The Feeling of Breathlessness
JACK A. URQUHART

It was right after Tommy left him for another man that Logan Miller began seriously reconsidering the possibilities of familial closeness. Though when he thought about it, he could see that the process had actually begun weeks earlier.

"Maybe you shouldn't pass on that teaching position in New Mexico so quickly," Tommy had said to him at Thanksgiving. "Come September you'll need the money. And besides, it could be good for you to live closer to your kids again. Give you an opportunity to make things right there."

"But where would that leave us?" Logan had asked.

"Hey. I'm a shrink--no need to tell me life's about adjustments. Not always smooth sailing."

In retrospect, Logan could see that the good Doctor had simply been preparing him.

Just before Christmas he lowered the boom. "I'm sorry. I know the timing's terrible--the holidays and everything. But the man's got me breathless." He'd said it leaning towards Logan across the dining room table, his eyes so earnest, the catch in his voice altogether convincing. "I'll move out next week. Don't worry about the finances. I'll take care of that. You can take your time about settling things with the house." And then reaching out to grasp Logan's clasped hands, "None of this changes the root of my feelings about you. We're still family."

For weeks afterwards, after Tommy told him about his new lover (a medical technician, and only thirty-eight years old), Logan thought about his ex-wife in Taos, his daughter and son in Albuquerque. At night, alone in the cluttered house he and Tommy had shared, he wondered whether or not the last five years had made any difference in his family's perceptions, if they would be receptive to him if he tried to explain what it had been like to live simultaneously in parallel universes, the atmosphere in each so insubstantial that, at last, he'd had to say: "I can't breathe."

On an afternoon in mid January while he was shopping at the hardware store, Logan suddenly remembered the last conversation he'd had with his wife. For five minutes he stood staring vacantly at rolls of duct tape thinking about Andrea and how she'd sounded over the long-distance line. Finally, the clerk had come up to him and asked if he needed help.

"No, I don't." The words had positively crackled across the distance between them. "I don't hate you," that's what she'd said. "I'm just glad our parents never lived to see us break the commitment we made twenty-three years ago; the one that brought our children into the world and that--for a very long time--made me feel like I'd discovered a place where there was fresh air. Can you understand that?"

Though the conversation was four years old, Logan still remembered whole portions of it by heart, still remembered how draining it had been; how he'd been unable to elaborate on his feelings.

"Yes. I do." It was the only reply he'd been able to manage.

For a long, empty interval, the baffled store clerk simply stood there in his little red apron, waiting for Logan to continue, waiting for him to explain what he wanted to purchase.

No, there was no way he could patch things up with Andrea. Not after everything that had happened--all the years he'd spent with Tommy. And so, Logan hadn't even tried to get in touch with her in any sort of special way. Just his customary Christmas card accompanied by a brief catch-up note (an effort that required several carefully worded drafts): there were the usual polite inquiries about her health, how the kids had sounded the last time he'd spoken with them, his customary complaints about Denver's air pollution. Nothing about the good Doctor. That seemed too much of a risk, too much of a familiarity--especially now that their relationship had evolved into civilized "Hallmark" exchanges.

Instead, he'd stuck to the conventional format, including a few words about a piece he'd written to be published in a magazine he knew she sometimes read. That, of course, had provided a means of segueing into a line or two about the teaching position he was considering. It was as much as he could do. No way, finally, he could open any other door between himself and his ex-wife.

Instead of turning to Andrea, he decided to try with the kids. After all, he theorized, the five years had given them time to grow up, time enough to catch on to the real world, a world where marriages sometimes failed. Where women and men sometimes found themselves expiring in the roles prescribed for them.

There seemed reason to hope that Travis might be open. If for no other reason, there was the fact that during his seven-year university stint he'd managed to change majors and schools three times.

"I just don't feel like committing to places and people that don't do it for me," Logan remembered his son saying the first time, right after his freshman year at the University of Arizona. "I can't believe you would want that for me." That had been just two years before the divorce and, of course, Travis had been right.

On a Sunday afternoon in early February, after taking several weeks to summon his courage, Logan called Travis in Albuquerque.

"Just a sec. He's . . . sleeping," the woman who answered the phone said, giggling. "I'll see if he can come to the phone." No introductions, just the sound of muffled whispers, rustling bed linens, and then, after a considerable interval, his son's voice, thick, careless. "Hey, dad. Hold on a minute, will you," followed by another delay. And then, "What can I do for you?"

Logan tried to put his case as plainly as possible, omitting the maudlin details ("Hardly the end of the world, as they say. Life is nothing but change . . ."), explaining his current situation between anecdotes about the weather in Colorado ("You know how it is: spring snow on Monday . . . just a memory come Friday"); keeping a tight control on his voice, everything low key until the very end--until the big play: "I'm driving down for my final interview in three weeks. I thought you and Jessie and I could get together. We haven't talked face-to-face in a while." He'd hurried the words out to keep from panting. "How's your schedule?"

The pause that followed, Logan decided afterwards, should've cued him to what was coming. Altogether too brief for any real consideration. "Sorry, Dad. The timing's no good for me, what with the market so volatile. Besides, I think Jess'll be in Florida for spring break." He'd used his professional voice, the flat, emotionless monotone Logan imagined stock brokers had to cultivate. "Better to wait a month or two," Travis said. "Things are a bit hectic and unsettled just now. By the way, thanks for the Christmas check. I've added it to this great little mutual fund I discovered. I could send you some literature if you're interested."

It took days for the sting of the rebuff to fade, for Logan to find the strength to get out of the house again; so it was particularly unfortunate when a week later, he ran into Tommy at the hardware store, Tommy and his med. tech.

"I'm looking for a new garage door opener," Logan said, unable to think of anything else to break the uneasy silence which followed their introductions. "The old one's worn out. Sometimes it won't open. Just one of several little things that need to be fixed before I list the house . . . " and then, embarrassed, he let the sentence trail off. Logan was almost grateful when the med. tech.--Jerry was his name--spoke up, ready to help fill the void; ready to suggest a reliable brand ("The Black and Decker costs a bit more, but you can depend on it not to 'fritz' out after a few short years.") Then, warming to the task, "Jerry" went on to suggest the possibility of a foursome for Mah-Jongg ("You could bring a friend.").

The idea of it, all of them sitting around the table, their little tiles spread out in front of them--just one big, happy family--made Logan weary. "We'll see," he said. "I'm still considering positions just now, and the process is wearing me out."

Naturally, they were all discreet about the date, keeping it tentative, in the indefinite future.

In late March, after returning from what had proven a remarkably positive interview in New Mexico ("Your publication and teaching credits are far and away the most impressive of the applicants we've considered. Why not think over our offer and let us know by the middle of the month"), Logan decided on two courses of action that seemed appropriate. He decided to enter therapy, and he decided to begin sorting, simplifying, re-ordering his life on the home front. It was the medicine that would help heal him: cleaning and organizing his mind, his study, sorting through his closets, culling out all the old, tattered anxieties, crating the Doctor's books, opening up the sealed volumes of his past. Taking the initiative. And if he had to pay, so be it. Bring them on, he decided in a burst of energy and optimism--therapists and cleaning ladies alike. I can afford it.

Towards the end of the month, he held a yard sale to get rid of some of the clutter and was swamped by bargain hunters. They came in droves: first, all the familiar, nameless faces from his neighborhood, their cursory smiles fading into glittering greed before the banquet spread on his lawn. Only the retired alcoholic from next door had managed any sort of conversation. "Guess I'll miss our fence-side chats," he'd blurted before swooping down on the garden tools. Then came the complete strangers: serious, well-groomed women and men who lived behind polarized sun glasses, who shuffled in their Teva sandles around the edges of the Persian carpets he'd laid out on the driveway, inspecting his antique library tables with meticulous, impersonal care, conferring in quiet whispers. Young couples so self-contained that they seemed unaware of his presence--that is, until they were ready to talk price. Only then did he seem to emerge from the background for them.

"This seems a bit much."

"I'm not sure about the long-term value," they said, in tones that seemed to suggest expertise.

"I think $____ would be fair, given the wear and tear."

All day long, a steady flow of them--giving him their designer checks, scrawling their signatures across artistic renderings of Longs Peak, the ski runs at Vail. Young professional marrieds eager to load up his life and take it away in the back of their Volvo station wagons.

For days afterwards, he'd padded around the emptying house struggling to keep his new found optimism from lagging, trying to forget the way he'd felt in their midst. Worrying that maybe he'd miscalculated--that maybe there was little chance his own children would ever be able to relate to him on any more meaningful level.

"It could be that you won't be able to reach them," the therapist said near the end of their first session. "And where would that leave you?"

"Fagged-out, I guess," Logan answered, forcing a smile at his choice of words. "Like being left alone on a high altitude pass with no clue how to negotiate it," he said, knowing full well that he was actually summarizing the effect of the last five years. "I almost hyper-ventilate when I think about that possibility."

Logan stopped himself when he noticed the doctor scribbling down every word. "So, then," his therapist said, pausing to look up. "How much of a risk are you willing to take? What's it worth to you anyway?"

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