In Kansas

Blair didn’t answer the first phone call because it came on a bad day – a day when almost everything he owned was still in boxes and he hadn’t yet gotten used to a place where October meant freezing rain and wheat-stubbled fields instead of bright leaves and sunshine. He couldn’t think of anyone who he was ready to talk to, so he let the machine’s anonymous voice pick up.

“Sandburg?” Jim sounded hesitant and waited a beat before speaking again. “I hope this is the right number.”

Blair looked out the window and imagined Jim’s voice traveling through the telephone wires outside, now so thick with sparrows in places that they looked like they were outlined in black ink. He tried to picture exactly where the phone used to be in the loft and the way Jim would stand with his face turned toward the window and the receiver pressed to his ear.

“I really wanted to say good-bye in person,” Jim continued softly, his voice spooling onto the tape. “But hey, you were in a rush. I understand. You know, if you need anything…” His voice trailed off, and Blair felt strange knowing that they were both listening to the same silence. “Well, I guess you know how to reach me. Take care, Sandburg.”

Blair didn’t replay the message right away. He waited until the middle of the first awful night, when the idea of hearing Jim’s voice became less painful than the reality of its absence. He played the message again, and then again until he’d memorized every nuance and knew exactly when Jim would pause for breath or swallow. He only stopped when repetition threatened to make the words meaningless, but he took care to make sure the message wouldn’t be erased.

There were other calls after that first one, hang-ups after a single breath on the other end of the line. They came at increasingly infrequent intervals and always when Blair was away from the phone. For his part he broke down and called the loft only once, when he knew Jim would be at work and the temptation of hearing Jim’s voice on the machine was too strong to resist. He hung up in panic when he heard his own voice, trying not to think about why Jim hadn’t changed the greeting yet. He was disappointed and oddly comforted at the same time.


***


He didn’t answer the next phone call because it came on a better day – a day when he’d begun to think that living in a place that looked like a Dutch landscape painting with the world three-quarters sky at least gave him room to breathe. He’d found that heartbreak didn’t stop him from sorting his laundry or buying paper-towels on sale, and that there were whole days when he forgot to be devastated. He was afraid of losing the ground he’d gained, but felt childish for letting the machine answer the call.

“I looked at the calendar, Sandburg. You’re 30 today, in case you were trying to forget.” Jim dropped the soft, teasing tone from his voice and said sincerely, “I hope it’s good for you, Chief. I hope it’s all good.” Blair started thinking about acting mature and rational and almost picked up the phone at that point, but Jim spoke again, his voice suddenly hoarse.

“Look, I know you need this. I know I promised you time. But God, Blair…”

Just hearing Jim say his name in that broken way tore everything inside him open again, and he froze with his hand on the receiver, paralyzed by memory. If Jim kept talking Blair didn’t hear it, because suddenly he was back in the loft, hearing Jim say his name in just that same ragged tone. He could feel the fists clenched in his shirt abruptly become open palms and rough exploration, while angry words bled into hoarse pleas and drugging kisses. They had collided in a fierce, frantic mating that was over so quickly that Blair would have been embarrassed by his lack of finesse if Jim hadn’t joined him, shaking and spilling sticky heat over Blair’s fingers at the first clumsy touch.

Shouldn’t the last time be as vivid in his mind as the first, Blair wondered, sliding down to sit on the floor beside the phone. The thought brought new grief as he realized that the last time that they were truly together was lost to him. It had been absorbed into a hazy, sensual blur of images; Jim’s soft, wet mouth, his seeking, callused hands, his strong thighs vised around Blair’s hips. Trying to remember a single instance was to remember them all, so Blair had to shove that amorphous memory away before it consumed him.

Instead he did laundry and bought groceries and taught classes. He relaxed by degrees as it became clear that undergraduates were the same everywhere and cared less about the academic reputation of their instructors than the number of discussion sessions they were allowed to miss before being marked down. He didn’t replay Jim’s message because he’d started to realize that there was no point in going back, but he didn’t erase it, either.


***


He wanted to make the final phone call himself because it was a good day – a day when everything he owned was packed away in boxes and he’d been given new letters after his name in a ceremony he didn’t attend. He’d chosen instead to take the diploma from the bored registrar behind the counter, setting his face in an expression of giddy solemnity he felt suited the fluorescent lights and linoleum. The achievement was less important than what it signified; that he could leave this place and his past behind him, although he idly wondered if a sky hemmed in by trees or mountains would make him feel confined at first.

He stood beside the phone that was going to be disconnected the next day, and took a deep breath. Jim hadn’t called in months, and they had probably passed the point where things could be fixed with a phone call. The simple fact was, though, that he owed Jim this, even if Jim didn’t answer. He felt like he practiced the number in his sleep, but before he could finish the sequence he heard the single rap of knuckles on wood.

As if conjured out of Blair’s mind, Jim stood in the hallway. He was no apparition, though; just real and solid, all summer tan and white cotton shirt. Blair felt his fantasies shifting to accommodate the reality before him.

“At least you answer your door,” Jim said, one corner of his mouth pulled up in a wary smile. Blair smiled, too, because even if going back was impossible suddenly going forward presented endless possibilities. Jim’s eyes brushed past him to the empty room and the boxes stacked in the middle of the floor. Sudden doubt clouded blue, and when Jim looked back at him Blair could see some of the confidence draining away. “Going somewhere, Sandburg?”

He was afraid that his throat was too tight to answer.

“Yeah,” he choked out.

“Do you want to tell me where?” It sounded like Jim was having trouble speaking, too. Luckily the space between them was small, and Blair didn’t need to reach far.

“Home,” he said, although as tightly as Jim was holding him it felt like that could be anywhere at all. He smiled against Jim’s throat and pulled him closer. “I was just about to call you.”