Trying the Knot Read Online Free PDF Page B

She
regaled Thad with tales of past lovers who dog-eared the pages of
Her life script.
    Shivering, Thad felt the scrutiny of the
glutton in gray as he wandered toward her chilly gaze and away from
the freezer department. Bulbouski smacked her gum, unaware of the
saliva caked in the corner of her mouth. He felt as if she were
about to unleash a stampede of charging beasts.
    He bagged the groceries while she rang them
up. Concerned what was taking so long, Vange met him at the glass
door. She pried the paper sack from his grasp and rattled off the
menu, “Cigs, Sunny-D, and Combos. What, no squirrel, muskrat, or
deer jerky?”
    “Sorry.”
    “This isn’t exactly a holiday feast.”
    Watching Evangelica take a sip of neon
colored orange drink, Thad turned red with embarrassment when she
subsequently wiped the sweat from his furrowed brow and took his
hand into hers.
    “What the hell is wrong with you?”
    “I have a fear of rhinos,” Thad said. A burst
of juice exploded from her nose, and she doubled over in a coughing
fit. Grabbing his arm for support, she regained her composure and
searched his bloodshot green eyes; although it was Easter, they
made her think of all the disappointment of Christmastime.
    Thad suddenly leaned close, and he let his
tongue guide a trickling stream of juice up her chin and into her
quivering mouth. Unnerved by this sudden intimacy, Vange backed
away and tugged at the necklace. She thrust the sack of groceries
at his chest and made her way back to the pickup truck. Suddenly,
she stopped and pointed to a clump of matted fur and batting which
lay soaking in an oil slick in the middle of the parking lot.
    “Look,” she said, “it, it’s a dead
bunny.”
    The stuffed toy was nearly soiled and
flattened beyond recognition. The moment seemed so fraught with
symbolism and irony, she laughed until her eyes welled with tears.
Evangelica placed the back of her hand against her mouth and turned
away in an attempt to pull herself together. Thad wrapped her close
and ineffectively soothed her bottomless sobs.
    She repeated between breaths, “I’m so
sorry.”
    “Don’t cry, it’s Easter,” he pleaded. “Sorry
for what?”
    “I’m just sorry, that’s all,” she repeated.
He wiped away her tears while she held her stomach as if cradling
everything inside her for one last time.
    Inside the truck, they sat in paralyzed
silence. Feeling bonded because neither knew quite where to go from
there, they both dreaded every second proceeding the next. Soon,
not even the damp chilly air whipping against his face kept Thad
seated beside her. In his mind, he found himself alone, kicking a
rock along the shoulder of the road. When he was a boy, his aunt
told him in her all-knowing authoritative manner, “Kick a limestone
rock as you walk along. Then before you stop, make a wish and give
it a good swipe.”
    He wondered if she kept kicking rocks even
with her ingrown toenail. He wondered if she kept kicking rocks and
making wishes even after cancer stopped her for good. Thad’s finger
felt for the chain he never took off. Although the silvery blue
rhino was gone from his neck, he still had Jesus in his pocket.
When the rock he was kicking became lost among all the other rocks,
he pulled out the crucifix and began kicking Christ.
    Thad wished for many things, but he mostly
hoped for a few feature-length experiences to treasure, rather than
mere isolated snapshots. Nothing ever changed for the better.
Everything pleasant always digressed and filled him with revulsion
and a longing to forget. So he closed his eyes and gave the
crucifix one good swift kick across the highway into a half-frozen
field. There in the middle of the countryside wilderness, he stood
watching his breath waft toward a lone seagull.
    With his hands crammed in his pockets and his
collar upturned, he wondered how people became so important they
left only a gaping emptiness once dispersing into the ether.
    And there he waited as if there