Subject: Don’t hate the Catullus, hate the game
If anything happens to one who desires it, and wishes
and never expects it, it’s a special delight to the mind.
Likewise, this is delight, dearer than gold, to me,
that you come back to me, Lesbia, in my longing.
come back, desired and un-hoped for, give yourself
back to me. O day marked out with greater brightness!
Who exists more happily than me, or can say
that he wishes for any life greater than this?
It was similar to other emails he’d sent containing nothing but whatever text he wanted me to engage with. This wasn’t the first Catullus poem that had come my way, mostly because he knew I wasn’t a fan (my chief argument was that Catullus had the emotional intelligence and sexual obsessions of a fifteen-year-old boy, which of course prompted Ronan to send me his bawdiest poems).
This one, however, was different. One of Catullus’s odes to Lesbia, his singular obsession, and one that anticipated her return to him with unflagging joy.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why exactly he had sent it.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Below the poem, in smaller text, were the details of an unfamiliar flight to Boston, followed by the only real email Ronan had ever sent me.
Skyservice
Seattle Boeing Field to Boston Logan
Passenger: Delaney Fisher Black
Date: July 8, 11:00 AM
Aircraft: Gulfstream G650
Don’t kill me, but I canceled your flight reservation. Sent the jet instead because my wife deserves better than commercial. It’s been two whole weeks. I’m not waiting for you one second longer at a fucking baggage claim.
A car is picking you up at your apartment at four.
Your husband,
R
P.S. If you’re not packed, I’ll buy you whatever you need. Your clothes won’t be necessary when you get here, anyway.
I stared at his promise for a long moment while goosebumps erupted over my skin. Yeah, two weeks had seemed like a long time. And he’d been very good at teasing me about it, too.
I blinked and checked the time. It was already six o’clock.
Time to go.
At exactly four o’clock,I fed Pita for the last time, dead bolted the back door that led up to my apartment, and rolled my suitcases out to meet the car that Ronan had sent.
True to his word, another big black SUV was idling at the curb.
I looked back at the little brick building that had housed my mother’s dreams and sighed.
