Now It's Time to Say Goodbye by Dale Peck

Author:Dale Peck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2015-05-07T03:14:55+00:00

5.01

Justin

i’m still here.

5.02

Divine

the water wasn’t cold.

5.03

Colin

four weeks and four days after I began the latest version of my novel, which is to say, thirty-two days after Lucy Robinson was kidnapped, I finished it. I finished it in the afternoon, after my morn­ing quarrel with Cora and before my evening quarrel with Divine; in be­tween those two events I managed, finally, to write the scene that led up to and concluded with the last line that had been eluding me for over twenty years, and as soon as I finished typing it I packed the whole thing up, the handwritten manuscript, the various pen-scratched typed copies, and the final, finished version, into several cardboard boxes, and I was still packing many hours later, when I got the call from Wade, telling me about Divine. I will admit that for a moment I thought of ignoring his summons; what more could I do, I asked myself, hadn’t I already done enough? But eventually reason—I was going to say compassion, but I don’t think, really, that it was compassion—won out, and I left my boxes behind, went to see what aid I could give to Divine, or, failing that, to Wade. I was gone for less than an hour—what could I do, after all; hadn’t I already done enough?—but still, it was time enough: when I returned to the limestone house, my manuscript was gone.

5.04

Webbie

on the morning of our eighth day I left him. He was easy to leave. He was just a large dark figure, arms and legs sprawled across white sheets that had gone yellow from too many washings. He snored as I dressed, snored as I wrote Thank you in the light coating of dust on his mantel beneath the smiling pictures of the two girls whose names I still did not know, snored as I opened the front door and put the morning paper on the couch. Everything was fine until then; everything, I mean, made sense—far too much sense—but as soon as I left his house I got lost. I knew where the corner grocery was, I knew the café that made the best ribs and the café that made the best pie, and I knew the way to the incredibly long and narrow cinema whose tiny screen seemed no larger than a television’s when you sat all the way in the back row, where we had sat, but still, I got lost because I wasn’t looking for any of those things. I was looking for my car. It took me nearly an hour to find it, and as I wandered his neighborhood I watched for him nervously. I didn’t know how I would explain myself to him should he find me, should my feet betray me and lead me back to his house. How could I tell his stubbled face and bumpy flattop that I had only wanted to know what they would feel like, how could I tell him that even after seven days of cooking

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