Talk to Me by John Kenney

Author:John Kenney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

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• • •

The food had arrived but Ted hadn’t touched it. He wanted to wait for Franny, who was still on the phone outside. He also found he wasn’t hungry.

When she came back she looked at her food, then his. “Why didn’t you eat?”

“I . . .” And here Ted reverted to his old self, the one afraid of a Franny explosion. He was about to say I wanted to wait for you, but he knew that would make her feel guilty and her guilt would manifest itself as anger at Ted when, really, she was angry at herself.

She sighed, annoyed. He could see the inner workings.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”

She was chilled and put her coat on. She picked up her coffee mug and held it with both hands.

Franny’s phone buzzed, a text. Ted’s buzzed at almost the same time. They both looked and saw links to scheisse with a photo of the two of them taken not twenty minutes ago through a window, sitting together.

“Wait. What is this?” Ted asked, confused.

“Fucking dickhead.”

“What?”

Franny was shaking her head.

“It’s my boss.”

Ted stared at Franny and Franny saw that he was actually hurt.

“I didn’t know they were sending a photographer,” she said, hating the sound of her voice here because she thought she sounded thirteen.

Ted nodded, his slow nod, his I’m disappointed in you and will withhold my affection and love for you. At least that’s how Franny read it.

“I have to get back,” she said.

There is an unpleasant secret of family life. It’s not found in movies because it doesn’t hew to a narrative we care for. We are told, instead, that there is always time, always another chance, if only we try. That we can mend relationships. That is a lie. Because with enough pain, with enough time, we close the door on those people and we do not let them back in. We move on. Ted could see it on Franny’s face. He was a stranger to her. He had caused her too much pain. Knew so little about what she felt and wanted and needed and hoped for.

The image came so fast and so clearly that Ted was forced to sit back in his chair. The image was this. Franny, in Ted’s hospice room, watching him die. He sees the scene as if apart from it. He knows she will feel pain and regret and the thought of his death causing her pain forces him to wince. The film continues in his head. The scene switches to Franny, older, children of her own, children who would never know their grandfather, who would hear little of him. Franny going on with her life. He would be forgotten, as if he hadn’t lived. The waitress asked if he wanted more coffee. He managed a nod.

“Your mother told you? We’re getting a divorce.”

“I know.”

“She met someone.”

Franny said nothing.

“Have you met him?” Ted asked.

“Yes.”

“I hear he has his own plane. Not that that matters.”

Franny looked at her phone.

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