Choosing

“I was thinking about what you said, about me choosing you, and I don’t agree at all,” Susan said. “I think you chose me.”

            “Of course you chose me,” Casey said.

            “But you came up to me. You started it.”

She leaned against the counter and sliced the ends of a colander of green beans. Casey sat across from her on a stool and drank the crisp wine and thought she looked severe with her black hair pulled back so tightly.

            “I came to you because you let me know it was safe,” he said.

            “How?”

            “The way you looked at me.”

            “How was that?”

            “Something in your eyes welcomed me. I just did the talking. You did the choosing.”[1] 

Casey remembered the stranger sitting in that darkened, crowded room, dressed in black with her pale face and eyes drawing him to her with the faintest smile. Uncharacteristically emboldened, sat beside her and asked how she knew Sabine, whose birthday it was. She didn’t. Her friend Jill knew someone named Tom who knew someone…

“I don’t know anyone here,” she smiled, as if embarrassed.

“Except Jill and Tom.”

“Right.”

“I’m Casey,” he offered his hand, and she took it. “Now you know me.”

She laughed. “Hardly.” [2] 

In spite of the thumping music and loud voices around them, they fell into an easy conversation about the awkwardness of talking to strangers and the loneliness of parties and pretty soon she said “me, too” and he said “me, too” and they were the only people in the room.  He sensed that she was older than him, which made him nervous. They hit a lull in their conversation and as they sipped their drinks and took in the room, Casey felt his confidence drain out of him. He turned and studied her face in profile. Maybe she was the grownup woman he told himself he was looking for. Her face lit up as someone approached.

“Are you ready to go?” her friend shouted.

Susan nodded stiffly, put down her drink and rose. She turned and extended her hand again to Casey, who grabbed it and stood.

“It was nice to meet you, Casey,” she said.

 “Nice to meet you, Susan.” And as their eyes met and he held her thin, warm hand, Casey felt her expectation. It was time to ask for her number. But he hesitated and could see her disappointment as she smiled politely and let go. She turned and left. Casey stood in the crowded room, angry and ashamed of himself. He grabbed his jacket and tore down the stairs and out to 23rd Street. But there was no sign of her. He ran up the block to the corner of Broadway. Nothing. It was cold and the street shimmered slightly from the alcohol inside him. He made his way to the subway and back to Brooklyn.

Back home, Casey pulled out the fat NYNEX Manhattan phonebook only to realize that he never asked Susan’s last name. It took two weeks to track her down through a series of phone calls and answering machine messages – Sabine had to remember which Tom knew a Jill and for each of them to return his calls with a series of phone numbers, the last of which he hoped would be the Susan he met. 

Casey was nervous when Susan answered, but she remembered him and smiled with her voice.[4]  On their first date they met anxiously in front of her building in Soho and walked to a small restaurant she liked. She was a thirty-one-year-old single mom and hadn’t dated since her divorce. She was nervous. Compared to her, she said, Casey, who produced infomercials, was out in the world. That was three months ago. Now they had fallen into a pattern – Casey came over after work and Susan made dinner while he played with Nina, her four-year-old. They ate as a family around a small table. After she put Nina to bed, Susan would fold him into her arms. In the morning, he went to work in the same clothes he wore the day before. He kept a toothbrush in the bathroom. When they talked, they would often talk about how they met.

            “I didn’t know you. I didn’t choose you for anything,” she insisted. “Suddenly this guy was talking to me. I was like, wow, OK. Why not? It was the first time Jill dragged me out of the house in months.”

“Women choose. Men respond.”
“That’s sexist.”

He shrugged.

The kitchen was in the middle of Susan’s loft – a long, open space with dark corners, creaky wooden floors and walls covered with the oversized abstract paintings by her ex-husband, who owned the building and lived downstairs. It was a strange mix of industrial and opulent, the kind of artist’s space that Casey knew existed behind the wrought iron Soho facades but had never actually been inside. It was a stark contrast to the cramped two-bedroom he shared in Park Slope – rooms, he vowed, that Susan would never see. 

Casey watched her as she placed breaded chicken cutlets, sizzling, into the frying pan. The aroma rising from the stove, the cool wine in his glass, Kind of Blue coming from the stereo across the room, all came together to remind Casey of his teen years when Martin, his future stepfather, would arrive at six-thirty sharp and make dinner with his mother. Civilized, calm. No tension, no tears. So different from when his father lived with them.

Nina, who had been playing across the room, ran over and insisted Casey join her. Playing with Nina went like this: she handed him a plastic dinosaur and then narrated the scene.

“Now, you say I’m hungry.”

            “But I’m not hungry.”

            “No, you say it.”

            “I’m hungry.”

            “Me, too. Let’s go tell Bob…”  She took his hand and him dragged him to the couch while Susan made dinner. Did he see Susan pout? He didn’t care. The conversations were so much easier with Nina: she told him what to say.

            Like when Susan sat next to him on that same couch a week later and asked in a voice that was nervous and careful and testing: “How do you feel about me?” Casey knew the right answer, the answer she needed, the answer he himself wanted to say and believe. Wasn’t Johnny Hartman feeding him the lines to say right then from the stereo? He had always been the first – if not to say, then to feel it, to leak it – and wasn’t that the cause of most of the emotional car crashes that comprised his relationships with women? And now here was Susan, this beautiful, grown-up woman, almost saying it first in the asking. But instead of opening, he felt himself recoil: how do I get through this? He smiled and sipped his wine and turned to face her.

            “How do you feel?” he asked.

            “I asked you.” She smiled nervously.

            “I feel good,” he said. “I feel… love-bound.”

            She nodded slightly, looked down and seemed to process his words.

            “I mean,” he added nervously, “do we really know each other well enough, to know?”

            “To know what?”

            He raised his eyebrows. She looked down and away. This look reminded him of his ex-girlfriend (or former lover, or whatever) Lauren, although with her the roles were reversed. It was Casey who was always testing, probing, begging her to name her feelings. “You love me,” he would insist, “I know it.” Sometimes Lauren would say yes. And sometimes she’d look away, like Susan, distant and disappointed.

            Susan was quieter through dinner, more focused on Nina. And in that slight chill, Casey thought, it’s true, he didn’t really know Susan enough to love her. Only that he wanted to.

Each evening, he rode the A train from 42^nd Street to Canal, walked south along West Broadway to her building on White Street and up the long, worn wooden staircase, past the door of her ex, to the fourth landing where Susan met him with a kiss, sometimes with Nina hugging her leg. It took him about a month to realize who he was imitating. In place of the chaos of his father, Martin brought calm, thoughtfulness, and devotion. He would say things to his mom like, “What can I do for you, Maureen?” And so, when Casey buzzed Susan’s intercom at seven-thirty sharp (there was no getting out of work before seven), he recognized that he had become Martin, and behind that door was not only a woman he could love, but a child who welcomed his presence, the way he had as an eleven-year-old boy. But while Casey was trying on this role, Susan was a real mom, with a real daughter. He had only been thirty for five months. This was different from dating.   

Susan’s ex-husband, a famous painter, was twenty years older and emotionally abusive. They were only married a couple of years when she knew she had to leave him. She moved into the loft above his studio, but then he refused to see Nina outside of negotiated weekends. Susan knew that Nina knew where her father lived and could feel that confusion, that hurt growing inside her. She needed to move out before the pain of his proximity damaged them both permanently. But, as she hadn’t worked since her mid-twenties, the prospect of getting a job and supporting herself and her daughter alone, even with child support, was terrifying. She didn’t want to move back to Nyack.

                 With Nina finally asleep, Susan closed the door to her room and climbed into bed. [13] Casey reached out and was surprised when she cuddled into his arms. After some time, she said into the darkness, “What does love-bound mean?”

            “It means, I’m happy.”

            “And…?”

            He felt her smooth stomach and cupped her breast.

            “And…?” she asked again, pushing his hand away.

Casey tried to form words in his mind to appease her, but nothing came together. He felt interrogated and resentful. Their relationship had moved so quickly from dinner dates and movies to this domestic arrangement, it was like they skipped a step.

“I’ve made a lot of bad choices,” he said finally. “I’ve rushed in, heart first. Dick first. It’s nice to grow up, finally, and choose with my head and my heart.”

“So, you’re saying you chose me.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you said you didn’t choose me.”

“Oops.”

“You did choose me.”

“After you chose me.”

She took him, eventually, to Nyack and her childhood home, which was a modest two-story house with worn floors and silent, sunlit rooms. Her mother was visiting her sister in Florida. Nina was with her dad. The constant rumble of New York City was replaced by the birdsong of early spring.

            “It’s so peaceful,” Casey remarked. Susan smiled as she led him upstairs to her old room where they cuddled and kissed on a twin bed. 

            “Hi, Casey, Casey, Casey!” she said in a high and playful voice, stroking his hair and his cheek. It was a voice she used with Nina. He looked into her pale eyes above him. She seemed happy and he felt found and comforted in their lovemaking. Afterwards, as they held each other on the narrow bed in the warming light of the window overlooking the back yard.

“It’s peaceful now,” Susan said, picking up the conversation from earlier. “But imagine five kids in this tiny house. My dad yelling. Hitting. No privacy. I couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

Casey looked at her eyes scanning the room, her eyebrows shifting in tiny movements of concern. She pointed toward the window, to an oak tree in the far corner of the yard, its branches touched by tiny budding leaves.

“When I was six, I climbed that tree,” she said. “Higher than I’d ever climbed. And I sat in the cradle of that huge branch with my arms around the trunk. I remember feeling the breeze and the gentle sway of the tree, but I knew it was holding me and would never drop me. I was safe. And I felt content.” Casey looked back at her, staring out the window. He felt a surge of tenderness and pulled her to him and kissed her and closed his eyes as their tongues met and listened again to her words in his mind: Hold me and never drop me.

Could he?

Could she?

Because all women quit, didn’t they? They waited until he opened his heart, then withdrew. He would scan in his mind failure after failure and when his anger was spent, he was left feeling empty and somehow disqualified. Like in the act of loving he drove them away. How long before Susan quit? How long till she learned enough to say, no, thank you, I’ll have no more of this guy? Casey knew: she would wait until he loved her. And as he anticipated that day, he nurtured a list of grievances and faults in preparation.

He couldn’t help it. He liked coming over but resented that she never wanted to go out, afraid to leave Nina with a babysitter. He didn’t like her hair pulled back so tightly. He didn’t like salt on his salad. He hated it when she smoked – the way her mouth tasted afterwards. She would ask, in different ways, how much money he made, which made him anxious and determined to hide his shitty salary and crushing debts. He didn’t like questions about his past girlfriends, his sexual history. She was terrified of AIDS – everyone was, of course – but he didn’t want to share details of the frustrated relationships, the one-night stands, the disappointments of his bachelorhood. He didn’t want to tell her about Lauren, how much he loved her; how little sex they actually had over the four years she was in and out of his life. How he still looked for her on subway cars, on crowded streets.

The truth was, it had been so long since he dated a woman past the first rush that it had been years since Casey experienced himself in a relationship – not the tender, thoughtful, attentive lover he imagined himself to be, but who he actually was. At first, Susan called him quiet, thoughtful. Even mysterious. Later, she would add, cold, remote. He wanted to say things like, “What can I do for you, Susan?” But when she made requests of him – even simple things, like changing a lightbulb in the bathroom, or helping prepare dinner – he would have to fight an instinct to resist. She talked about intimacy until his mind froze. His eyes darted around the room. Sometimes, they would land on other women. One night at the Odeon, during a meal he knew he could Amex, but not really afford, Casey looked up as a woman – a cartoonishly sexy blonde, almost bursting out of a tight silver dress – strolled past their table. He smiled and shook his head. Susan, catching him, grew quiet, and stayed that way until he felt flushed with shame.

“When you look at another woman,” she said finally, “I feel inadequate.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s how I feel. “

“Susan.”

It was like his father had shown up. And like him, he would then overcompensate. He would arrive next time with flowers or a new dinosaur for Nina (he couldn’t afford much else). He stayed in the kitchen, focused on Susan, even when Nina pulled on his arm, begging him to play.

“How did a girl from Nyack end up in Soho, married to a famous painter?”

“I know!” she said, stirring broccoli rabe in the pan. “I certainly didn’t grow up like this. Don’t believe that bullshit about poor kids not knowing they’re poor. We knew it.” Her father was a drunk, frequently out of work. Distant and violent. “So, when I met my ex-husband, I was like, I know this man, I got this.” She was an art student at Pratt, where he occasionally taught. “Art student, model, assistant, lover, wife. It’s the oldest cliché in the book. But I really loved him. And suddenly, I’m in this world… we’d go to dinner with people like Julian Schnabel. It was fucking crazy!” She shook her head. “And I had escaped Nyack forever.” Casey could sense she was ashamed of her choices. Of turning her back on her family for a time – before she needed them again. “But I have Nina. So, I would do it all over again. Of course.”

The previous fall, at a dinner party at Sabine’s apartment, Casey found, pinned over her desk, a handwritten note from her boyfriend: “Sabine, I love you. I’m so happy you are in my life.” He found himself deeply moved and longed to have a woman he could write those words to.  One night, [19] as Susan climbed into bed, Casey put his arms around her and whispered, “Susan, I’m so happy to have you in my life.” She smiled and kissed him. He hoped as he pressed his tongue into her mouth, that she did not hear the hollowness, the borrowed quality of the words. It was true that he was happy to have her in his life. It was true his feelings were in the neighborhood of love, and he hoped in saying the words to release what was blocking his emotions, his desire, his devotion. And she responded to his performance of passion, holding him tighter and gripping his body more firmly. But once inside her, he had difficulty finishing, and when he finally withdrew, he found the condom had broken. Susan became upset. 

            “Are you worried about getting pregnant?” he asked.

            “No!” She sat up and turned away from him.

            “What then?”

            She rose and hurried to the bathroom. Casey lay in the dark, listening to the water running, eventually, the toilet flushing. When she came back, she would not look at him. She got under the covers and turned her back.

            “Susan, what’s wrong?” he said into the darkness.

            “When was the last time you had an AIDS test?” she asked.

            “I’ve never had one.”

            “Then, how do you know?”

            “I just know.”

“I have a daughter,” she said.

Casey looked at the back of her head. He touched her shoulder, but she pulled away. He looked up at the high, darkened ceiling and listened to her breathing. A car rumbled over the cobblestones on the street below.

“I’ll get a test,” he said quietly.

“Tomorrow,” she insisted.

            When Casey rose in the morning, Susan didn’t. He brushed his teeth and left.

Casey worked as a production manager at a small TV commercial company in midtown. He didn’t especially like the job – his boss, Ava, was volatile and moody, which put him on edge – but he felt useful and effective at times, especially on productions. This week was a big one: an infomercial for Tupperware, to be filmed in a midtown studio with a working kitchen set. Casey was relieved to throw himself into his work, which filled his days managing endless details, overseeing casting, set construction, and hiring the crew. When he left work at eight or nine, he rode the F train home to Brooklyn. On Wednesday, Susan called him at work. Her voice sounded unusually chipper.

            “How’s it going?” she asked.

            “Busy. We shoot tomorrow, so it’s a lot. What’s up? How are you? How’s Nina?”

            “Fine,” she said, then paused.

            “I won’t be able to come over until this wraps…”

            “Have you taken the AIDS test?” Her voice was no longer sunny.

            “No, I haven’t had a moment to even find where to get one.”

            “You promised.”

            Casey felt resentment rising. He scanned his paper-strewn desk, the spreadsheet on his computer screen.

            “I’ll find one for you,” she said impatiently.

The appointment was on a Tuesday morning on East 76^th Street, in a private doctor’s office on the first floor of a modern high rise apartment building. Casey approached the door nervously. Although he had thought about AIDS, he never seriously considered himself at risk until this moment. He could think of only a handful of times he had unprotected sex – but suddenly, those few lapses glowed as terrible mistakes in judgment. He entered the small waiting room, and a nurse handed him a clipboard with forms to complete. After pages and pages of standard insurance and health information, he came to the HIV Risk Assessment forms. To the best of your knowledge, do you now have, or have you ever had any of the following? Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Syphilis, Herpes…  Have you had vaginal sex with more than one partner over the past year… Have you had anal sex…? No, no, no, yes, no, he checked down the page. By the time he turned in the form, which made him feel shockingly clean – almost virginal – in a sea of STD’s, his resentment of Susan began to resurface.He was doing this, after all, to placate her fear. But as he sat in the exam room and watched his blue-red blood fill the test tube, he wondered again if there was anything inside him that could possibly hurt her.

            “It will take a week,” he told her from a payphone on the corner outside the building. “I have an appointment to get the results on Tuesday.”

            “Thank you,” she said.

            “Susan, they told me I have a one percent chance.”

            “That isn’t zero.”

            “No one has zero chance. Not even you.”

The morning traffic rumbled by on Third Avenue.

“Call me when you have the results,” she said.

Casey went to work that day furious at Susan as he struggled to concentrate on wrapping the Tupperware job, sorting through invoices and timesheets from last week’s shoot. But gradually, as the week progressed, work again consumed his days. It was mostly on the subway rides home that he had time to wonder how long his exile from Susan and Nina would last. His windowless bedroom and futon bed felt stuck in another time and reminded him of the loneliness of last year.

Lauren knew this room. Every time he coaxed her in, she would push him away and their dance would begin. They would argue. She would cry. They would eventually kiss. She would laugh and brush her blonde hair from her face. They would fuck with abandon. He would tell her his feelings and she would come close, so close to reciprocating… It was like a series of first dates that lasted years. He never knew who she would be when he saw her. It destroyed him.[24]  When she finally called it quits – returning to an ex-boyfriend who haunted their coupling from the beginning – Casey was swallowed by a bitterness so deep and disorienting, it deserved its own name. When he turned thirty last September, that seemed a good time to say goodbye to all the Lauren’s he’d known and wait until he met a woman with whom he could have a mature relationship. Like his mother and Martin. Three months later, there was Susan, in the dark, inviting him with her eyes.

“Sue, I miss you,” he said on the phone that weekend. She didn’t respond. “Do you miss me?”

“I miss parts of you,” she said.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

She was quiet for several seconds. “I cut my finger in the kitchen last week,” she said finally. “Then, after I picked up Nina, I became terrified that I had given her AIDS.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Why didn’t you get the test when I asked for it?” she asked sharply.

“I did.”

“No, you waited a week. I had to make the appointment for you. Why didn’t you just do it?”

“We’ll have the result in three days.”

“In the meantime, I’m suffering.”

Why did he resist? Even now part of him thought: let her suffer for putting him through this. For giving into irrational fear. For withholding herself from him. For breaking the pattern that he had grown so attached to. He was ashamed of these thoughts. And as the weekend dragged on, emptily, his longing for her deepened. Susan and Nina had filled a hole in his life that he had a sense of but had not fully appreciated. He vowed if given another chance, he would never take them for granted again. He would find the love inside himself to give her, he would act on it, he would become the man she needed.

One cannot take an AIDS test without imagining the possibility of a death sentence. Casey was even more nervous approaching the doctor’s office on the day of his next appointment. But as the gray-haired doctor waved him into his office reassuringly, he knew the results were negative and afterwards he dialed Susan again from the payphone outside.

“Negative,” he said.

“Thank god.”

“Can I see you?”

She hesitated. “Sure.”

“I’ll take you to dinner.”

Casey walked up White Street to find Susan sitting on her stoop, smoking a cigarette. It was a warm May evening. She looked beautiful to him, with her long brown hair down to her shoulders and she smiled and kissed him shyly. It was a reminder of their first date, and she took his arm as they walked to the same restaurant on West Broadway where they were seated at a small corner table. Susan told Casey about Nina’s recent birthday party – she turned five the week before – and how the parents brought so many presents that she hid half of them to give her later. 

            “We’re set for dinosaur toys for the next year at least.”

            “I wish I could have been there,” Casey said.

            Susan grimaced. “That would have been fun hanging out with my ex-husband.”

            “I’m sure we would have gotten along fine.”

            She turned her glass. “There’s news there as well.”

            “Are you getting back together?”
            “Hardly. No, our divorce was finalized,” she said.

            “Jesus. I thought I was busy with my Tupperware Ladies. Congratulations,” he said, raising his glass. Susan clinked it with hers, and they drank. Her smile faded.

            “It’s actually really sad. It’s all sad.” She shook her head. “When I got the package from my lawyers – messengered over, of course – and opened it, I just sat and cried. Not for me, really. But for Nina. I never planned to be a single mother. I wonder sometimes how I ended up like this.” She looked past him, then down. Casey studied her face and wanted to fill the space between them with encouragement and support – What can I do for you, Susan? – but held back, aware of how little he had to offer her.

            The waitress came with their salads and Susan shifted in her seat and smiled politely.  They each picked up their forks and ate in silence. Casey heard the words he’d been rehearsing in his head. He hoped she would speak so he wouldn’t have to say them, but she continued to eat quietly. He took a breath.

“Susan, I’m so sorry about the AIDS test, for making you wait. I didn’t understand your fear. I would never do anything to hurt you or Nina, I want you to know that.”

“You must have thought I was crazy.”

“I just didn’t understand.”

“Because you’re not a parent,” she said, a little sharply. “You’re not responsible for the life of another person.”

“You’re right. I apologize.”

Susan smiled softly. “You’re forgiven,” she said and took a drink. The absolution of that, and the warmth in her eyes released a tension in Casey’s chest that he didn’t know was there. He let out a heavy sigh of relief and met her smile.

“So, what do you want to do about this relationship of ours?”

“What do you want to do?”

 “I have been thinking a lot about it. You asked me how I felt about you, once.”

“I remember, Mr. Love Bound.”

“Will you forgive me for that as well, while you’re at it?”

“Someday.”

“I didn’t know what to say at the time. I was afraid. But over the past few weeks I missed you so much, I’ve missed Nina. I’ve missed making dinner and playing dinosaurs and climbing those awful stairs after a long day of making bullshit television commercials. You brought… purpose into my life. I thought I needed more time, but really, I needed only to recognize what I already felt, that I feel…” Casey paused, his mind racing. “I’m sorry, I’m fucking this up.”

Susan leaned forward. “Say it.”

Her eyes looked very blue and reflected tiny sparkles from the candlelight on the table between them. And her dark eyelashes… and her pale cheeks… and her lips parting…the fullness of Susan bent toward him. Casey could see the words in front of him, approaching and at the same time he felt his breathing shallow, like a dream where he couldn’t speak no matter how hard he tried. He looked down and took a breath and said, quietly, “I… I love you, Susan.”

She tilted her head and took his hand across the table. Casey wondered if they were damp and clammy as she folded their hands together.

“Thank you,” she said.

The waitress came and took their salads and for the rest of the meal Susan and Casey talked easily, almost buoyantly, and he felt restored and relieved. That is, until a couple sat next to them. They were young, maybe twenty-five, and the woman had flowing blonde hair, tanned skin and smiled attentively at her date. Something about her jolted Casey, who stared at her just long enough to register her green eyes before he caught himself and returned his attention to Susan. For the rest of their meal, Casey struggled to remain focused on Susan while the beauty of this stranger drew his eyes like a magnet. When Susan looked down, or away, he glanced quickly for another detail, another hit, before turning back hoping neither of them noticed.

While waiting for the check, Susan stood to go the bathroom. As she did, she took out a cigarette and slipped it into Casey’s shirt pocket.

“Hold this,” she said playfully.

Finally alone, Casey glanced back to the young couple. They were clearly on an early date – the “me, too” smiles – and so focused on each other that he could watch them unobserved. When she laughed – brushing her hair from her forehead, squinting playfully – he recognized the look, the Lauren Look, and he felt a rush of pleasure in the memory, of when her eyes landed on him, when they were connected, when he ached to touch her. 

The waitress placed the check on the table and Casey took out his wallet and handed her a credit card. He glanced again at the girl and savored the sting of desire, jealous of the boy centered in her gaze. He wondered why, despite of all his experiences with women, he still believed in a love that was uncomplicated, unconditional, un-haunted… If that girl existed, she never chose him. Or he never chose her. The check appeared on the table, and he added the tip and signed. He caught the sharp scent of tobacco and took the cigarette out of his pocket, turned it in his fingers, sniffed it and set it on the table.

 “Why did you do that?” asked Susan as she sat down.

“What?”

“Why did you put it on the table?”

“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want a cigarette in my pocket,” he said.

 “But I asked you to hold it.”

“So?”

 Susan shook her head, annoyed. “That’s weird. That’s just so weird,” she said with a grimace. Suddenly, she rose, picked up the cigarette and put it in her mouth, grabbed her coat from the back of her chair and walked past him out of the restaurant. Casey watched her, then turned back to catch the girl’s eyes on him, which caused him to look down and blush. He stood.

When Casey reached her on the sidewalk, Susan was lighting the cigarette. She blew out a long cloud of smoke.

“I smoke maybe two fucking cigarettes a day!” she said angrily. “Never in the house, never around Nina. Who are you to judge?”

“I’m not…”

“I mean, who are you? You’re just this guy who likes playing daddy. But then you stare at other women. Do you want to go back and get her number? You can do that. You can do whatever you fucking want.”

She turned away and started walking back toward White Street. Casey followed.

“Susan, what’s happening? I’m lost.”

“I need to take care of my daughter. I need to take care of myself and stop worrying about other people.”

“What are you saying?”

She walked ahead of him, drawing deeply on her cigarette. He reached for her shoulder, but she shrugged him off.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

And with those words, Casey slowed his pace and watched Susan draw away from him, smoke trailing behind her. He followed her in silence for the last block to her building. The street was dark and quiet. 

“Susan,” he called out.

She paused at her stoop, dropped her cigarette to the ground and crushed it.

“Did we… are we breaking up?” he asked.

“What is there to break up?”

Casey stepped toward her. Susan looked up and frowned in sympathy.

“Oh, Casey,” she said tenderly. “Are you crying?”

“I…” he touched the corner of his eye, which he was surprised to find was wet. Susan pulled him into an embrace, holding his head to her shoulder and stroking his back. Chosen, unchosen, Casey felt his knees shake and gripped her body to steady himself, pressing his face into her neck, breathing in her hair, her warm scent.

“You’ll be all right,” she assured him.

“Hold me,” he whispered.

Hold me.