The Meeting

When Tim Kourtney stopped his sports car at a crossroad, he hinted a smile to himself, slipped the gear lever and headed off nowhere in particular. The summer hills appeared like a Monet painting as he drove, winding on through the undulations, then opening on the flatness of cattle-freckled pastures. The early evening light, golden, bled mixtures of greens and blues through the branches that overhung the road. He had left the highway in search of tranquility, greenness, space, clean air, and a chance to be alone with his thoughts. Winter, he briefly considered, had been arduous, but for now, under a transparent stretch of azure sky, the afternoon extending over a patchwork quilt of color, he drove happily in his Austin Healey. With no signposts, no roads joining, he succumbed to the joyous feeling of being free of burden.

Coming around a bend in the road, Tim witnessed the face of a little darling standing on the grass verge, stick in hand, a yellow bonnet nestling on ocean-wheat locks, the loose curls of which fell on her shoulders. He raised his hand, smiling from his open-top sports car. A lick of happiness crossed her face; a smile that reached back through the sun-shot shadows and touched his heart. He watched in his mirror, seeing her hand raised, not in goodbye but hello before the corner finally swallowed her image.

The tractor crossed his path unnoticed. The day had felt timeless.

When Richard Kourtney rang the bell at the front door, Debbie was in the bathroom getting ready to celebrate a dinner date at which, she imagined, or hoped, Tim would propose. Not until she turned off the hairdryer, resting it on the bathroom counter, did she hear the bell at the front door. She quickly covered up, wrapping a gown around her, and hurried down the stairs. Tim always sent flowers before every dinner date.

The ambiance of the day was soothing, warm, all nature’s order and beauty obvious.

Richard stepped inside, his face ashen.

“Debbie, I have some terrible news,” he started to say, then broke down.

During the next week, every meeting with another person felt little more than an uncomfortable collision. Debbie felt too much, sensed too much, and was exhausted by the simplest of conversation. Eight days after Tim’s death, two days before the funeral…

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