The Banks of Certain Rivers Read Online Free PDF Page A

changing myself from passive
observer to active participant. Equally culpable.
    “I’m sorry,” she says again, eyes closed, and in a
way that seems out of place in a situation that already seems far too
brazen for the Lauren I thought I knew, she presses her lips to my
ear and says: “We’re safe now. Safe. You want me to say
it? Okay. Let’s fuck, Neil. Let’s fuck .”
    And, for a lack of anything better to call it, that’s exactly
what we do.

From: [email protected]
    To:[email protected]
    Sent: September 7, 4:01 pm
    Subject:poppies
    _____________________________

    W-

    Thought you’d like to know that
even though Chris managed to accidentally mow them down to nothing
last spring, those orange poppies you put in on the west side of your
mom’s house are THRIVING. Beyond thriving, even. Every year
they seem to grow more indestructible. Anyway, they’re ready to
blossom a third time this season, and my fingers are crossed they
don’t get zapped by an early frost. I know how much you love
them. I think of you when I see them.

    -N

CHAPTER THREE

    My mood is not the only one
brightened when Lauren and I go back upstairs; Carol is
smiling too when we reenter the living room.
    “Hi kids,” she says, fiddling with the oxygen cannula
under her nose. I’m not sure if she knows who I am now, or
where she is in space and time, but I don’t want to disrupt her
perception of things from before.
    “Checked the fuses, Mom,” I say with a little too much
cheer. “Everything looks fine.”
    “Wonderful, terrific,” she says. Then, with no pause:
“That black man came by again.”
    “Excuse me?” I’m searching my memory for any family
stories that might fit, and coming up with zilch. It’s odd to
hear her say, too; I’d never known Carol or Dick to be racist,
but a person’s skin color is just not the sort of thing she
would have pointed out before she got sick. “Who came by?”
    “That man, you know him, he stopped in….” She
waves her hand at nothing. “I told him I was too tired to
talk.”
    “Just now?” Lauren asks. “Right now while we
were….”
    “Downstairs?” I finish for her.
    “No, no. Dick had a word with him, I believe.”
    Old memory. Whew. Lauren shrugs, her face lit with relief, and my
mother-in-law offers nothing more. Just another phantom from years
past, in and out of her world like that. I tell Carol that
Christopher will check in with her tomorrow, and Lauren walks out
with me through the garage to the driveway.
    “Jesus, she had me scared,” she says with a nervous
laugh. “I mean, I didn’t hear anything upstairs….”
    “We can’t do that over here again,” I say. “Ever.
That was really stupid.”
    Lauren pokes me in the stomach. “Jerk. You didn’t seem to
think it was so stupid at the time.”
    “You didn’t give me much of a choice. What is up with you
lately?”
    “Nothing’s up with me lately.” She pokes me
again. “Did I tell you I got almost fifty miles to the gallon
coming back Tuesday?”
    “No kidding?”
    Lauren’s three-quarters of the way through studying to become a
Certified Nurse Practitioner, and has to make the four hour trip down
to Michigan State’s main campus in Lansing and back once a week
this semester for coursework. Her old Astro Van was a drivers’
ed film waiting to happen, and after weeks of my urging her to
upgrade to any vehicle of a recent vintage (and offering to loan her
the money to make a down payment), she finally settled on a new
Prius. So far, she seems to be quite pleased with it, even if now I
bug her about the possibility of unintended acceleration.
    “It’s great. And that was with a thousand pounds of Ikea
stuff in the back.” Lauren grins, nodding toward the car, and I
notice now that the back seats are folded down under a pile of
cardboard boxes. “Bookshelves. Which I’ll coerce you into
assembling, if we can get them up the stairs.” She glances down
the long driveway, then takes my hand