Horsefever by Hope Lee

Author:Hope, Lee [Hope, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Rivers Press
Published: 2016-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

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This time, she called ahead and set up an appointment for three p.m., so Cliff can’t cut it short like he did her last phone call. At a quarter to three, she’s stationed on the riverbank in front of Cliff’s office in a renovated church. Its two-story, arched windows that used to be stained glass, have been replaced with clear glass to let the outside in. The religious way is to keep the outside out, so you look inside yourself, but a river view costs a lot, so you have to show it off.

By now, she has calmed herself somewhat. Like her mother said, “Carla you’re a good girl, until somebody crosses you, then there’s all hell to pay.”

To kill time, Carla waits outside and looks across the river at the glass factory, which has gone upscale, even added a restaurant, baby boomers and yuppie tourists jamming in to eat gourmet food, to buy hand-blown glasses, pottery, and such. Upstairs, there’s seconds on sale—glass vases, dishes, and lamps that are slightly askew or with strange bubbles, impurities like our souls have, like her husband’s soul does, Carla thinks, and her own. And our bodies have impurities too, especially his.

She feels a sudden rush of sympathy for his broken body, like when he came home from the hospital after his fall and started limping around, step-hop, step-hop. She bought rugs with pads beneath in case he fell. And she kept him on a strict schedule—time to take a bath, time to go to bed, time to eat. He turned into an indoor man who smelled of talc and lineament, sterile, domesticated at last, although so depressed that she’d try to lift his spirits, saying, “Gabe, we have each other, that’s what counts.” Or, “Gabe, we’re in this till death do us part.” He only got more down. So one day, she said, “Gabe, let’s start over again. We’ll move east to the Green Mountain State where your dad was born.”

Vermont seemed like a second Eden to her two years ago when she and Gabe first arrived, but a second Eden’s not enough for him. Now he’s talking of paradise. Well, paradise is a tricky place, one tiny temptation, one bite, and you fall right out of it. Paradise is a one-night stand.

On the dot of three, she steps into the foyer, no stained glass, or narthex, or dark wood, or cross, any trace of God stripped out. Cliff meets her at the inner door and shows her into his sterile, pared-back inner office, like he speaks pared back, and he sits next to his big, sleek desk, not behind it, on a black leather couch. She catches a glimpse of herself in the large plate glass window that makes her look older than she is, cheeks sagging, mouth set in a pout, when she was raised to be consistently upbeat. She smiles a bit and sits on the other end of Cliff’s leather sectional sofa that lets out a sigh as her dress slides up over her knees.

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