FICTION Kristen Hamelin Tracey
Eulogy for a Hypothetical Yes I know we didn't have a hard time with the decision itself. We're pragmatic people, Sam, you and I; hard in many ways, like the fathers we so admire (like the fathers we spent years and years trying to convince that we were sexy, strong, smart, bound for success yet cavalier about working for it, happy, but not unselfconsciously so, and rational, because that would mean we were grown‐up). It was easy. We'd talked about it before, right? We wouldn't let accident get in the way of the fates for which we had girded and gussied ourselves. The hypothetical had seemed further away then, so improbable; now it was soon, and big, like the way the tunnel entrance goes from a dot to a dome just moments before you're to drive into it. I think... ...there was some relief, there? In you, or me? A sad, smothered little thing inside that breathes easier when there's freedom ahead, but I would've felt blasphemous, saying that at such a time. Anyhow, after that I wanted to go away with you, Sam. To drink up sadness, spew out sentimentalities (when we allowed 40
