
carpet with his book of poetry lying open on his face. When he remembered
why he didn't have to get up for work a sharp pang of guilt hit him between
his ribs and left him paralyzed. "But can I---can I still-can I send you my
story, when I figure out the ending"? Figure out the ending figure out the
ending figure out the ending. The words seemed to settle into a space just
behind his eyes like bits of ash. I'm much too old for this, he thought, as
he struggled to rise from the floor, his joints cracking painfully.
In the bathroom he turned on the light to see his face glaring back at him in the mirror, pale and ghastly, smudged with black ink where the pages of his book had touched his skin. Looking more closely he made out the word "afraid" on his cheek with the letter "d" missing. He couldn't believe it, not even his life could be this cruelly ironic. Unable to move, he stood there and stared at his image for a good ten minutes. Then he began to laugh and laugh and laugh until he was clutching the edge of the sink with his hands, barely able to breath, eyes brimming with tears. As he walked out, he spotted something shiny by his foot. It was a small red-colored hair clip. She must have dropped it during one of their meetings and forgotten about it. He turned it around a few times in his fingers then put it away in his pocket and prepared himself to face the outside world again.
The days after that got easier as he knew they would. He kept himself busy looking for jobs, contacting his old writer friends, researching fellowships he could apply to, reading the books he'd never had time to finish. At least a couple of times a week he forced himself to go out with old friends, though most of the people he knew were now married with children and didn't have time for the bohemian evenings they used to spend together when they were still in their twenties and would drink and smoke and read until their eyes blurred and they couldn't see straight.
So he spent most of his nights sitting in his father's old chair in the living room with his notebook and an anthology of haiku in his lap, staring blankly at the phone. Eventually he started writing again-first recording his reflections on whatever came to mind or jotting down opening lines to stories or dialogue for a play. Then, slowly, whole poems emerged again, lengthy and awkward with words sticking out like bones from beneath skin. But they were still poems, and he was amazed at how innocent and harmless they looked on the page, these words he had avoided for nearly ten years, fearing their unwieldiness, their inadequacy would force him to admit that he was indeed a fraud.
So he started writing wherever he went, at the post office while standing in line, little cafés he'd come across while running errands, bookstores where he listened to poetry readings, in his car during traffic jams. It was as if an elephant had been sleeping on his chest for ages and had now finally woken up and risen and made him free.
As the weeks went by his years at Upton Sinclair began to fade from his memory. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night with the image of Grace's eyes stuck in his mind like a forgotten photograph. And once, while doing laundry he'd found her barrette again and almost reached for the phone to call her. But he didn't feel as guilty anymore and the more he thought about what had happened the more he understood that he had done the right thing by leaving.
For a long time, perhaps for most of his teaching career, he'd been afraid of facing a world where people would demand more from him, from his art, where women would come to him with an armful of heavy expectations that he'd constantly have to dodge, like Sisyphus running from the boulder. So whether it was intentional or simply an unconscious pull, he'd found himself drawn to Grace, who was even more unsure of herself than he was, who was ashamed of her passion and afraid of some force in herself which she didn't yet understand, but which he recognized and wanted her to see, too. But afterwards, when the play was over, when they both saw what he knew was hidden in her-that's when he should have stepped back.
Instead--being afraid, being perhaps bored with himself, he had kept her nearer than he should have without admitting to himself what he was doing. And then, that night in the kitchen after she had left him standing there with his entire body awake for the first time in years, he realized that he had led both of them to the edge. And he knew he couldn't let her fall in with him because she still had too much to offer. So he left. And that was the end of it. The end. Or so he thought.
In the bathroom he turned on the light to see his face glaring back at him in the mirror, pale and ghastly, smudged with black ink where the pages of his book had touched his skin. Looking more closely he made out the word "afraid" on his cheek with the letter "d" missing. He couldn't believe it, not even his life could be this cruelly ironic. Unable to move, he stood there and stared at his image for a good ten minutes. Then he began to laugh and laugh and laugh until he was clutching the edge of the sink with his hands, barely able to breath, eyes brimming with tears. As he walked out, he spotted something shiny by his foot. It was a small red-colored hair clip. She must have dropped it during one of their meetings and forgotten about it. He turned it around a few times in his fingers then put it away in his pocket and prepared himself to face the outside world again.
The days after that got easier as he knew they would. He kept himself busy looking for jobs, contacting his old writer friends, researching fellowships he could apply to, reading the books he'd never had time to finish. At least a couple of times a week he forced himself to go out with old friends, though most of the people he knew were now married with children and didn't have time for the bohemian evenings they used to spend together when they were still in their twenties and would drink and smoke and read until their eyes blurred and they couldn't see straight.
So he spent most of his nights sitting in his father's old chair in the living room with his notebook and an anthology of haiku in his lap, staring blankly at the phone. Eventually he started writing again-first recording his reflections on whatever came to mind or jotting down opening lines to stories or dialogue for a play. Then, slowly, whole poems emerged again, lengthy and awkward with words sticking out like bones from beneath skin. But they were still poems, and he was amazed at how innocent and harmless they looked on the page, these words he had avoided for nearly ten years, fearing their unwieldiness, their inadequacy would force him to admit that he was indeed a fraud.
So he started writing wherever he went, at the post office while standing in line, little cafés he'd come across while running errands, bookstores where he listened to poetry readings, in his car during traffic jams. It was as if an elephant had been sleeping on his chest for ages and had now finally woken up and risen and made him free.
As the weeks went by his years at Upton Sinclair began to fade from his memory. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night with the image of Grace's eyes stuck in his mind like a forgotten photograph. And once, while doing laundry he'd found her barrette again and almost reached for the phone to call her. But he didn't feel as guilty anymore and the more he thought about what had happened the more he understood that he had done the right thing by leaving.
For a long time, perhaps for most of his teaching career, he'd been afraid of facing a world where people would demand more from him, from his art, where women would come to him with an armful of heavy expectations that he'd constantly have to dodge, like Sisyphus running from the boulder. So whether it was intentional or simply an unconscious pull, he'd found himself drawn to Grace, who was even more unsure of herself than he was, who was ashamed of her passion and afraid of some force in herself which she didn't yet understand, but which he recognized and wanted her to see, too. But afterwards, when the play was over, when they both saw what he knew was hidden in her-that's when he should have stepped back.
Instead--being afraid, being perhaps bored with himself, he had kept her nearer than he should have without admitting to himself what he was doing. And then, that night in the kitchen after she had left him standing there with his entire body awake for the first time in years, he realized that he had led both of them to the edge. And he knew he couldn't let her fall in with him because she still had too much to offer. So he left. And that was the end of it. The end. Or so he thought.