To make up for the hour I spent sitting around with Cliff, I work out until late in the evening, and when I go to bed, my father is still in his office with the door shut, so another day passes without my talking to Dad. I think it’s strange to live in a house with someone you cannot talk to—especially when that someone is your father—and the thought makes me a little sad.
Since Mom has not been to the library yet, I have nothing to read. So I close my eyes and think about Nikki until she comes to be with me in my dreams—like always.
Orange Fire Enters My Skull
Yes, I really do believe in silver linings, mostly because I’ve been seeing them almost every day when I emerge from the basement, push my head and arms through a trash bag—so my torso will be wrapped in plastic and I will sweat more—and then go running. I always try to coordinate the ten-mile running portion of my ten-hour exercise routine with sunset, so I can finish by running west past the playing fields of Knight’s Park, where, as a kid, I played baseball and soccer.
As I run through the park, I look up and see what the day has to offer in the way of divination.
If clouds are blocking the sun, there will always be a silver lining that reminds me to keep on trying, because I know that while things might seem dark now, my wife is coming back to me soon. Seeing the light outline those fluffy puffs of white and gray is electrifying. (And you can even re-create the effect by holding your hand a few inches away from a naked lightbulb and tracing your handprint with your eyes until you go temporarily blind.) It hurts to look at the clouds, but it also helps, like most things that cause pain. So I need to run, and as my lungs burn and my back rebels with that stabbing knife feeling and my leg muscles harden and the half inch of loose skin around my waist jiggles, I feel as though my penance for the day is being done and that maybe God will be pleased enough to lend me some help, which I think is why He has been showing me interesting clouds for the past week.
Since my wife asked for some time apart, I’ve lost more than fifty pounds, and my mother says that soon I’ll be at the weight I was when I played varsity soccer in high school, which is also the weight I was when I met Nikki, and I’m thinking maybe she was upset by the weight I gained during the five years we were married. Won’t she be surprised to see me looking so muscular when apart time is over!
If there are no clouds at sunset—which happened yesterday—when I look up toward the sky, orange fire enters my skull, blinds me, and that’s almost as good, because it burns too and makes everything look divine.
When I run, I always pretend I am running toward Nikki, and it makes me feel like I am decreasing the amount of time I have to wait until I see her again.
The Worst Ending Imaginable
Knowing that Nikki does a big unit on Hemingway every year, I ask for one of Hemingway’s better novels. “One with a love story if possible, because I really need to study love—so I can be a better husband when Nikki comes back,” I tell Mom.
When Mom returns from the library, she says that the librarian claims A Farewell to Arms is Hemingway’s best love story. So I eagerly crack open the book and can feel myself getting smarter as I turn the first few pages.
As I read, I look for quotable lines so I can “drop knowledge” the next time Nikki and I are out with her literary friends—so I can say to that glasses-wearing Phillip, “Would an illiterate buffoon know this line?” And then I will drop some Hemingway, real suave.
But the novel is nothing but a trick.
The whole time, you root for the narrator to survive the war and then for him to have a nice life with Catherine Barkley. He does survive all sorts of dangers—even getting blown up—and finally escapes to Switzerland with the pregnant Catherine, whom he loves so much. They live in the mountains for a time, in love and living a good life.
Hemingway should have ended there, because that was the silver lining these people deserved after struggling to survive the gloomy war.
But no.
Instead he thinks up the worst ending imaginable: Hemingway has Catherine die from hemorrhaging after their child is stillborn. It is the most torturous ending I have ever experienced and probably will ever experience in literature, movies, or even television.
I am crying so hard at the end, partly for the characters, yes, but also because Nikki actually teaches this book to children. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to expose impressionable teenagers to such a horrible ending. Why not just tell high school students that their struggle to improve themselves is all for nothing?
I have to admit that for the first time since apart time began, I am mad at Nikki for teaching such pessimism in her classroom. I will not be quoting Hemingway anytime soon, nor will I ever read another one of his books. And if he were still alive, I would write him a letter right now and threaten to strangle him dead with my bare hands just for being so glum. No wonder he put a gun to his head, like it says in the introductory essay.
Got Nothin’ but Love for Ya
Dr. Patel’s secretary turns off the radio as soon as she sees me walk into the waiting room, which makes me laugh because she tries to do it casually, as if I won’t notice. She looks scared, turning the knob so gingerly—the way people do things after they have seen one of my episodes, as if I am no longer human, but some wild hulking animal.
After a brief wait, I meet with Cliff for my second session, like I will every Friday for the foreseeable future. I pick brown this time, and we sit in his leather recliners among the clouds, talking about how much we like women and “kicking it like we do,” which is another one of Danny’s sayings.