the moonlight. How she can be so cruel, even in the country, even now. It just wasn’t the right time, she will say. I will wonder if the child’s teeth would have been straight or not. I will wonder what color hair it would have had. Most importantly, I will wonder how we move on from this, and there will be this sharp tug in my chest, like pulling dead skin down the length of your thumb, that tells me we won’t. I will ask her if not now, then when? When? She won’t have an answer. This is how it will go. But tonight, we’re just watching the clouds circle around each other, watching the lightning split the sky over our heads. Laurel slides off me and says this is another conversation for another time, and I don’t want to argue, so I let it go. In a flash I can see her lips pull back in a sleepy grin, the enamel of her front teeth smeared red. I put my hand across her forehead as if feeling for fever and tell her she drinks too goddamn much. She tells me to shush. She says we’re due for a big one, a tremendous bolt followed by an even more impressive crash. Laurel sits up, rests her head on my shoulder in a sweet way, and tells me to close my eyes and this time to count the seconds between out loud with her. I ask why. She says just do it. I ask why again. She tells me to just have faith. I think about how everything will go tomorrow and the next day and the next after that, but after a few moments I give in. When the lightning finally hits I get a dull blast even through my eyelids, and right after it goes dark I hear Laurel start to count out loud. She takes my hand, which I don’t object to, and whispers one, two, three, and I mumble each digit along with her, knowing the boom can’t be that far off.
4
Storms