“Why’d you leave in the first place?” I know it’s none of my business, but the question just tosses itself out of my mouth. I suppose it’s because I’ve always wondered. I’d bet lots of people have.
He doesn’t need time to think up an answer. “I had to take care of some things.”
“What things?”
“Things inside me. Broken things.”
We stand there looking at each other for a moment. Jamie must have taken care of whatever was broken inside him, because there he was, on my stoop and only a few steps away from the life he left. I’m one second away from asking him how he did it when he asks me what I’m doing outside at one o’clock in the morning.
“Sometimes I can’t sleep,” I say, the lie coming out fast and smooth, but he just nods like he understands perfectly. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention to my father or sisters that I was out for a walk just now,” I add.
“These are not safe times to be on the street in the middle of the night,” he says.
“I didn’t go far.” Not a lie. I had been inside a nice automobile with squeaky leather seats that had just let me out across the street. “And I came back. So I’d appreciate it just the same if you didn’t say anything. I can tell everyone I was getting a drink from the kitchen and heard a noise outside on the back stoop and found you. Please don’t say anything.”
He thinks on it for a second before saying, “All right.”
“Come on in,” I tell him. “Papa wouldn’t want you outside like this when I know you’re here. You can sleep on the sofa in the sitting room.”
It’s cold and damp, and he doesn’t argue.
I unlock the door, and Jamie Sutcliff follows me in. As we step into the mudroom, I ask him if I haven’t changed all that much and that’s how he recognized me so quickly.
“Your eyes are the same,” he says.
I guess our eyes don’t change much from when we were young. Perhaps it’s just how we see things that changes.
