It was a Saturday night. We were meeting friends for dinner at a favorite haunt. The four of us ordered simple fare ”“ pizza for two, a sandwich, grilled tuna. We talked about everything from politics to food, a new computer, a very old dog. Then this unlikely notion: Carol described how she and Jim had been talking the other night, when he asked whether one could get a rebate for lost time. A decade before, Jim had gone through a messy divorce that, by his calculation, stole five years from his life.
So we batted around the idea: If a rebate were available, would it take material form, maybe cash?
Or perhaps it would reclaim time for some later chapter of one’s life.
Would it serve as a form of revenge, relief, extrication, or something else?
And who, or what, would issue the rebate, anyway?
The conversation roamed from one quirky premise to the next. There’s nothing like a good metaphysical musing to spice up a meal.
Meanwhile, as we chewed over these contemplations, our dinner arrived. Part way through my tuna, I noticed something odd ”“ a chicken bone, gray and bare, perched near the fish. The fact of this discovery might have alarmed me had I not already fastened on something worse ”“ namely, how long it took me to spot it. We summoned the waitress who promptly removed the offending plate. A second round of grilled tuna arrived soon after.
That errant chicken bone derailed our discussion, leading us into earthier, more comical terrain. We never did settle the rebate question, nor, perhaps, was it meant to be settled.
Yet when the waitress returned later with our check, she noted that there was no charge for my meal. One of us, at least, was getting a rebate. In its way, our dinner had achieved an unintended symmetry.
Of course, no amount of free meals, mine or Jim’s, could compensate a man for five rancid years of life. Still they can have a buoying effect. They’re momentary offsets, small bits of justice that sometimes turn up.
— Joan Silverman is a writer in Kennebunk. This article originally appeared in Boston’s MetroWest Daily News.
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