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  • Listening for the Silences
  • Thomas Bontly (bio)

An overnight snow had covered the expressway with a thin film of slush. Jack Kelsey drove slowly, knowing they had time to spare, and they reached the airport without incident. Remote parking, the shuttle, even the security check, went smoothly, and they were seated outside their gate a full ninety minutes before departure. Carolyn had packed breakfast the night before—orange sections, yogurt, and bran muffins—and Kelsey got two cups of coffee from a nearby kiosk to accompany this sensible alternative to greasy, overpriced airport food.

He knew that, if there was a sensible way to do something, his wife would sniff it out. She had a nose for the sensible, just as some people—himself, for instance—had a nose for the fanciful, the mysterious, the improbably dramatic. He saw stories where she saw only facts, depths where she saw surfaces, darkness where she saw light. Yet they had lived happily together for forty-three years, relying by now on their differing perspectives as if on a pair of moral bifocals, Kelsey thought, brushing crumbs off his sweater.

He didn't know how he'd ever get by without his levelheaded wife, though in recent years she'd given him plenty of practice. A dedicated birder, Carolyn was often in the field and sometimes went on trips lasting a week or more. Though Kelsey stayed home by choice, preferring his morning regimen at the pc to predawn stakeouts in misty meadows, he was always on the lookout for vacations, like this one, that would supplement her all-absorbing interest with activities more to his taste.

He unzipped the side pocket of his carry-on and extracted a brochure for the Golden Age seminar they were on their way to attend. When he first retired from teaching, he had been reluctant to sign up for anything so unabashedly geriatric as the Golden Age program, but Carolyn had thought it looked like a sensible way for people their age to travel, to learn new things, and to put their newfound leisure to good use. And so it had.

"Odd to think of Mozart in the desert," he'd said to his wife [End Page 542] when he first came upon this offering in the Golden Age catalogue. "What does Amadeus have to do with sagebrush and saguaro?"

"Maybe it's not so odd," Carolyn replied. "Musicians need vacations, too, and a break from winter. Besides it's something else to attract the tourists."

"Something besides rodeos and Indian blankets?" Kelsey had only vague memories of the Southwest from a youthful trek across country. Hot and dry was what he remembered—a sun-scorched landscape, enlivened only by its frequent mirages.

"The area around Palisades Park is supposed to be quite lovely," Carolyn said, "and there's some excellent birding along the Mogollon Rim. We might like it, Jack. We can listen to Mozart in the evenings and stalk the pinyon jay in the mornings."

"Sounds like fun," Kelsey said. "So long as we can sit by the pool, drink Margaritas, and make love in the afternoons."

"You got it," Carolyn said, and they signed up for the seminar.

Now, waiting for their flight, Kelsey finally took the time to read a full description of the Palisades Mozart Festival, to which this Golden Age seminar had attached itself like a barnacle on a whale's fluke. "You know, this really is an ambitious program," he observed. "Lectures every morning, recitals in the afternoon, concerts in the evening—I don't see how we'll find much time for hiking and birding, much less making love."

Carolyn put down her magazine. "We don't have to attend everything, Jack. I've already marked the events I'm most interested in. Why don't you do the same, and then we'll see how much free time we have left? As for making love"—she arched one of her expressive eyebrows—"I'm sure you'll find a few moments for that."

A few moments was about all it took these days, Kelsey thought ruefully, but he accepted his wife's solution and passed the time...

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