The Vice of Self by Robert J Brunet (essential books to read txt) 📕

brow as she scans the chalkboard menu and I’m thankful for this final minute to clear my head for the conversation we are about to have.
We say our hellos and she sits down, making small talk about her visit to the city. She tells me it’s something she does every few weeks to check on her mother who tried to kill herself awhile back after her husband, Marla’s stepfather, died in a boating accident on Lake Pontchatrain last summer. The doctors recommended removing all the doorknobs in the house so that Marie could not lock herself in and try it again, but no one realized at the time that she was obsessive about turning the knobs before leaving a room, and with their removal she sat in the house for days at a time until someone would come and see about her. When Marla realized what was happening she came and screwed all the knobs into the wall next to the doors and Maria could once again feel safe moving from room to room.
I take a sip of my dark brew, looking her straight in the face, and begin talking as though she had not been speaking for the last few minutes.
“I remember you. I didn’t know your name, and it wasn’t until the middle of the night, but I do.”
“I was wondering if you did, but I didn’t think you would. I’m not offended by it.”
“That’s a good thing you do for your mother, checking up on her like you do.”
“It’s been quite a year for me, to say the least. What about you? I thought you were managing a restaurant somewhere downtown, right?”
“Not anymore, I sort of ruined all of that. Marla, when I met you I was really messed up, on a lot of drugs. I was staying at the boarding house because I had lost everything, my relationship, my car, and most everything I owned. I was not in a good place.”
Marla touches my hand; her eyes locked on the table our arms rest on. Spoons rattle against coffee cups and steam hisses from the cappuccino machine and I wonder how people think a coffee shop is a good place to relax with all of this noise. I take a breath, filling my lungs with the admission I’ve come here to deliver, but she begins talking in a whisper that conquers the sounds around us.
“I figured as much, and I’m sorry I took advantage of you like I did while you were so vulnerable.”
“No, you don’t understand – “
“Let me finish. The night we met I was very angry. The woman I lived with at the time was sleeping with her old girlfriend. I was hurting and wanted to get back at her and you were the opportunity I seized to do that. It was nothing personal. I’m sorry.”
I stop and think for a moment that I can leave it at this, an apology from her, an acceptance that she was the wrong-doer in the situation. But I know that if I ever want to clear my plate and start fresh in this life, now has to be it.
“Marla, because I was shooting up I got sick and almost died. I got sick from AIDS. I’m HIV positive.”
She squeezes my hand, tracing the grooves in the wooden table with her forefinger. Her eyes become moist and my heart tightens in my chest. The taste of iron in my mouth makes me sick, but I sit there, ready for the anger, the hate, the accusation she will cast upon me. Instead she smiles and for the first time in a long while my burden is shared and I feel like an honest man.
“It’s okay, I’m not sick. They tested me before the baby was born.”
The room becomes very small and the oxygen around my head no longer seems available for use.
“It was a bit more revenge than I had intended, especially when I came home and said, ‘Honey, I went out for a beer and came back with a baby’.”
I don’t know what to ask or where to run. There is a feeling in my pants that’s either urine or fear and nothing I ever thought she could say to me is worse than this.
“You got pregnant, from our night together, is it, what is…?
“A boy, and no I didn’t keep him. A friend of mine arranged for adoption by a couple here in the city. I’m sorry but I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. We never exchanged names.”
We have another cup of coffee and she gives me a hug, promising to keep in touch now that we have something shared between us, but I know I will not see her again. Her goodbye is much too final.
After she leaves, I ask for a refill and sit there until the bitter brew has long gone cold.

The rain fell in drops so large they sounded like someone knocking on Marla’s windshield. The tears tore themselves from her eyes and only when the thunder rolled downriver did she realize the storm was lifting and she started the car to drive away. She left a letter for her mother on the table under a doorknob with enough money to take care of things for the next month or so.
She searched her pockets filled with pills and loose change to find the little piece of paper she had scribbled on earlier that morning after Lee had called. It wasn’t until she was on the bridge, high above the river, that she rolled down the window and let the crumpled note loose into the grey and troubled air.
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Publication Date: 02-10-2010

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