Among the Ten Thousand Things Read Online Free PDF Page A

out on the train. The hardest part of a marriage—of living with anyone—was those first ten minutes after walking through the door. Questions about his work, his lunch, his trip home, which in his mind had barely ended, and answers to questions he’d not asked, so many words flooding him, and there was the news to discuss, not just U.S. but world news, and then not just that but local news, gossip, about professors Deb knew at school, and not even professors but administrators, sometimes. Administrators, quite frequently.
    The impending barrage was on his mind as he flipped through his keys under the building’s hunter-green canopy. Past midnight, Angel had gone home, leaving the lobby locked up behind him. Late nights like these Jack wasted a lot of time under the light of the awning, looking for the right key. He had about a dozen, and they all looked the same. He had the lobby key, the mail key (easy because it was small), the two for upstairs, the building key to the studio, the studio mailbox key (again, small), the ones to the studio’s broken locks, and another series for the old house in Rhode Island where they hadn’t been in years. Every night he thought to take them off the ring, and upstairs every night he forgot.
    In the elevator he checked his BlackBerry and lost service, per usual, somewhere between the fourth and seventh floors. Deb would want to know why he hadn’t answered the phone earlier. She’d been slow to believe him about things since Christmas, even though, since Christmas, he’d really done nothing wrong.
    The living room lights were on when he let himself in, but she wasn’t on the sofa watching cable news or in the grandma chair, reading and waiting up for him. He listened for her in the kitchen: not there either.
    Plates of pasta were still out on the table. Sometimes Deb made noodles too
al dente
. Jack recognized his daughter’s handiwork, the spaghetti a ball of yarn on the end of her fork. Like a Rosenquist close up. There was something a bit eerie about everything left uneaten, as though they’d had to go somewhere in a hurry. Eerie and irritating, because of the condensation from the soda bottle that was leaving spots on the Biedermeier. Jack licked his thumb and rubbed at them.
    Out the window, the Empire State Building was blue-blue-blue. The three tiers of light, in ascending order, had been green-green-green for Saint Patrick’s Day, and red-pink-white for Valentine’s before that. He didn’t know what blue-blue-blue was supposed to mean. When was Rosh Hashanah?
    He toed off his shoes and pincered a few strands of pasta, dangled them into his mouth. Cold, but not so hard.
    —
    The hinges groaned when he put his palm to the bedroom door. The light was on here too, the little Tiffany lamp with amber fireflies that splashed the books half in yellow glow. Deb was on the bed, not in it, on top of the bedspread, head bent to just miss the pillow and wearing all her clothes.
    A box sat gaping at him from the edge of the bed. Not much could be read off the flap, the writing sideways and half in shadow, but Jack recognized the hand from the notes she used to take, pages left to collect footprints all around the studio. He knew that annoyingly small print, child’s print, more labored than Kay’s or even Simon’s, whose penmanship, as a boy’s, had been naturally impeded.
    Deb was sitting up now. Her dark hair hung thick over either shoulder, like doll’s hair, all of a piece and with that familiar crease in it, testimony to the one bun she’d fastened since childhood. Halolike, especially with the firefly eyes reflected, lighting a crown around her head.
    “What’s going on?” He willed himself to ignore the box, as if somehow to keep her from noticing it.
    Deb rubbed small circles into her temples and tried looking at him. Jack was halfway between the door and the bed, standing with both arms at his sides and open to her. She was thinking that he’d put on a couple of