In the Season of Killing Bolts

Chapter 5

Bennet continued as I laid the roses (I’d parked next to her section with the engine running and the door hanging open): “Vacation? (laughter in the studio) No, no, not this Deputy. I mean, what would I do? Yeah, yeah; I know: Go to Bluebeard’s Cove, right? Or Devil’s Gorge. Go bet on the races at Checkered Flags. Well, that’s fine, I suppose—if you’re a civilian. If you’re not a lawman. But I am lawman, see, and—”

I stood, staring at the marker, staring at the inscription.

“—an oath of service, a promise to protect. And that promise comes before anything; even, I dare say, family—"

I watched as rain began to spot the granite; to stain the marker in ever-increasing blotches— darkening the ‘C’ in Cynthia, punctuating the still-fresh epigraph.

“—well, that’s true, I don’t. I don’t. I mean, unless you count Barney; that, he’s my dog. Norwegian Elkhound. (proud chuckling) That’s the national dog of Norway—”

I stared at the marker.

Were you really so unhappy—so lost? So alone? Was it really so hopeless—and did you hate me so much—that you would use a piece of me—a piece of my work—to at last finish what the pills and alcohol couldn’t? Had I abandoned you to that extent, my love? And did any of it—any of it—ever really happen?

I looked at the granite and the semi-frozen grass—the insufficient inscription, the red, wet roses in cellophane.

Where are you, my love, and just as importantly, where am I? Because I no longer care about what I cared about—and so fiercely! while you were here; by which I mean, what I took from you and gave to Sandy Chain, what I thought was my duty but was in fact only selfishness.

I looked up, the rain spotting my eyes, to find the clouds virtually racing.

Where are you, and just as importantly, where am I?

And then I turned toward the west, toward the sea—I’m still not sure why; and became, in that very instant, a kind of statue, a kind of oak. Then I saw the Anomaly for the very first time (that churning, boiling stormfront; that amorphous Man o’ War spreading, ink-like, across the sky), and, unable to comprehend what I was seeing, just stood there, frozen, like I’d looked on Medusa herself. Like I’d become Irit; the Lady of Gomorrah—and prideful spouse to Lot—after she’d been turned into a pillar of salt.

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