The Accidental Tourist

In the morning, he negotiated the journey out of bed and into the bathroom. He shaved and dressed, spending long minutes on each task. Creeping around laboriously, he packed his bag. The heaviest thing he packed was Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, and after thinking that over a while, he took it out again and set it on the bureau.

Sarah said, “Macon?”

“Sarah. I’m glad you’re awake,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m packing to leave.”

She sat up. Her face was creased down one side.

“But what about your back?” she asked. “And I’ve got all those appointments! And we were going to take a second honeymoon!”

“Sweetheart,” he said. He lowered himself cautiously till he was sitting on the bed. He picked up her hand. It stayed lifeless while she watched his face.

“You’re going back to that woman,” she said.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

“Why, Macon?”

“I just decided, Sarah. I thought about it most of last night. It wasn’t easy. It’s not the easy way out, believe me.”

She sat staring at him. She wore no expression.

“Well, I don’t want to miss the plane,” he said.

He inched to a standing position and hobbled into the bathroom for his shaving kit.

“You know what this is? It’s all due to that pill!” Sarah called after him. “You said yourself it knocks you out!”

“I didn’t take the pill.”

There was a silence.

She said, “Macon? Are you just trying to get even with me for the time I left you?”

He returned with the shaving kit and said, “No, sweetheart.”

“I suppose you realize what your life is going to be like,” she said. She climbed out of bed. She stood next to him in her nightgown, hugging her bare arms. “You’ll be one of those mismatched couples no one invites to parties. No one will know what to make of you. People will wonder whenever they meet you, ‘My God, what does he see in her? Why choose someone so inappropriate? It’s grotesque, how does he put up with her?’ And her friends will no doubt be asking the same about you.”

“That’s probably true,” Macon said. He felt a mild stirring of interest; he saw now how such couples evolved. They were not, as he’d always supposed, the result of some ludicrous lack of perception, but had come together for reasons that the rest of the world would never guess.

He zipped his overnight bag.

“I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t want to decide this,” he said.

He put his arm around her painfully, and after a pause she let her head rest against his shoulder. It struck him that even this moment was just another stage in their marriage. There would probably be still other stages in their thirtieth year, fortieth year — forever, no matter what separate paths they chose to travel.

He didn’t take the elevator; he felt he couldn’t bear the willynilliness of it. He went down the stairs instead. He managed the front door by backing through it, stiffly.

Out on the street he found the usual bustle of a weekday morning — shopgirls hurrying past, men with briefcases. No taxis in sight. He set off for the next block, where his chances were better. Walking was fairly easy but carrying his bag was torture. Lightweight though it was, it twisted his back out of line. He tried it in his left hand, then his right. And after all, what was inside it? Pajamas, a change of underwear, emergency supplies he never used. He stepped over to a building, a bank or office building with a low stone curb running around its base. He set the bag on the curb and hurried on.

Up ahead he saw a taxi with a boy just stepping out of it, but he discovered too late that hailing it was going to be a problem. Raising either arm was impossible. So he was forced to run in an absurd, scuttling fashion while shouting bits of French he’d never said aloud before: “Attendez! Attendez, monsieur!”

The taxi was already moving off and the boy was just slipping his wallet back into his jeans, but then he looked up and saw Macon. He acted fast; he spun and called out something and the taxi braked. “Merci beaucoup,” Macon panted and the boy, who had a sweet, pure face and shaggy yellow hair, opened the taxi door for him and gently assisted him in. “Oof!” Macon said, seized by a spasm. The boy shut the door and then, to Macon’s surprise, lifted a hand in a formal good-bye. The taxi moved off. Macon told the driver where he was going and sank back into his seat. He patted his inside pocket, checking passport, plane ticket. He unfolded his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

Evidently his sense of direction had failed him, as usual. The driver was making a U-turn, heading back where Macon had just come from. They passed the boy once again. He had a jaunty, stiff-legged way of walking that seemed familiar.

If Ethan hadn’t died, Macon thought, wouldn’t he have grown into such a person?

He would have turned to give the boy another look, except that he couldn’t manage the movement.