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“Is that everything?”
Hawk stalls in the doorway. He doesn’t look up or turn to face Lucy. He is not sure why she is even in their former home.
Lucy never moved back in after he returned from California and found that she removed her belongings. They have not put the house on the market.
Looking at her now feels like it will mean something final. Something irreversible.
Something that Hawk has denied in himself for years.
“Yes,” Hawk eventually says.
Most of his belongings are already in his car with the exception of one duffel bag. A bag of Jackson’s belongings that Lucy could not bear to bring with her.
When they still spoke, Lucy explained to him that she carries every part of Jackson in her heart. Any of their son’s earthly belongings would only suffocate her.
For Hawk, the items are the closest that he gets to truly holding his son since Jackson outgrew his arms. Whenever Hawk is adrift, Jackson’s book of poems is a life preserver.
“Kimberly called,” Lucy says, as he reaches for his bag. Hawk pauses. “The kids asked if we would be over for dinner Sunday.” Lucy’s lips form a thin line. “She wasn’t sure what she should tell them.”
“The truth,” is Hawk’s prepared answer. “Someone should break her old man’s cycle. It might as well be her.”
Lucy scrutinizes him, but she doesn’t offer a response. As he prepares to say a symbolic, final farewell, Lucy keeps him rooted to the spot.
“I lied.”
Hawk isn’t sure what that means or if he’s brave enough to unpack it.
“About what?”
“Same as you,” Lucy says.
Hawk sees her fingers twitch at her side. He knows that she is itching for a cigarette. Boy, could he use one.
“About myself.”
“Luce,” Hawk says, wearily. “Let’s not —”
“You asked before leaving to see him if I had opened your mail,” Lucy interjects.
Hawk closes his mouth.
Leaving to see him.
Of course Lucy would phrase it that way.
“Did you?”
“No,” she says. That’s not the full answer, and Hawk knows it. “My response was to turn it back on you and ask if I had ever opened your mail.” Her eyes shine. “I did. Just once.”
Hawk doesn’t need to have spent most of his life with the woman in front of him to know exactly what she is implying.
Only one person has ever caused her to look at him the way that she is right then.
“When?”
“After he returned from the Army. When I was packing your apartment.” Hawk is not sure what his face does, but Lucy shoots him a warning look. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Hawk says with an edge.
“Like you’re betrayed,” she sneers. Hawk swallows. “Don’t you dare act as though I betrayed you.”
“Technically,” Hawk says, his voice dripping with irony, “you’re as much a felon as him.”
Lucy’s laugh is loud and sharp. Hawk doesn’t flinch. He already feels too much.
“What did he write?”
“You think I remember the words of a stranger from thirty —”
“What did he say?” Hawk shouts, smacking the palm of his hand against the door.
The house is silent. Two strangers wait for the next shoe to drop.
“Dear Hawk,” Lucy whispers.
Her tone doesn’t match the maliciousness of Miss Addison’s when she mocked Tim’s book inscription all those years ago.
It’s close.
“I went into the Army to get away from you. I thought time and distance would help. But it hasn’t. Hawk, I still love you. But I’m hoping to find something else. Maybe a deeper faith someday. Tim.”
The ground shifts beneath Hawk’s feet.
“Are you the only one who matters?”
Uncomprehending, Hawk replies, “What?”
“Your children are here, I’m here. How dare you bring that man into our lives?”
Hawk felt unmoored that afternoon. It’s nothing compared to how he feels now.
Hawk never received Tim’s letter. His Skippy never knew how he felt. How he always felt.
Would it have been different? he wonders.
It’s convenient to feel anger and think that it would have made a difference. It’s harder to reconcile his anger with the truth that he would have made the same decisions.
Tim never knew.
“He knew.” Hawk isn’t sure if he spoke aloud or if Lucy is that good at reading him. “I told him. After he turned himself in to the police.”
“Why?”
Why are you telling me now? Why did you tell him then?
Lucy shrugs one of her shoulders. She walks two paces to the bare wall and leans against it. It’s so familiar, but it’s still jarring.
Lucy used to care so much about how she appeared to him. If she was graceful. If she presented as elegant and worthy.
As they lived and aged with one another, he knows that Lucy was always waiting for the floor to fall through. For Hawk to admit that he wasn’t satisfied in their marriage.
Hawk knows that he was never worthy of her love. Not when he could only ever give her half of his heart. Never his full affection.
Even less, once they had children.
“It seemed kinder.”
Hawk really doesn’t know how to unravel that statement. Did she think that it would allow Tim to move on from him? Does she think it’ll bring Hawk solace now that Tim’s gone, knowing that he never truly closed the door on Hawk?
Hawk thinks that she would be wrong on both fronts. Surely all her telling achieved was making Tim wonder what could have been for the two of them and making Hawk ache for the man that he let go on far too many occasions.
Maybe it was kinder to herself, Hawk thinks. She was in control.
Hawk’s better angels don’t fault Lucy for grabbing onto what he controlled in his relationships or affairs. Nevertheless, his better angels are rarely the loudest.
“Goodbye, Lucy,” Hawk says with an air of finality.
Hawk is always the one saying goodbye, yet he barely recognizes his own voice. He turns and walks out the front door with his bag.
The door closes before he can hear whether or not Lucy responds to him.
If Hawk never has to swallow another piece of irony in this lifetime that’ll be just fine.