“What, go to therapy?”
“Well, maybe.”
“My sister said the same thing. So you think I am gonna snap?”
“I just think it’s worth talking this out with a professional.”
“Have you ever been?”
“No,” Scott admitted. “I’m talking out my ass.”
“You probably don’t need it,” Carver said, and then he lay down in the grass, staring at the leaves overhead and the night sky that peeked between them. “You seem pretty well-adjusted.”
“Maybe not as much lately,” Scott said, surprising him. “Work’s been… I don’t know. Sometimes I’m kind of a misanthrope.”
“Really? I thought you just kept your own counsel.”
“I do, but sometimes I run out of road and I can’t keep going around people or past them, I just have to deal with how selfish and short-sighted and stupid they are, and I actually get pretty fucking angry. I think you’d be surprised.”
Carver was less surprised than he was delighted. “That’s natural,” he said. “That’s human.”
“But I don’t want to feel like that. I want to be like water. When I have to deal with this shit I feel parts of myself calcifying into something I don’t like.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Anyway,” Scott said, lying down beside him in the grass. From here they could hear the distant sound of people dining on the restaurant’s patio: indistinct conversation, clinking silverware. “We didn’t come here to talk about me.”
“Didn’t we?”
“I thought you wanted to talk about your wife.”
Carver noticed that he didn’t seem to want to say Lillian’s name. “Uh… so, we’re agreed on all the major points, and I’m going to try to call some lawyers tomorrow.”
“Good,” Scott said.
“And I’m gonna take some time off. I’m taking this next week, and then I’ll go back for all of June, but after that I lined up some leave.”
“Also good.”
“I’d like to see you,” Carver ventured. “Next week.”
“Sure,” Scott said. His voice sounded modulated toward thoughtful caginess, the same way it had earlier. “You want to meet in the city?”
“I could come out to Jersey.”
Scott reached out to touch his shoulder through his shirt, and Carver lit up inside. “Look… I don’t want to rush you.”
“Right. But you want to see me, right?”
“I do.”
“Okay, so?”
“I just mean, uh…” Scott rose up onto his side, leaning on his elbow, and picked at the grass. “Your wife got in my head, honestly. I’m worried she’s right, that I’m trying to run in to save you, which is a stupid impulse. What am I gonna save you from? You know your own world way better than I ever will.”
“I’m part of this too, dude.”
“I know, I know.”
