“You don’t have to do anything. It’s done,” he said.
“What’s done? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
It made her want to laugh, the humanity and honesty of him saying I don’t know. Tallie prayed to herself: Jesus, You see us. You know us. Let this man know. Let him find a reason to stay. Surround both of us. Let me be able to do this. Abide with us.
She held her hand out for him. Shaking, wet, cold. He looked at her, the river. The river, her. The backpack was at her feet. He was looking at the river, and he was looking at the river. He was looking at the river when he took her hand.
He smelled like the rain. There was a hood on his jacket that he never pulled up. Pointless if he was planning on dying soon. What’s a wet head to a dead person? He picked up his backpack and followed her to the car. Sat and closed the passenger door.
“The seat is wet. Sorry,” Tallie said, forgetting he was already wet. So was she. She closed her door, reached into the backseat. Grabbed the small towel in her gym bag and patted her face. She tried to hand it to him, but he refused. “So if you were looking for a sign not to take your life, the sign is me. Stopping. Taking you for a coffee instead.”
“I wasn’t looking for a sign.”
“Why not?”
Tallie turned off her hazard lights and waited until it was clear. Pulled into traffic. This was potentially a terrible idea, but it was happening. It was scary and thrilling, and her heart zapped like her body couldn’t tell the difference between panic and excitement.
“I didn’t want a sign,” he said.
“But you got one,” she said, smiling over at him. Maybe her first true smile of the day. She was busy with appointments in the morning, smiled perfunctorily, ate a salad and a can of tuna in her office alone. She’d had appointments all afternoon, too, and before leaving work had logged in to Joel’s social media account because Joel had never changed the password, and she clicked around on his new wife’s profile like she always did. Looked at old photos of her pregnant belly and photos from the baby shower she hadn’t seen before. She could make out Joel in the background of one of them, grilling. There was still a brand-new gas grill on Tallie’s deck that Joel had bought and never used.
Joel’s baby was almost two months old now, and in one of the new pictures with her, he had his hair pulled into a ponytail. A fucking ponytail. Tallie had closed her laptop and cried into her hands before leaving for the day. She’d run four miles at the gym across the river, disappointed in herself for not pushing for her usual six. And on her way home she saw Bridge—what she’d begun calling him in her mind since Bridge Guy wouldn’t tell her his name.
He shrugged; apparently he didn’t believe in signs, although clearly she had just saved his life. She’d never literally saved a life before; she felt warm all over thinking about it. She looked at him, considered his profile. He was probably handsome and could’ve been anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five.
“Do you like coffee?” she asked.
She used a lot of different techniques in her therapy sessions—holistic, behavior modification, Gestalt, cognitive—but also believed in the power of simplicity: listening, a warm drink. Her clients opened up more when they were holding a steamy mug. She sometimes felt guilty billing them when all she’d done was boil water. The coffee shop she was taking him to was her favorite, a stop she made almost every day. A safe place. He couldn’t murder her there; she knew the baristas.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with enough breathtaking sadness to stop clocks.
“It matters. You matter. Your life matters. It does,” she said and waited for a response. When she didn’t get one, she continued, “Um…we’re almost there. The coffee shop is just up the road. You may know that. Are you from around here? I’m kind of winging this, but I’m trusting God right now.”
“What if there’s no God?” he asked, looking out his window, the raindrops slicking down in a beaded curtain.
Then I don’t know. That’s why I have to believe there is, she thought.
“Your name is Tallie?” he asked after several moments of silence.
“Tallie. Tallie Clark. Short for Tallulah. It means running water…jumping water. But everyone calls me Tallie except my brother and his family. They call me Lulah.” She could see the coffee shop ahead on the corner, the viridescent sign wrapped in neon, lit up and waiting for them.