She asked me to move my eyes side-to-side, again and again, while recalling specific memories related to Mitch. Mitch and his dangle of gold chain, fat links against the dark chest hair.Ī few years earlier, I’d seen a therapist-a trauma specialist-who tapped at my wrists while I repeated the same sentences to myself. Mitch in Jamaica, the grapefruit pink of his tight swim trunks wrinkling and pulling against the heft of his thigh muscle. I ate and drank a glass of Beaujolais in three gulps while I searched for photos of him online. When the yolks lost their wetness, I sliced a baguette and salted a tomato. Two eggs fried in butter while I bundled the facts, tried to morph them into more meaning. I fed the dogs their dry kibble, vacuumed. I hugged her until she soaked my shoulder, made it slick with salt and spit and sweat. I hugged her, selfishly I hugged her because I needed her. I watched her stifle it all, her eyelids contracting, her face wide and pleading. A hot dash of mascara spread across her temple, a hiccup made her throat lunge.

Kathy’s words, languid on her slurring tongue, slipped low into my guts and gave me the feeling of an acceleration over a rolling county road, the swift but minor free fall of my organs. Like I’d won a sleeper sofa or an RV on an afternoon gameshow. On the Internet, friends I hadn’t spoken with since college messaged me on my good fortune.

A current of uneasy affection ran beneath their words, and I sensed their tight little smiles aching behind each phone. T he dogs were pulling strips of connective tissue off raw beef bones, their bellies spread against the cool grass, when Kathy came across the gravel drive with news of his death.īy evening, a dozen people had called me, saying everything short of congratulations, as if I had some agency over his ill heart and its collapse.

By Pain of Death by Suzanne Clay