Leaving Home, of the Fields, Lately, and Salt-Water Moon by David French

Author:David French [French, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: DRAU3000
ISBN: 9780887849084
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
Published: 2009-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

MARY You might’ve waited.

WIFF No, duckie, I needed a good stiff drink right then, that’s all there was to it. I’d been down to that hospital night after night for six weeks, watching her waste away to not’ing . . . hoping every day would be her last. I could hardly bear to look at her . . . One quick glass of Scotch. Should’ve only took two minutes, if that.

MARY Why didn’t it, then?

WIFF Why? If you’re ready to listen, I’ll tell you why . . . I had my first whiskey, and no sooner had I drunk it than somet’ing came back to me so clear . . . (He sits.) The first time Dot and me ever met. T’irty-five years ago. Me on my way down to the coal shed to unload the steamer, her on her way to the church to light the fire. How it all came back, suddenly, sitting at that table. That dark road, the stars still out, and me with my flashlight and lunch pail, no older than Ben. And who comes tripping along the road towards me, but Dot, the beam of her flashlight bouncing and swinging. I puts the light in her young face, and for a moment I don’t recognize her, she’s blossomed out that much in the time I was away in Boston . . . “Is that you, Dot Snow?” And she laughs. I’d forgot how gentle laughter could be. “Is that you, Wiff Roach?” Well, duckie, I never made it to the coal shed that morning. No, by God, I never. And my father couldn’t have dragged me, had he kicked me ass all the way with his biggest boots. I walked her up the road, instead, and we sat in her family pew till the sun come up. Two months later we was married. You remembers, Mary. You was the bridesmaid. (slight pause — WIFF stands) So that’s how come I never made it to the hospital yesterday. I had another whiskey to ease the pain I was feeling, and a t’ird because the second never helped . . . So if you wants to hurt me, Mary, you go right ahead, my dear, but you’re too late . . . and not’ing you can ever say or do will make me feel any worse than knowing what Dot and me once had and what it come to in the end, without either one of us ever knowing why . . . (He sits again.) And that’s why I wants her buried in her wedding dress, if you must know, in spite of what she said at the last. What she wanted in those days past is just as real to me as what she wanted yesterday. Nor do it have the same sadness, Mary, not the same sadness at all . . .

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