Dante Johnson's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The sketch hung in Charity's window all week. Dante saw it each morning when he passed. She had asked him to prove he could be vulnerable, and he still owed her the words. He had never said them to anyone. He went to the post office first, the notice from Scarlett folded in his pocket. He needed to collect the package before he could face Charity. The clerk slid a small box across the counter. Dante signed. He already knew what was inside. His aunt had mailed it after his mother died, and he had refused delivery twice. He carried it out to a bench in the plaza and sat with it on his knees. Charity found him there. She must have followed. She sat down without asking and looked at the box. "You said you'd try," she said. "So try." Dante opened the lid. Inside was a photograph. His mother, young, holding his hand outside a clinic. He turned it so Charity could see. "This was the last good day," he said. His throat shut. He waited for the old reflex, the joke, the smile that ended questions. It came up fast. He pushed it down. "She got sick after this. I took care of her for two years. I never cried once. I thought if I kept it together, she'd be okay." Charity said nothing. She watched his hands. He watched them too. They were shaking. "When she died I couldn't speak at the service," he said. "I stood up and nothing came out. People thought I was cold." His voice cracked. "I let them think that. It was easier." The tears came then. He did not wipe them. He let Charity see his face fall apart in the open square. A man he half-knew, red-haired, passed with a crate of produce and slowed. Frank, who ran the market. Frank saw Dante crying and did not make a thing of it. "You good?" Frank asked. Plain, no pity. "No," Dante said. The honest word. "But I will be." Frank nodded and walked on. Charity took Dante's hand. His fingers were still shaking. Hers were steady. "That's it," she said softly. "That's the part you hide." "I've never told anyone," Dante said. "Not one person." "I know." She squeezed his hand. "I'm not going anywhere." Dante looked at the photograph again. He had kept it sealed for six months. Now it sat open in his lap, in daylight, and the world had not punished him for it. He let out a breath he felt he'd held for years. But something new moved under the relief. He had shown her the wound. Now she knew its shape, and she would want the whole story. The clinic. The two years. The person he pushed away before her. He had opened the door, and he could not close it again.