100 Proof

I asked you to be honest with me, he said. I asked you to be true.

I was true, she said, but she understood why he thought she wasn’t. She talked in her sleep of things that had not happened but sounded so very, very real.

I love you, he said. I don’t know why you can’t adhere.

She wanted to stick to him, wanted so badly to do so. But she felt herself ripping away, one hand lifted, the other barely hanging on. Her dreams, they were so much more real than he was.

He made her a playlist for her journey. This should keep your ears happy, he said.

He thought it better to tell her that than what he really wanted to tell her, which was that he was going to miss both her earlobes, and the way the skin right there was so soft, and that he was going to miss saying things only she could hear.

He imagined her in her window seat, her earbuds tucked into place. He imagined her hearing the music in place of his voice.

We’re all on the way to somewhere, she said. We just don’t always know what it’s going to look like. The scary stuff is all we imagine down the road.

She said this to me as I wrapped my arms around myself. She said this to me as I contemplated turning back around.

It’s not really so bad, she said. Just look in front of you—that next step is totally familiar. So, take it. Then take the next. And the next. Don’t think ahead more than that. This is about one choice at a time.

She could hear hammer on metal far away, and imagined it bending hot steel to shape, sparks flying down around the forgers’ feet. She wondered if she, herself, could be shaped into something more beautiful, one stroke at a time; if each pounding by life’s circumstances could make her as delicately strong as an iron spiral.

The hammer sound stopped, then. She wished she had recorded it so she could play it back, as a reminder, on bleak days. She wanted to hold its rhythm as close as a shield to protect from the most punishing situations.

She kept thinking she’d packed everything necessary, but then she’d find one more thing she needed to fit in after the fact. The taxi outside had already honked for her, but she still was finding scarves, toiletries, books she needed on this particular journey.

How long’s your trip? the cab driver asked after loading her bags into the trunk.

Just the weekend, she answered.

That’s a lot of stuff for a weekend, he replied.

She tried to tell him how much she had left behind, but the ride was so short and her list so long.

It wasn’t tornado season, but the wind ran circles around the house. The dogs whined with every creak of the eaves, and the children complained of waking nightmares.

I’ve had enough, the mother said, and she poured herself a third glass of wine. There was no reason to save the good bottle if the world was coming to an end.

There’s nowhere to go, said the father. He had gone down to the basement, allegedly to check the furnace and the water heater. No one knew he didn’t actually know how they worked. He liked his secrets kept.

When she asked him what he did for a living, he told the truth. I’m the Official Arbiter of Tall Buildings. Often, in these conversations, he just called himself an architect, but he felt encouraged by the number of times she had touched his arm in a short span.

That’s fascinating, she replied, and he saw her eyes widen a bit as if she really meant it.

He took a breath, then. He wanted to tell her all about judging small measurements, the understanding of materials, the heart-pounding view from so far above the world.