The Book of Joe

replay this conversation and be somewhat unsure of what exactly transpired. Is it my forgiveness or his own we’ve just been negotiating? But at this moment, I felt vaguely satisfied that a rapprochement of sorts has been reached, and a long-raging battle has been ended. I don’t like him any more than I did before, but maybe I hate him a little less, and I guess that’s something.
    When Carly finds me a few minutes later, I’m still standing in the same spot, staring up into the rain. “You’re soaked,” she says, pulling me under her umbrella and wiping at my face with her fingers. The underside of her umbrella has a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. “I always wondered who bought these things,” I say.
    “What was that all about?”
    Her eyes are black and smudged with ruined mascara, and she looks like a little girl who’s been playing with her mother’s makeup. I kiss her cheek and we press our foreheads together. “Nothing,” I say. “I don’t know.” I am suddenly exhausted, and want nothing more than to just climb into bed with her and sleep the wet chill out of our bones.
    Carly hugs me, and it’s a good, tight fit, and at some point we finish crying, although, with the constant spray of the rain on our faces, it’s impossible to tell exactly when.

Thirty-Eight
    Wayne and I used to lower the basketball hoop in my driveway to about eight feet every so often so that we could practice our alley-oops, tomahawks, and reverse dunks. Over time, this practice led to a gradual loosening of the bolts that fastened the hoop to the backboard, so that whenever the ball made contact with any part of the basket, there was a distinct rattling sound. It’s been many years since I heard this sound, but sitting in the study, writing my novel, I recognize it instantly, and step outside to find Brad shooting around, still dressed in the suit pants and loafers he wore to Wayne’s funeral earlier that day. “Hey,” he says when I step out onto the porch. “Want to shoot around a little?”
    I step down to the driveway and catch his pass. “Sure.” The driveway is still wet from the earlier rain, and the ball is covered with a film of wet grit from the blacktop. I take a step closer and put up an easy bank shot, too close to qualify for courtesy, but Brad tosses me the ball anyway. We shoot around in silence for a few minutes in the fading daylight, the only sounds the chirping of the crickets and the hard leather slap of the ball on damp pavement.
    “That was something today, at the funeral, huh?” Brad finally says. His tone is casual, but his posture is weighted with purpose.
    “It sure was,” I say, and take another shot, which hits the front of the rim and lands right in Brad’s hands. He tosses in an underhand layup, grabs his own rebound, and dribbles out to take an outside shot. He still handles the ball with complete authority, and when he launches his shot, there’s no question that he’ll sink it.
    “I said some things to you the other night,” he says as I grab his rebound.
    “All justified.”
    “Still, I feel bad about the way we left things.”
    “Don’t. I have no one in my life to kick my ass when I’m out of line. I think I needed it.”
    I toss him the ball, and he stares at it with a thoughtful frown, as if he’s never taken the time to actually look at a basketball before. “I’m leaving tonight for a trade show in Chicago. I’ll be gone for a few days, and when I get back, I’ll be moving out of my house and into this one.” He walks over to the steps of the house and sits down. “I didn’t know how much longer you planned on hanging around, but I wanted to say good-bye in case you were leaving, and if not, I just wanted to warn you that you’d be getting a roommate.”
    “I guess I’ll be heading back to the city fairly soon,” I say, sitting down beside him on the stairs.
    He nods and clears his throat. “This thing with Sheila,” he says. “It only happened after Cindy and I had already fallen apart.”
    “It’s none of my business.”
    He casts a sideways glance at me. “Let’s pretend for a moment that it is.”
    “Okay,” I say. “Are you getting divorced?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Are you in love with Sheila?”
    “Hard to say.”
    “Well, then.”
    “What about you and Carly? How’s that going?”
    “Remains to be seen.”
    Brad looks at me and smiles. “I guess we have more in common than we thought.”
    “Who