Of Course, Of Course

“Of course he’s going to marry her,” she said. 

Arnold was sitting in the middle of the sofa, an ancient thing that would, if he did not keep his back straight, swallow him whole. 

“I mean, he has to. At this point he doesn’t have a choice.” She pressed the telephone into her hair and shifted her weight to her one good hip. “I don’t know what he was thinking.” She said. “I don’t know. Well, I think we both know what he was thinking. I know. I know.” She turned from the window to Arnold. 

He straightened his back. His legs were long, and because his knees were well above his hips, he was effectively pushing himself deeper into the crevice of the sofa. 

“Oh, of course,” she said, removing her hand from her hip so she could gesture for emphasis.

Arnold kept his hands folded, strained to keep himself afloat, and dodged the look she gave him as she turned around to leave the living room. 

“Of course, of course,” her voice bounced off the wall of the further room. “Ask? I don’t know. Don’t you think it’s, I don’t know, assumed?”

The light streamed through the window. The curtains were pulled back.  And the neighbors across the street were outside and seemed to mime one another. One would bend over and inspect a patch of grass, then another would do the same, except he would run his fingers over the lawn. Both of them would then stand, stretch their back, and look down the road to the third neighbor, who was kneeling, palms on the grass. 

“Oh,” her voice bounced and ricocheted around the room. 

Arnold heaved himself from the couch. The vinyl kept his impression. 

He was a tall man. His hands hung limply at his sides and reached almost the center of his thighs. His back had a slight slump, a trait more practical than becoming. He squinted into the pane of late afternoon, turning only when the ache turned to blindness. 

She turned the corner, the telephone in the other hand but against the same ear. 

“That was your aunt,” she said. 

Arnold had not so much guessed this as much as he had deduced it. Anytime there was a problem in the family — and his mother had a penchant for finding problems — she would talk to Aunt Margot, his father’s sister. 

“Since you’ve gotten yourself into this mess,” his mother said. 

Arnold felt heavy. He wanted to lie on the floor and go to sleep. 

“Margot and I think it would be best if you asked the girl.” 

His knees ached and every breath was a choice that had to be made, like a vote presented to a filibustered assembly. 

“Arnold,” she said. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you. Do you understand what you’ve done?” 

Arnold’s eyes dropped. He, since he’d found out, had done nothing but think about it. And thinking about it had made him tired. 

“Arnold, really. You got yourself into this, and you have to get yourself out of it. It is what it is, you know that. Now fix it.” 

The phrases rattled round his head like a bullet. He felt a little pang somewhere in his stomach, a regret that such blunt phrases only stoked. 

“So Margot and I think you should do it.” She was looking the window, but not through it.