Hide and Seek

I'll don't know where we went.

The outskirts of town for a while, then up and down the main

I tried to get her to talk about it, but she shut me up with a look so

painful that I kept my own eyes fixed to the road ahead after that and

gave her the long quiet that was clearly all she wanted from me and all

I had to give. I felt her body shaking gently and knew she was crying.

It astonished me that anything could happen in that colorless, moneyed,

lifeless household that could possibly make her cry. It astonished me

that she should cry at all, I think. The command was gone, the

toughness melted away, and beside me was a woman like any other. And

even though I liked that toughness and that command, I realized I'd

been waiting a longtime to see this, to see what was underneath.

It was good to know I could help her just by being there. I felt oddly

comforted. I'd never cared for her more.

It was quite a moment.

I remember we'd turned onto Northfield Avenue when I felt her

straighten up beside me. Out of the corner of my eye I watched her

wipe the tears off her face. It was a single harsh gesture with the

fingertips of both hands. I heard her sniffling back the mucus and

heard her clear her throat. We turned to one another at the same time.

For me it was just a glance before I had to look back to the road

again. But I felt her stare on me long after that, measuring me

somehow.

When she spoke, her voice was gentle, but I sensed that she'd turned a

corner again, and what lay beneath it was not. I'd seen a crack in the

wall, no more than that. Her voice ran drifts of ectoplasm over me

like the thin, strong lines of a spider.

"I want to go back."

"You want me to take you home?"

"Please. Yes."

"All right."

We weren't far from there. We drove in silence. I turned onto her

street and noticed a pothole in the road I hadn't seen when we'd

IDE AND SEEK