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“God, no.”
“But we’re having dinner tonight,” Lincoln reminds. “You promised.”
“I’ll call you later.” Amy stands. “Go wash your face,” she instructs, motioning toward the restroom. “New parents won’t want to see you cry.”
In the restroom, Lincoln douses himself with cold water. What has happened? He has leaped from taking Amy with him to New York on a romantic lark to settling with her and their child in Chicago. And he did it without even thinking. It just...came to him. He’s found someone he loves. They are having a baby. Doesn’t that trump everything else?
When he emerges from the bathroom, Amy is still standing beside the bunk bed, looking slightly puzzled. “Let me shop with you,” Lincoln asks again. “I should be there.”
Amy shakes her head. “No, no, no, this is better.” Then she collapses onto the bunk. “Oh, John, I’m so confused. I convinced myself of one thing, and now I don’t know. How will we live? Maybe you should go to New York.”
This is a test. Lincoln knows he’s being tested. By Amy? Her subconscious? The world? He places his hands on either side of her head. He lifts her face, nuzzles her nose with his, kisses her lightly on the lips. “We can do this,” he says. “We’ll do it together.”
Amy hesitates, smiles. She takes Lincoln’s right hand between her palms. “You aren’t rubbing your arm,” she points out.
“See!”
She laughs and leads him by the hand to the store’s entrance, then stands on tiptoe to kiss him. “I’ll call you after,” she says.
Lincoln backs out, and through the glass door, Amy blows him another kiss.
A few hours later, Lincoln goes for a bike ride. After the shocks of the last few days, he needs his rock to settle himself. He keeps thinking of that moment years ago, lying on the filthy canvas in West Virginia, at the end of his encounter with the bear. He had an overwhelming sense that his course had veered suddenly, taken an unexpected new direction, and that, if you viewed his life from afar, as a line, it would forever angle in a small way, like the forearm he was clutching close to his chest. Now he has that sense again. He doesn’t know
where the direction leads—there is much to be discussed, much to be arranged, but that is Lincoln’s métier. He can pull this off.
The day offers the first real sweetness of summer. Blue sky, soft air, the sort of weather that lets Chicagoans imagine that the dismal winter, the endless cold and gray, the delayed pleasure—it all pays off in the end (a deal that seems worth it until November). Lincoln pedals over to the lake, then north along the bike path. He passes his rock, circles, and comes back to perch. Already, several families are picnicking behind him, their grills firing, their kids of assorted heights and widths kicking soccer balls. The lake is quiet, and though Lincoln knows the water is bitterly cold, the smooth expanse of sun-blessed turquoise looks inviting enough to swim in, or maybe drink. Lincoln stares east, as always. A squad of gulls swoops over the water in indecipherable but precise flight patterns, then settles on the surface just a few feet away. Beyond, he sees an early-season sailboat, a brilliant white triangle, catching a wind from somewhere, dipping over the horizon. Who would have thought—the curve of the earth, evident even here, in this low-slung, landlocked enclave. Chicago. There’s so much he has to learn.
Lincoln wonders where he should take Amy for dinner tonight. Someplace special. Gibsons, that’s it. Gibsons, the city’s favorite steak joint. Amy loves red meat, and now she’s eating for two. Gibsons is always festive, always memorable—visiting ballplayers drawing crowds in the bar, waiters hauling around great trays of beef. Amy will like that. He sees her smiling. He imagines pulling her under his arm and kissing her just on the top of her forehead, where the tiny, unruly hairs always escape her control. But Gibsons is a busy place. He’d better call for a reservation. He pulls out his cell phone.
Behind him, a child squeals in pursuit of a ball. And Lincoln thinks: yes. Yes, I am happy now.
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