Goddamn, I hear her say when she finds the boxes exactly where she left them. She uses her cell phone to call someone, the real estate agent most likely, and bemoan the fact he-that would be me-never showed up and the boxes are still stacked in the middle of the floor. I hear her making arrangements for someone, the agent’s teenage son apparently, to bring a van and haul it all away before the walk-through in the morning. She sounds more exasperated than angry.

No, no, she says, he’s not like that. He’s got a lot on his mind right now. That’s all. See you in the morning.

Alice is still making excuses for me.

After all I’ve done to her, after everything I’ve put her through, she’s still making excuses for me.

Yes, but sometimes he’s a little absentminded.

He forgets things.

He didn’t mean it the way it sounded.

He really is very sweet.

Everyone is a little cranky at times.

He’s tired. He works so hard.

You don’t know him the way I do.

No one knows him like I do.

Here in this empty house, I realize she’s right.

No one knows me like she does. My mother maybe, certainly no one else.

But even Alice couldn’t have imagined me down on my knees in front of the urinal, swallowing a stranger’s semen. Or maybe I’m deluding myself and she knew all too well what I was capable of and turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, loving me anyway.

The house is so quiet I can hear her walking through the kitchen. I imagine she’s opening the refrigerator door, checking for any ancient jelly or olive jars left behind. That’s my Alice. Thorough to the end. Doing a little pre-inspection inspection. Making sure the faucets are working and the toilets still flush.

Oh, Sweet Jesus. The big, beautiful master bath, accessible only through this room in which I’m stranded, is sure to be on her punch list. I’m caught. There’s nothing to do but get up off the floor and straighten my back, accept my fate, and stand face-to-face with the woman I betrayed. The words won’t come easy. I can’t ask her forgiveness. I’m afraid she would deny it, but am even more terrified she will offer it. Besides, I’ve asked enough of her over the years, more than enough, too much, more than I had a right to take. I can’t ask her for anything ever again.

But what I can do is thank her.

Thank her for staying with me, for knowing I wasn’t ready.

But this happy reconciliation will never come to pass if she goes into cardiac arrest when she unexpectedly comes face-to-face with this great ghost from the past. Just as I’m about to call down to her, her cell phone rings. Hello? she answers. Okay. All right. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’m leaving now. Good-bye.

She turns away from the staircase and closes the front door behind her. I hear her car backing down the driveway. She’s probably singing along to the radio, her mind preoccupied with directions, blissfully unaware of me watching her from the window. She’s let me off the hook again. I can walk away scot-free, without having hoisted anything heavier than my car keys. It’s been a wasted trip. Hours of driving to accomplish nothing except a quick catnap. But I have a few moments before Zack or Tyler or Jason or whatever the most popular name for baby boys was sixteen or seventeen years ago comes bursting through the front door, still sweaty from lacrosse practice, to haul the last of this detritus from the house. I’m here, after all; it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek at what’s packed in that small pyramid of boxes downstairs.

Books, of course, as promised. Dozens of cheap paperbacks, their dry yellow pages crumbling, stuffed with bookmarks and receipts from long-shuttered bookshops, the underlined and highlighted passages revealing my impressionable undergraduate mind. I find what I’m looking for in the second box, the complete works of Faulkner, the Vintage editions, including a dog-eared copy of Absalom, Absalom! I carefully flip through it, astonished to find ancient petrified crumbs lodged between the pages. Is it possible they’re from the bits of cookie I dusted off my lips when the bold little coed startled me in the Davidson dining hall? Not likely, but I’m not gonna let common sense stop me from believing they are.

Other boxes have books of a more recent vintage. Alice ’s book club selections are sandwiched between copies of Ball Four and the complete Henry Wiggen series. Along with the immortal volumes of Susan Moore Duncan and Lucy Patton Kline is her copy of Wuthering Heights, the tidy Everyman’s Library edition with acid-free pages and slick red cloth place marker. Damn her, I spit, angry and hurt, my face stinging with rejection. She’s jettisoned this very important artifact from our history, a critical key to deciphering the mysterious code that scripted the story of our marriage. I tear through the boxes, looking for more evidence of her callousness in her choice of what to keep and what to consign to the scrap heap of history.

It appears she’s keeping those goddamn Dawn Powell books.

And, at last, in the heaviest boxes at the bottom of the stacks, I find hundreds of LPs in their faded and frayed jackets. Damn, it’s the mother lode! These things are worth hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars now that the warmth and beauty of the crackling imperfections of vinyl, once rejected in favor of unbreakable, unscratchable technology, has been rediscovered, championed by record store geeks, indie pop front men, and contrarians.

Not bad, I think as I shuffle the records, impressed by the range and depth of my musical knowledge and tastes. The collection spans generations and genres, from the most glittering, shimmering pop to chord-crunching R &B, from plaintive folksongs to soul-crushing blues.

And The Greatest Hits of George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

Twelve three-minute masterpieces, each one a classic.

“Golden Ring.”

“Two Story House.”

“Near You.”

Perfect harmonies, pierced by searing aches and throbs, transcending camp and kitsch to soar to that point in heaven where pain and desperation intersect with hope and optimism. Jesus, what chance was there for me and Alice to succeed where the two most glorious voices in Nashville had failed?

“We’re Gonna Hold On.”

And so we did, until it was time to give up the ghost and move on.

I debate for a minute, telling myself that, some day, I’m going to regret not exerting the small amount of energy I’d need to load the car with these boxes, the only evidence left of the union, imperfect as it was, between my wife and the man who loved her as best he could.

And so I compromise, taking Absalom, Absalom! and Wuthering Heights and The Greatest Hits of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, lock the door, and drive away.

Fumbled

I knew from the outset it was a mistake. The timing wasn’t right. I wasn’t ready. I was too inexperienced. Yes. Inexperienced. Not because I’d simply been away from the playing field for years and, with a little practice, could bring my skills back to championship form. The sorry truth was I’d never played the game at all. Alice hadn’t merely rescued me from virginity. The wry little smart-ass with a studied, worldly demeanor eating alone in the Davidson College dining hall had never even been on a date. The closest I’d ever got to the prom was a fifth-aisle seat at Carrie. I had reached the brink of middle age without being issued the playbook on dating. I was totally ignorant of how to call a pass pattern, oblivious to the rushing offense, clueless about defensive positioning, incapable of running a punt return, stone deaf to the two-minute warning. All in all, it was the perfect scenario for a fumble.

I saw him in the shadows, standing near the dance floor. There were silver highlights in his close-cropped hair and he looked to be completely gray at the temples. But when he stepped into brighter light, I saw he had a baby’s face, pink and healthy, without a crease, not a day over twenty-five. I walked away, seeking a beer and a quiet room. And then I looked up and he was standing directly in front of me. He caught my eye and smiled, pretending to be engaged in conversation with the friend next to him. Interested, obviously, expectant, but too shy, too inexperienced to speak first. A big boy. An overgrown cherub. Soft. Warm. The fine blond down on his cheeks was damp from either exertion or nerves. Probably nerves, since I hadn’t seen him shaking his booty on the dance floor.