Vanishing and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the wind. Then I took her to the pond where geese land every spring and she picked some water-parsley. I showed her the three hundred head of cattle, the morning air rising out of their big soft nostrils. All the things that charmed my wife, at first. The things Edith used to love too.
    When we got to the fence that’s separated my property from Jerry’s for nearly thirty years, I said, “That’s all she wrote. Might as well turn back.”
    But she squinted and walked forward. She’d seen the lush place where we throw the bones, and the white glint of them.
    â€œIt’s just the yard,” I called out. My wife had always hated it there. The high grass, the smell.
    She stopped a few feet away from a bull’s rib cage and I stood behind her, back a ways. I watched her neck, her shoulders. Tried to imagine the look on her face. “It’s not much to see.”
    The girl nudged a piece of the bull’s torso with her toe.
    â€œI throw them here for the coyotes,” I said. “Feed them so they don’t bother the herd.”
    She stepped forward again, her sandalled feet disappearing in the green and yellow grass. She knelt, almost facing me, full of bravery. Then she lifted a cow’s skull that was old enough to be picked clean. So heavy it strained her arms.
    â€œI don’t take people out here, normally.”
    She slid her pinkie finger through the bullet hole I’d had to make, can’t remember when. Must have been a few years ago, maybe a calving that went wrong.
    â€œCome on. I’ll drive you home.”
    She ran her hand along the forehead. Feeling the rough bone, I guess, against her palm. This is when I figured out she was beautiful. Something about how calm her face was, how curious. She held up the enormous head, looked it right in the hollow eyes.
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    SHE NEVER INTRODUCED ME , but I’m sure that every one of her boyfriends was an idiot. I called them all by the same name: Kyle. That was the one she was with when I first met her. The one who dropped her off outside my door, some miracle working through him.
    How’s Kyle? I’d say, and she’d reply, His name is Joel and he’s not my boyfriend.
    Bullshit.
    You’re bullshit.
    Then she’d smile in a distant way and I’d know her life was made up of endless possibilities, her life was complex and golden. This was while we were flipping through one of her magazines, or while I braided her hair so it would be wavy the next day. I adored her tangled, complicated hair, so many shades of blond and brown all at once.
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    I OFFERED TO TAKE HER HOME . “You need some sleep and a shower,” I said, and we walked to my truck. We climbed in, and the bench was already warm from the sun. There was still a web of cracks through the windshield, and light splintered through it.
    From what I can tell, most city people think it’s boring to talk about the weather. But here, it’s important. Every morning, Nina and I used to look out the kitchen window to see what was coming: heat, sudden cold, or the possibility of worse. Talking about the weather, you talk about everything that matters—what you want, what you’re scared of.
    There was a pause—after I turned the key in the ignition, before the diesel engine turned over. The girl and I stared straight ahead, through the cracked glass.
    â€œBeautiful day,” she said, and I knew exactly what she meant.
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    ONCE, I ASKED HER to tell me what it was like.
    No way, she said.
    Please? Since you’ve done it uncountable times?
    She slapped my face then, but not hard.
    Okay, listen. She pressed her forehead against mine and I smelled the nicotine on her breath. It’s different every time, she said. Sometimes it’s passionate, and sometimes it’s sweet, and sometimes it’s just sad.
    I tried to imagine having direct contact with those: passion and sweetness and