Say Goodbye for Now

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  She looked to her right to see Justin and Pete moving down the platform with them, waving through the windows. She waved back.

  They found two seats together in the next car, and sat, she in the window seat, Calvin on the aisle. Still holding hands. She blew the boys a kiss as the train began to move.

  “Did we raise them right or did we raise them right?” she asked Calvin quietly.

  He laughed lightly.

  “Is that funny?”

  “Not exactly. I agree. I just liked the way you said it.”

  “I shouldn’t take credit for Pete, though. He was a great kid the first day he turned up on my welcome mat.”

  “You helped him stay that way, though.”

  “Am I worrying too much?”

  “I have no idea, Lucy. I don’t even know how much I should worry. I would never try to draw that line for somebody else. But they’re just as suited to make their way in the world as anybody else’s boys. I think they’ll be okay.”

  They sat in the dining car, finishing up their dinner with coffee and watching the sun set behind a rolling and changing horizon.

  Now and then she stared at the ring on her finger.

  “I’d have bought you a fancier one if I could have,” he said.

  “It’s perfect. Don’t even say that again.” She placed the left hand with the ring lightly on top of his hand, and continued to stare at it. “What I can’t figure out is how you even had time for ring shopping. You got here so fast after the news.”

  “Oh, I bought that ring months before the Supreme Court decision. I would have asked anyway at some point.”

  They sipped in silence for a moment. The buildings of a small city rose to block her view of the setting sun. But what city, she didn’t know.

  “I’ve been thinking about everything you told me when you walked through the door,” she said. “There’s only one part I take exception to. I know there’s a lot of trial by fire that two people have to go through. But I think the years we were forced apart showed us a lot about how we’ll do under pressure, and so I just don’t know what we would be waiting for. I think we should get married more or less when we get off the train.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said.

  “That was easy.”

  “The engagement idea was more for you. I wondered if maybe a woman needs more time to familiarize herself with the physical presence of a man.”

  “Which is why you slept on the couch last night.”

  “Yes.”

  “That won’t be a problem for me.”

  They enjoyed their coffee in a satisfied silence for a time.

  “The boys will feel bad they missed the wedding,” she said. “That’s the only thing.”

  “How about this: We have a small civil ceremony at the courthouse when we get to Pennsylvania. Then when we decide to try going back to Texas we’ll have a reception or renew our vows, and they can be there. They’ll understand.”

  “I think that works.”

  She looked up to see an older woman, dining alone, staring at them. Not looking or glancing. Rudely staring. She had white hair all done up in beauty-parlor style, and a high collar that made her whole being appear starched. Dr. Lucy stared back, and the woman cut her eyes away. Calvin glanced over his shoulder to see what the trouble might be. But there was nothing left to see.

  “Maybe I’ll go back to practicing medicine,” she said.

  “If that’s something you’d enjoy, I’m all for it.”

  She looked up at the woman again. She was, again, staring.

  “Would you excuse me, please?” she asked Calvin.

  She marched over to where the woman was sitting and flopped into the seat on the other side of her table. Then she rested her chin on the heels of both hands and stared directly into the woman’s face.

  “What on earth are you doing?” the woman asked. She had the voice Dr. Lucy might have expected. High. Tight. Artificial.

  “I’m doing exactly what you were doing, so you tell me.”

  The older woman rose, huffed audibly, and flounced out of the dining car, leaving the rest of her dinner uneaten.

  Dr. Lucy walked back to her own table and sat down across from Calvin again.

  “It might pay not to get too upset every time,” he said. “If you can help it. You know. Save your energy.”

  “Upset? Who’s upset? That was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

  The rocking of the train car soothed her, but did not put her to sleep. She sat staring out the window into darkness, listening to the rhythmic clack of wheels on rails. She didn’t know if Calvin was asleep or not, but his eyes were closed, one arm hooked through hers.

  A strange feeling sat, twisting slightly, in her stomach.

  It took her a few minutes to realize she was afraid.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling of the train hurtling into darkness, speeding her to a place entirely unknown and impossible even to see. Everything in life would be new. Everything familiar lay behind her. And still she was utterly committed to go there. Wherever “there” was.

  She nursed the feeling for two minutes, or twenty. It was hard to tell.

  Then Calvin spoke quietly.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

  “I was just thinking how scary it is to leave everything behind and head out for a completely new life and not know anything about how it’s going to be. I wasn’t really thinking about it so much as feeling it. I was just sitting here feeling it.”

  He cleared his throat lightly. Moved his hand down to enclose hers.

  “How much of a problem does it seem to be?”

  “Oh, it’s not a problem,” she said. “Not at all. I’ve been hiding from the world for too long as it is. Not everything that scares me is a problem.”

  He squeezed her hand and smiled. And, in time, let his eyes drift closed again.

  She stayed awake, feeling herself hurled into the unknown. And breathing deeply. And allowing it.

  BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS FOR SAY GOODBYE FOR NOW BY CATHERINE RYAN HYDE

  By choice, Dr. Lucy closed her medical practice and moved to an isolated Texas ranch far away from people and places that remind her of the past she left behind. How does her isolation from society affect her interaction with the other characters? How do her relationships with the other characters change the person she becomes?

  Dr. Lucy spends her days rescuing and caring for abandoned and injured animals and doctoring criminals on the run to help pay for her sanctuary. Do the ends in this situation justify the means? Is breaking the law ever a sanctified act?

  Pete finds an injured wolf-dog at the side of the road. Despite the apparent danger and hardships involved, he manages to get the dog to Dr. Lucy for care. What does this say about Pete’s character? How would you have handled this situation at his age? What might you have done differently?

  After Pete and Justin become friends, the whole town, including Pete’s father, turns violently against the interracial friendship. But the boys continue despite the threats. Do you agree with the choice they made? Would the violence against Justin have happened regardless of the decision they made?

  While Justin is recovering, Calvin spends the weekend at Dr. Lucy’s, and to both of their surprise, despite the dangerous circumstances, they form an easy and comfortable connection. Why do you think these two people from such diverse backgrounds were drawn to each other? How does the topic of marriage drive the plot of the story?

  After his son is beaten, Calvin is framed for a fight and thrown in jail by the local police. How much do you think racism has changed since the 1960s in this country? Do you think the criminal justice system truly sees no color, or is race still a defining factor?

  Pete forms a strong bond with the wolf-dog. After Prince recovers, Pete must make the decision whether or not to release him back to the wild. Dr. Lucy and Calvin form a strong bond and must decide whether to stay together or let go of the relationship in h
opes that it can continue at a later date. How does love play a part in letting go in both relationships?

  At the end of the book, Calvin and Dr. Lucy are reunited after the Supreme Court ruling regarding the Loving v. Virginia case. Why do you think the author based the story around a true court case? How did it impact your reading of the story?

  After Prince returns in his old age, Pete thinks, “It felt like a confidence in things. The normally empty chest space seemed to surge with the sudden notion that losses can be restored—at least some of the time. That things can turn out, long after you had accepted that they never would.” What emotion is Pete trying to describe here? How does that emotion become an underlying theme for the main relationships in the book?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2014 Hunter Kilpatrick

  Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of thirty published and forthcoming books. Her bestselling 1999 novel Pay It Forward, adapted into a major Warner Bros. motion picture starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, made the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults list and was translated into more than two dozen languages for distribution in more than thirty countries. Her novels Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA’s Rainbow List; Jumpstart the World was also a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards and won Rainbow Awards in two categories. More than fifty of her short stories have been published in many journals, including the Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and the Sun, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts and the bestselling anthology Dog Is My Co-Pilot. Her short fiction received honorable mention in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, a second-place win for the Tobias Wolff Award, and nominations for Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have also been cited in Best American Short Stories.

  Ryan Hyde is the founder and former president of the Pay It Forward Foundation. As a professional public speaker, she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University, met with AmeriCorps members at the White House, and shared a dais with Bill Clinton.