The Last Good Night by Emily Listfield

wasn’t even sure it was you at first, but there was something in the eyes. I woke up in the middle of the night seeing them in front of me. I got up and went back to the kitchen where I left the magazine.” He paused to take a sip of his drink as he remembered. “I was terrified of turning on the lights and looking at the picture again. I was terrified I was wrong.” He looked up. “But I got a Magic Marker and darkened your hair, then I changed the shape of your face with a pencil. I pulled out an old photo of you and there was no question. Marta, you had to know I’d find you once you had your face in the magazines and on TV. Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize you just because you have a different name and a new nose?”
    â€œI don’t know. So much time has gone by. Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself.”
    He looked directly at me. “Maybe you wanted me to find you.”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œHave you been here in New York this whole time?” Jack asked.
    â€œNo. I think I’ve lived in half the cities on the East Coast, and some in the middle. At least it felt that way. I didn’t make it back to New York until three years ago.”
    â€œAnd now you’re a big success.”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œYou don’t sound sure.”
    â€œI don’t know. Sometimes it feels like it doesn’t have anything to do with me.” I stopped abruptly. “Where do you live?”
    He laughed, and it was not entirely pleasant, not entirely benign. “Flagerty.”
    I looked at him curiously. “You never left? Even afterwards, later?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’m surprised.”
    â€œAre you?”
    I didn’t reply.
    â€œMaybe I thought you’d come back,” he said. “Maybe I was waiting for that all this time. Waiting for you.”
    I flinched. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”
    He swirled the ice about his drink. “Are you?”
    â€œYes,” I answered quietly.
    Our eyes locked. There was a faint relief map of lines about his, and I nearly reached to trace it with my fingertips.
    â€œI guess waiting became something of a habit,” he said. “I almost stopped noticing it. And then suddenly, when I saw your picture and I realized you were actually within reach, the waiting stopped.”
    The waiter returned with my wine and took our lunch order, stealing lingering glances at me as he wrote in his little white pad.
    â€œTell me about your life,” I said when he had gone. “What is it like?”
    He leaned back. “How can anyone ever really say what their life is like?”
    â€œAre you married?”
    â€œI was. I’m separated now.”
    I was surprised at the pang I felt. “Who did you marry?”
    â€œCarol Hendricks. Maybe you remember her? She was two years behind us in high school.”
    I shook my head no.
    â€œShe certainly remembers you.”
    â€œDo you have children?”
    â€œI feel like I’m being interviewed.”
    I smiled. “Sorry. Professional hazard.”
    â€œNo, there were no children. Carol wanted one desperately, but it never happened. We spent three years and almost all of our savings seeing every fertility expert in the state. Even after they told Carol she couldn’t conceive, she kept on trying every shady cure she could find. Everything from Chinese herbs to lighting candles. She was obsessed with it.” He took a sip of his drink and carefully put the glass down. “She thought I left because she couldn’t have a baby, but that was never really it.”
    â€œWhat was it?”
    His leg skimmed mine under the table. “The truth was, I was in love with someone else,” he said. He stared at me unabashedly, with none of the feints and sidesteps of politesse. It was one of the things I had once loved about him, though it unnerved me now. I looked away.
    â€œYou have a baby,