I don’t wave back.I ain’t in the mood to lie to children.
Sno-Globes sits half-shoveled, a crust of police tape sagging across the door like tinsel after a fight.A paper sign in the window says CLOSED FOR CLEANUP, BACK SOON!with a damn smiley face.
I don’t stop.I already took enough from that room.
I travel a long route to the town's border, where houses shrink.Hard blue sky is above white fields.I shiver as the cold cuts right through me.Passing the church, I figure the choir is probably warming up a carol that used to make me itch.I pass the sledding hill, seeing a thermos shining in the snow like a spent shell.
Finally, I turn onto a side street where the plows gave up after one try.Carol’s building is brick and stubborn.Three stone steps.A door the color of her mouth.
I don’t park by her boyfriend’s sports car.I roll by in first gear, engine low, like a wolf keeping to the tree line.It is not stalking if I don’t stop, I tell myself.It is not anything if no one sees.
There’s a light in the second window.A shadow moves.Woman-sized.Big busted woman sized.
Could be her.Could be anyone.
But I picture her hair twisted up in a towel, the curve of her neck, and the mark I left there.
I keep going.
Two blocks later I pull over anyway.Boots crunch.Breath shoots the cold.I rest both hands on the bars while the motor ticks its heat away.
I want to drop the stand, climb those steps, knock until my knuckles split.Tell her boyfriend to take a hike.I want to make the same mistake again and call it destiny.I want to see if that humming sounds the same in daylight.
I don’t move.
Instead, I see Trina’s face, the way she said she might finally sign the papers.I see my brothers’ faces.How fast respect turns mean when a man starts looking too soft.Suddenly, I remember why I could never forgive Trina back when it might’ve mattered.
And I see Carol’s hand on the clubhouse window last night, her fingertips on the foggy glass, humming that song like hope’s something we can hold.The want for something new is a live wire.The shame for quitting too easy is a leash.I let both bite.
I toe back onto the street and roll the throttle open until the sled tracks blur.Wind drills through the jacket, finds every crack in me that winter didn’t make.I ride the ridge road where the pines crowd close and the snow cuts sideways in silver sheets.
People come to Evervale chasing picture perfect joy.I come out here for the opposite.To remember the world kills every pretty thing and calls it just the weather.
When I loop back toward the compound, the prospect at the gate salutes again.This time I lift two fingers.He looks relieved.The clubhouse hums with the kind of busy that covers sins.I kill the engine, sit for a minute, stare at the smear of old blood on my hand.I should clean it.I will.Later.
I hang my jacket on the same hook as always and walk into the noise like a man wading into confession.I convince myself I won’t go back to Carol’s door.I convince myself it’s because I still have a wife until a judge makes it final.And Executioner’s by laws say we need to shit or get off the pot.If I don’t want my Ol’ Lady, I need to give her up.
Because respect for the patch still counts for something, even in a sinner’s world.Truth is smaller and meaner.I am scared.Not of Trina.Not of the club.I’m scared of that humming getting into my bones and making a liar out of everything I ever believed about men like me.
Frost looks up from a parts magazine when I reappear.
“Good ride?”he asks.
“Cold,” I say.
He studies my face and nods.“Cold’s honest.”
“Yeah.”I pick up a rag, work at the crusted blood, the skin underneath pink and raw.“So am I.”
He grunts.“We’ll see.”
I scrub until it burns, toss the rag in the bin, and hear the jukebox flip to some old hymn pretending to be country.
I don’t look at my phone.I don’t look at the door.
Outside, the snow minds its own business.In town, the lights will come on again and fool the tourists into believing.Somewhere under that brick roof, Carol is having herself a perfect Christmas with her boyfriend.
I think about her anyway.
