The Axeman's Jazz

wouldn’t be out for a good hour. She phoned Cindy Lou.
    “Di told Steve she was late getting home last night because you asked for directions.”
    “Di lied,” said Cindy Lou.
    Di lied and Di was late. Possibly just late enough.
    When the meeting was over Di went home, stayed there about half an hour, and came out wearing white pants and the peacock-blue T-shirt she’d just bought. She had on canvas shoes that matched the T-shirt. Dressed for a casual dinner perhaps, maybe even a date.
    Di couldn’t understand why she hadn’t heard from him; why he hadn’t shown up, hadn’t answered his phone. She couldn’t stand it. She had to see him, make sure he was all right, that they were all right. If Missy was there, so be it.
    In answer to her ring, he came out on his balcony. “Di! What’s up?”
    “Can I come in?”
    “Sure.” Shrugging. Not overjoyed.
    She had been to his place only once before, and was taken aback once again at how spartan it was. Again she remembered similar apartments from her own children’s student days and felt momentarily disoriented. But he’s not a
student
student, she told herself. He’s a medical student.
    Sonny answered his door wearing pants with the belt unbuckled and a half-buttoned white Oxford cloth shirt. “What is it, Di?”
    He really didn’t know, he’d completely forgotten.
    He stood aside for her, closed the door when she stepped in, and turned immediately on his heel, buckling his belt as he went, heading back to the bedroom, his new puppy at his heels. She stared after him a moment, then decided he meant her to heel as well.
    He was putting on a tie.
    “Isn’t it hot for that?”
    He shrugged.
    “You must be going someplace special.”
    “Dinner with my parents.”
    “I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. I mean, you’re usually so reliable. It’s so unusual for you to say you’ll do something you don’t.”
    He wasn’t himself at all, the sunny Sonny she knew, who loved to be with her, whom she inspired; she knew it. He was cold, rejecting, seemed to want her to leave. But his eye lit on something on his dresser, a piece of paper, and his face cleared like the sky after a storm. “Di, remember when you thought I was a poet? Well, I’m doing it. I’m writing a poem.”
    “Sonny, did you remember we had a date last night?”
    “Last night was the inner-child meeting.”
    “You were going to come over afterward.”
    He started, jumped as if icy fingers had touched him or she had shouted, “Boo!”
    “Don’t you know why I didn’t come, Di? Couldn’t you guess?”
    “Sure. You forgot.”
    “I had to take care of Missy! Didn’t you see the way she was at that meeting? Do you think I could just leave her off at home?” He turned to face her, his face red, his voice furious.
    “But you came back.”
    “What?”
    “You came back to PJ’s after you dropped her off.”
    “Well, I went right back when I didn’t find her keys.”
    Had she had some kind of giant failure of compassion? Missy had seemed okay at PJ’s.
    “Sonny, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize.”
    “And then I came home and worked on the poem. I’d think you’d be glad about that. It was your idea.”
    His face was still red, his voice still angry. He couldn’t seem to shake whatever was bothering him.
    Idly, she picked up the piece of paper. The poem was titled “The Physician.”
    Smooth cuts the knife
    and a life is ruined. He is at the end
    of his path:
    His path of destruction.
    The metaphor is complete now;
    He has a lump he can palpate,
    a scar he can fondle.
    The healer as evil twin:
    Nelag, Galen backward.
    He lives on the edge, on the precipice,
    (though some would say on the cutting edge
    and perhaps he would say it himself).
    But she is destroyed.
    So smooth cuts the knife.
    Di said, “It’s about me!”
    “No it’s not. Look at the title.”
    “Well, it’s still about me.”
    “Di, do you know who I am?”
    Was he losing his marbles? What was she supposed to say to that? “You don’t seem yourself, that’s for sure.”
    “You know, don’t you?”
    She’d never seen him like this, his beautiful, bland face distorted with anger and pain. Pain.
    She hadn’t seen that before, but suddenly she knew it had always been there, only slightly below the surface. It was there if you looked hard enough, and she never had; probably nobody ever did. She was sorry she’d seen it.
    She hated him like this, wanted the old Sonny back.