The Last Romantics

by Tara Conklin

Foul play? The term itself seemed laughable. Fowl play. Chickens at bat.

Since learning of Joe’s death, Caroline had been able to do this: disappear into pockets of concentration like a gopher dropping down into its comfortable hole.

Caroline was eating a piece of pepperoni-and-pineapple pizza; we had ordered from a place one block away. “The usual for Mr. Joe?” the man on the phone had asked. “Yes,” I had answered. “The usual, please.”

the show he’d watch for hours when he was a child, just arrived in Miami from the Ukraine, when the new English words had sounded to him like gunfire, like heavy rain: a harsh staccato that hid a meaning rather than unveiled it.

the woman gave an impression of confidence and low-key affluence: two thick rings on the hand that held the phone,

It’s so difficult to let some things go, to watch them walk out a door, get onto a plane, make their way in a dangerous unpredictable world.

But Gary Lightfoot did not find Luna. After four months he announced that Luna Hernandez was almost certainly dead.

“You are always taking advantage, always using me,” Caroline continued. “Using us, me and Renee, for money or meals at fancy restaurants or help with whatever. And Joe. You used Joe, too. Why don’t you have your own life? Why are you never in a relationship? Why do you always say you hate your job but never look for another one? You’re the youngest, sure, Fiona, but you’re thirty years old! Nothing is serious for you. Everything is a game. And why did you pretend you knew what was going on with Joe? Why did you lie to me that day before his party? Why did you say he was okay? That he didn’t need help? Maybe Renee and I . . . maybe we could have helped him. Maybe—” Caroline stopped speaking. She shook her head and looked at me through the rain. “Caro, I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought—” “What did you think, Fiona? What? That the detective was cute? That he might fuck you?” “No.” I knew that Caroline was upset; she was angry, she didn’t know what she was saying. “I thought he could help us.”

I DID NOT see or speak to Caroline for another five years. My calls and e-mails went unreturned. Nor did I speak to Renee, not really. She remained busy, traveling, always out of phone range or forgetful or uninterested, and I made no special effort to reach her.

even as she went about her maternal duties, even as she cooked and joked and brushed her teeth, her essential self remained upstairs in that bed, underneath the down duvet, wrapped in darkness.

“Noni, you weren’t there when I first started,” she said. “You wouldn’t remember.” Noni narrowed her eyes and gazed at Caroline as though she were a distant figure whom Noni was trying in vain to identify. “No, Caroline,” she said finally. “I think you’re remembering wrong. It was Easter. I made the cake.”

Ever since Joe’s accident, Caroline had grouped Noni alongside Louis, Beatrix, and Lily, the four of them crammed into a sack that Caroline slung over her shoulder and carried around. It was heavy, but there was no safe place to put it down.

There seemed in her a sliver of shakiness, as though one side of her face had been drawn by a child. It would never disappear, never entirely. Today marked the first time I became aware of it.

After eighteen years with Jonathan Frank, Renee was ready to love someone new.

“Joe happened so long ago. I’m married now, I have a family. I only want to forget that time.” “Forget my brother?” I felt a sudden crumpling, a collapse, as though a hand had squeezed the internal workings of my chest. “No, that’s not—” Luna stopped. “I made a horrible mistake that day. You should keep this for your family. Your sisters’ children. I can’t take it.” A disappointment cracked open and grew wider every second that I sat here, Luna across the table from me, the ring between us both. The manuscript of The Love Poem weighed down my purse, but I could not give it to Luna. Not now. I had written a book of poems that imagined the truest love, a lost love, a tragedy.

A twist!

And I didn’t want to take anything away from Luna, a woman I did not know but whose life had proved for me the greatest inspiration.

“Thank you,” I said. Luna picked up the velvet box and held it out to me. “Keep it,” I said. “For Rory. Maybe someday he’ll want it. Maybe he’ll want to hear its story.”

Wow

Here’s Jonah.” The cot was beside the bed. Of course, I realized. The baby.

Wowwwww

that Christmas, all of us gathered around Noni’s dining-room table, giddy on champagne and pecan pie.

Ideal

But after Ellis died, my idea of religion changed. I became a nonbeliever. Your grandmother was turning over in her grave, I’m sure, but the world struck me as stark and unforgiving. There was no plan. No one—no entity, no power, no God—controlled a thing. Life was a struggle. Not without its joys, of course”—here Noni smiles—“but a struggle nonetheless to feed, clothe, house, love the people for whom I was responsible. My children. You four. I was the only one who would ever love you wholly. I was the only one who would give my life for yours, and this seemed an important and terrible burden.” Noni pauses and closes her eyes, opens them again. “It froze me. It did. The Pause, you kids called it. I couldn’t face it alone, any of it, but somehow you managed. The four of you, together. You got through and you forgave me. Thank you, Renee. I’ve never quite forgiven myself, but thank you.”

This then is the true lesson: there is nothing romantic about love. Only the most naïve believe it will save them. Only the hardiest of us will survive it. And yet. And yet! We believe in love because we want to believe in it. Because really what else is there, amid all our glorious follies and urges and weaknesses and stumbles? The magic, the hope, the gorgeous idea of it. Because when the lights go out and we sit waiting in the dark, what do our fingers seek? Who do we reach for?