102 fudge cake he liked so much. Go on now, do something else, I’m doing this. I know what he likes.” She fought with herself to give Jeremiah his own day. She took a little pride in this show; no one else thought she could do it, but she did. The next day, she could not get out of bed. She lay there all day, studying the lack of pity in the world. Here was a world without Corinna’s small hands touching her mother’s face. Mothers are big, soft dolls to small children. Corinna’s arms around her neck, Corinna’s hand patting her cheek, playing with her hair. Kim stared at the space in the world that was now endless, infinite, important: space empty of Corinna. She stared. “Sometimes I feel like leaving her,” Monty Feller blurted to Tom, when their stapling brought them within three feet of each other. He hadn’t planned to say a word. He didn’t even introduce the subject, he just spat it out. But Tom had that way about him, he looked like someone who thought things over. Tom could flare up, he could be a moody s.o.b. but most often he knew how to listen. The guy was available. Though Monty had never confided in anyone about Kim and her craziness, and especially the way it wore him down, something about Tom’s receptive presence next to him brought the words out. Made him erupt. As if maybe Tom could take away some of this pain. Then he didn’t want to stop talking. But after awhile Tom said the wrong thing. He said, “My mother was never the same after my brother disappeared.” How dare he bring that up? Monty knew the story: Tom’s brother, mentally ill, never showed up in town after a cross-country hike from Circle to Fairbanks, ten years ago. Yeah, Monty thought, but he was full grown, and mentally ill besides and he did it to himself. That’s not the same. “Even so,” Tom went on, “My mom was a lot older than Kim. She had been a mother for a long time, already suffered a lot of disappointments. Had some experience of the world. They say a year isn’t much, isn’t enough time to know what to do next. That’s what they told us.” “She’s off the wall,” Monty said. “Everything comes back to her grief.” “She on anything?” “Valium. I hate it. On good days she works with this lady who makes candles and soap at home, one of those cottage industries. I hate the stuff. She always smells
CIRQUE like a perfume factory. Actually, a little like a hospital. She smells like a hospital.” Or a funeral home, he thought. That faint smell in the background all the time. Oh, Christ. He’d give anything if she smelled of firewood or gasoline or fresh salmon, like she used to. “The girl I married,” he went on, “she was so active, a cheerleader type. Always jumping around. Muscle and spirit. Now she’s in her head. All the time, in her head. And I have no clue what is going on in there.” They moved on widespread legs to the edge of the roof, bending and stapling. Tom stood up then and put one hand on his lower back, stretched. He looked out at the aspen grove across the street. “I sure do like working high,” he said. “Gives me a weird mood. Really different.” Monty wondered if Tom Clare might be a bit crazy, like his own brother, the one who disappeared. What was it made you confide in this guy? Maybe just his name. Tom Clare. Sounds like a priest. But Monty did not like weird stuff. He did not like the way Kim kept everything inside these days, when it was Monty’s own fault, the accident, thinking he could warn a little girl back from the edge of the slough! A warning, for the love of God, he warned a three year old! Oh please, again, he said the prayer he had said a thousand times: I hope it was fast, make it too fast a drowning even to want her mother and father, please make it so that she died right away. Right away. Thank you, Amen. He ruined more staples and a stretch of fabric. Tom lent a hand, and when they finished the repair, still on their haunches, gasping a little, Tom put his hand on Monty’s arm. “So today you feel like leaving her,” he said. “Yesterday? Tomorrow? Go ahead and say it, at least to yourself, say it every day, how it feels. Tomorrow, for instance. Tell someone.” Monty’s face burned. Christ, he thought, will you shut up with your advice? What do you know? Tom didn’t have a wife or a child either one. Least as far as anyone knew. Who’s to know. He moved forward to the next grid of roof to be covered, swung the roll of Grace lengthwise, kicked the bulk of it so it rolled out like a carpet. Very unprofessional. “The girl I married,” he said. “I keep thinking that: where is that girl? How can she disappear so completely? Do you know what I’m even talking about?” “Yeah, I think.” Tom walked patiently the length of the fabric, straightened it, lifted his knife from his hip. Stuff it now, Monty thought. I’d better save my