All the Major Constellations Read Online Free PDF

born.”
    â€œNothing?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œAnd while we’re here?”
    â€œIf you need God or Buddha or whatever to help you through life, that’s . . . fine, I guess.”
    â€œAs long as you’re not causing wars.”
    â€œYeah, exactly.”
    â€œIt sounds so simple, talking about it in your car,” Marcia said with a nervous laugh. “You know, it’s weird that they’re even here.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThe ‘All Answers’ church. I think they’re pretty conservative.
Here
, in liberal Vermont?”
    â€œPlease. That kind of stuff is all over the place. Vermont’s not special. There’s poverty and drugs and all kinds of shit. We’re just like every place else.”
    â€œMaybe,” she said.
    â€œNeed plus fear plus ignorance equals religion.”
    â€œThat’s pretty harsh, Drew,” she said as she looked out the window.
    Drew.
She had invoked the childhood nickname she’d given him years ago. She rarely used it now, and when she did it usually meant, as when she swore in German, that her emotions were running high. He mentally noted all this and bit back a sarcastic retort. Besides, he wasn’t even sure he felt that way about religion; it just sounded cool. Every once in a while he was meaner than he’d intended to be, like an instinct he couldn’t control. Ithappened with his mom sometimes, and now it had happened with Marcia, who was probably talking about religion in the first place because of her father, the eminent surgeon who loomed large in her imagination but dim in her memory. He tried to think of something comforting to say, but Marcia was prickly about her family’s past. He glanced at the clock and pressed the gas pedal harder. The movie started in five minutes. Sara was a fast driver and would not have taken his ridiculous “shortcut
.
” She could be there already.
    But she wasn’t. They left Sara’s ticket at the window and entered the already darkened theater. It smelled like nutritional yeast and hot oil. They sat down just as the movie began.
    As the images flickered before him, Andrew realized that there was no dialogue at all. Maybe Sara had found this out and decided not to come. He leaned back. She’d probably be outside when the film ended. He put his arm around the back of Marcia’s chair and glanced at her. She looked anxious.
    â€œYou okay?” he whispered.
    She nodded, not taking her eyes away from the screen. She flinched at what she saw.

5
    â€œI WONDER WHERE SHE IS?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean—I—I don’t want to be here,” Marcia said. Her voice cracked and gave way to sobs.
    Not for the first time that night, he pressed his fingertips to the corners of his eyes and tried to push the tears back.
    They had sunk to the floor with their backs against the wall of room seven in the intensive care unit. They had not stopped holding hands for two hours. Now their fingers lay loosely intertwined, their palms sweaty with fear and with the constant hopeless pressing of skin on skin. Across from them lay Sara. Motionless, supine, comatose, beautiful Sara.
    â€œThere are so many tubes,” said Andrew, who was now gasping with the effort not to cry.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œSo many things coming out of her.”
    â€œI know, I
know.
”
    They’d had this conversation many times that night. A kind nurse had explained to them what all the tubes were for.
This one helps her breathe, this one sucks out the secretions that congeal in her throat, this one drains her urine, this one reads the blood pressure in her heart, this one feeds her, these ones deliver medication to her bloodstream.
    â€œOh. Oh. Oh,” they’d said in response.
    They were permitted to stay in the room as long as they promised to be quiet and not touch
anything
. Sara’s mother was