Elizabeth and After Read Online Free PDF

landscape flooded into him and every moon-silhouetted tree, every silvery rock formation, every stretch of water glittering black with nightlight calmed and soothed him. He was looking at the moon, at the way it transformed the clouds into sculpted sand dunes that arched across the sky. Then there was a series of heavy thumps beneath the truck. In the red glare of his tail lights a raccoon lay motionless on the shoulder, its body torn open from neck to tail. As he pulled over and turned off the engine he was engulfed by a tidal wave of insect noise: cheeps, clicks, hums, whirrs, all supported by the slow rhythmic croaking of frogs. Carl got down on his knees and crawled under the truck. He lit a match—there was a long smear of blood along the exhaust, a patch of bloody fur on the muffler. When the match burned out Carl lay still for a moment.
    In the distance he heard a car approaching. As it crested the hill its horn began to blare. For a moment the light caught his eyes and he thought the car was going to smash into theback of his truck. Its horn was still going when it passed. Carl could feel the side wind through his hair and slapping against the back of his neck.
    “She asked for you,” Chrissy had said. “She asks for you almost every day.”
    In the glove compartment was a stack of postcards from Lizzie held together by an elastic. He’d sent them to her at Christmas, stamped and addressed. For almost seven months they’d been floating back. “Love, xox, love, Lizzie.” “Love from your daughter.” “Goodbye for now.”
    The road and surrounding bush began to emerge in the dawn. Mist covered the swamps and lay in the hollows of the fields, and the pure light of morning played hide-and-seek with the hills and tall maples. When he came to the farm he stopped. The house, once fronted by a big garden that was supposed to feed them all winter, had been put into grass, spotted with baby poplars, pines and birdhouses. The house had been clad in metal siding and the Richardson Real Estate sign swung from a black post planted near the road.
    Carl got out of his truck and stretched. He looked at the house where he’d been born and had lived until he and Chrissy got married and moved into their first place, the apartment above the West Gull barber shop. Away, he’d often thought that seeing the farm again would set off an explosion of anger or nostalgia. But now it just reminded him of his father lying on the kitchen floor, too drunk to move. His mother’s absence. The reception after the funeral. His own child self that had gone missing from this revised and prettified landscape.
    Back in the truck he zigzagged to a small road that ran beside a creek where he would be able to clean up without being seen. After he’d washed and shaved he sat looking at themoving water. On the surface were tiny rills, trails of bubbles, folds and curves that stayed constant as the water shaped itself to the rocks below. He could already feel himself coming back to West Gull the same way, fitting himself to everything that couldn’t be changed.
    Chrissy opened the door to him and her first thought was that he had shrunk. He was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, green and blue checks, creased across the middle and the sides as though it had just come out of the package five minutes earlier. He was standing in the doorway, frozen. She was, too. She hadn’t expected it to hit her like this—just the sight of him. Then right before her eyes, in this little time bubble neither of them seemed able to break, he was growing back to normal, or was it just her heart trying to jump out of her body and into his.
    Lizzie was coming down the stairs. Fred had already left for work.
    “Well,” Chrissy said, because she didn’t want Lizzie to find them staring at each other like zombies.
    “How are you?” he asked. She could see that his eyes, though apparently aimed at hers, were in fact slanting away, the way she used to see them do