10:30, I still have time, his train doesn’t get in until 11:50. I sat at my table in front of La Lamarck, a small café that I frequented on the days when I felt stifled by the Parisian gloom of winter. He’d been gone for some two months now, back home to take care of left over business from his family. The Parisian pedestrians wandered by, no doubt wondering why I was sitting outside on yet another cold day in Montmarte. The weather had turned unseasonably cold this year, beginning to chill in early September, when he left.
Maybe it wasn’t the weather, maybe it was my mood. Nonetheless, I sat at my usual table, smoking my Camel Blues and sipping at my Café Latte. Waiting for the hour. This happened to be the café that we found on our first trip to Paris some twenty years ago, I was just a boy then, or so it felt. I was twenty-five, and it was my first trip to Europe. A gift from him. He had always spoiled me, in one way or another, never asking for anything in return, except for me to write.
He had hoped that Paris, indeed Europe would inspire me to write my first novel. To finish it. It did. Our first trip was short, but it was a lifetime in memories. It had inspired me for my first, second and third novels. Such that I decided I wanted to live here. After returning to the states after that trip, I wrote, like a dam had burst, spilling its restrained contents far and wide. Wiping out everything that had previously stood in its way. The writing came, and never stopped. Twenty years of being successful at what I loved, at what I am. All during and before, he stood beside me, catching me when I fell, lifting me, holding me, encouraging me.
That first novel was about us, and our time together, but I had envisioned it as being limited. I had predicted that I would go my own way and that we would accidentally meet up at a bar in Calgary, watching the aurora borealis. That he would have gone on with his life, and I with mine. That wasn’t the case, we moved to Paris a year after our first trip here. He had come home from work one night and said that we were leaving, and never looking back. A light snow was starting to fall, Geri, the waitress, came running out asking if I wanted to move inside. I smiled and shook my head slightly. She murmured something under her breath as she turned back inside. This was our spot, and he was coming home. I missed him. It had only been two months, the second longest time we had been apart. The last time he was gone for a long time was six months when his mother had passed away. We went to the funeral together, but I had to leave for New York a few days later and start a new book tour. I missed him then. But now, I missed him more.
That was ten years ago. Where had the time gone? Now at 46, I longed for him to be here, I needed his encouragement, his strength. I was stuck on my latest novel, I didn’t know where to go with it. When we had met, we had refused to define our relationship. We carried on this charade for years. Each knowing that we belonged to each other, always. We refused to define what we were, what we would be. Me always knowing that I would leave him someday. I think that he knew he would never leave me. And he hasn’t, .despite my wanting the world, my impatience, he would find a way to give it to me. I have always known that he needed me, and even more, that I needed him. We still have not defined our relationship. It is a lifetime, it is the love that I always wanted and always had.
I worry about him, I wanted to go with him but he told me he needed to make this trip on his own. It was his closure. He knew he would never return again. This was it. His goodbye to his family, his friends, his former life, and possibly to his life. At 72 now, he was becoming feeble, aged. He knew all those years of smoking would catch up to him. I looked at my watch, 10:45, it would be time soon to leave for the station. I wanted him here beside me now. Watching Paris.
I picked up my pack of Camels from the table, blew off the light dusting of snow and headed down the street to the Metro station. Before too long I was at the Gare du Nord waiting for his train. It rolled in right on time. Throngs of people rushed past me, I did not see him. I waited, after a short while, a elderly man made his way off the train, he walked with a cane. This sight took me off guard. I ran up to him, “Jack, what happened?”
“Aw, I tripped and screwed up my damned leg.”
“Ohh, baby…” I took the small bag from his shoulder and we walked arm in arm down the train platform. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too…” We made our way out of the station and found a cab for the short ride back to the flat. I didn’t want to make him walk with a bad leg. We talked during the cab ride home, catching up on the past months.
“You know what?” He said.
“What?”
“Let’s go to Le Lemarck, I feel like sitting and watching Paris for a while…”
I smiled, kissed him, then instructed the driver to head to Le Lemarck. Geri greeted us at the door, holding it open for us, Jack shrugged and said he wanted to sit outside. Geri gave an exasperated sigh, then went to fetch our drinks.
“That trip wore me out…” Jack said as he took a seat at our favorite table, refusing any help from me. Geri returned with a Caffe Latte for me and a diet Coke for Jack, he lifted his glass, “…here’s to another twenty years baby! I’m glad to be home.”
We toasted and then settled in for an afternoon of watching Paris in the winter.
Jaunty-Rabbit 