00167___5f5a3212f8bff01f2ea9d453b4eb872c.pdf

(32 KB) Pobierz

“No,” I said. “That’s okay.”

I think I didn’t want to do anything to break the rhythm of

that comfortable ride. I put my face close to the open window

and watched the asphalt slide beneath us. It would not have

bothered me if we had glided past our house and out through

the other side of town, up to the hills and the interstate, where

the land became thick with trees again. “We’re here,” my

mother said as we pulled into the driveway.

I put my hand on the car door handle, and she put her hand

on my knee and said, “Thomas, I’m pretty sure now what’s

going to happen, and let me tell you in advance that I’m sorry. I

know what I said to you before, but I don’t think Harris is going

to be around much longer. I can tell even while I’m doing all

this.” And she looked behind her at the things we had gathered

and then ahead, and she smiled as if she noticed something

ridiculous out the windshield, in the architecture of the house,

our lives. “Sometimes,” she said, “plans don’t work out the way

we want them to. But even then they work out. We realize that

later.”

Harris met us on the second ﬂoor, his hair wet from a shower

and a toothbrush in his hand. “How did it go?” he asked, and

my mother said, “Fine. It went ﬁne.” She walked past him to

the window where she pulled the curtains closed with a quick

ﬂip. “Just don’t ask me to do something like that again.”

Harris turned to me, smiled a tight smile, and said, “Your

mother is a good woman. She puts up with a lot. She’s an angel

really.” Then he laughed and shook his head. With his chest

bare, hair wet and falling around his face, he looked like a dif-

ferent person—funny and frightening at the same time—and I

wondered if he knew this, if he could see himself that clearly.

“Harris is in a strange mood, Tom,” my mother said. “It’s best

to ignore him.”

S W IM MIN G IN T HE D A R K

154