#7

He unlocked the door and walked in, stomping off the left over snow that was caked onto the sides of his shoes. Tossing his keys into the bowl he slipped off his shoes and hung his damp coat on the hook behind the door. His loose change tinged and clanged in the coin dish as he opened the refrigerator and grabbed a cold beer.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was one of those nights when every song and street sign and car turn signal and gust of wind made him think of them.

He carried his un-opened beer and grabbed his pipe and the book with the broken spine and sat down in his father’s leather chair near the big window. But the book just lay lifeless on his knee while the pipe sat smoldering between his lips as he sat there in the dark. The quiet and the darkness and the snow made his mind slow. His beer sat opened on the wood table, sweating rings.

She would have asked him to put a coaster under it, but she wasn’t here now. She wasn’t there to tell him to smoke outside or to not waste money on beer or to not stomp off his shoes in the house. But now only his footsteps filled the halls and dirtied the floors. Only his breathe stole life from the house that once was theirs.

That night, a year ago now, he had thought it would be best for them to leave the recital early that night. It had been snowing lightly that evening and he wanted them to get home before it got any worse. He was a member of the parents committee and had volunteered to stay and clean up the gymnasium. So he walked them out to the truck and buckled up Jenny in the back and kissed Elizabeth on the mouth and waved as they drove away.

He was just about to lock up the storage closet at the middle school when his friend Will ran up to him and said that he needed to come quickly.

When Will was driving him to the hospital he wasn’t shaking or talking or a mess. He just sat there and watched the city lights pass by wondered what he should get his brother for Christmas. Then they got to the hospital.

It was not supposed to happen. And I mean that in a very literal way. You see the truck driver had gotten lost and was having to make a u-turn back onto the interstate. That truck was not even supposed to be near there. But it was. And so were they. And that is why it was not supposed to happen. That is why he should still be singing songs to his little girl and holding his brides face in his hands and kissing her mouth.

He got up slowly from his father’s chair and walked down the hall to the bedroom. He undressed slowly and lay all of her pillows along her side of the bed and then climbed in. For a while he just lay there with his eyes wide open, thinking, wishing.