The Shelf Life of Fire by Robin Greene

Author:Robin Greene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: By the Book;Julia Sonneborn;Faithful;Alice Hoffman;Thirteen Reasons Why;Jay Asher;siblings;mother daughter;family;abuse;healing;memory;novelist;books about writers;Fayetteville;raleigh;north carolina;nc;new york city
Publisher: Light Messages Publishing
Published: 2019-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

twenty-two

A little over two weeks have gone by since Nick left. I’ve been alone, making some progress on my book, but not doing much else. I’ve gone to school to catch up with a few end-of-semester chores, checked on the Writing Center, etc. Nick has been calling just about every day, but he skipped yesterday, and our conversations are very brief because he doesn’t have cell phone service and when he calls he must use the retreat phone, which isn’t very private, and others are usually waiting to use it.

It’s morning now, a Wednesday; I’m sitting at the computer. Rain is forecast. I’m in my nightgown and bathrobe, feeling off balance.

My novel—I now know—is going to be about a woman who tries to reconcile the pieces of her life—her past and current life—so that she can move forward, become whole. The narrator is a writer, and she can’t seem to gain traction toward self-understanding. Yes, the book will be autobiographical, but not completely.

I sit at the computer, begin typing. I work for four hours, until my protagonist is at the grocery store. She’s got two tomatoes in her hand as she assesses their ripeness. She chooses one, puts it in her plastic carry basket, and moves to the broccoli crowns. Then she stops. I stop, needing a break.

k

It’s afternoon. I’m walking Jake behind the university. Since we can’t walk through the lovely woods because of the ticks, we walk again around the baseball field, the football practice field, behind a neighborhood that borders the campus.

Jake limps, and I study him, trying to figure out what exactly is wrong. A hurt paw? His hips? Joints?

Sometimes his hind quarters shake, quiver uncontrollably. Or he’ll just sit down like he’s taking a short break. “Jake,” I’ll ask, “What’s wrong?”

But right now, he’s upright, happy, wagging his tail, sniffing the borderline between the grass and woods, as his back-end quivers momentarily—but then stops. He’s just old, it saddens me to think.

Pausing as Jake pees, I realize that I haven’t really spoken to my friends in well over a week. My best friend, Sonya, is visiting her sister and nephews in Florida for most of the month, I remember. Also, I remind myself that Nick didn’t call last night—okay, but I’ve grown dependent on his brief check-ins. Hopefully, I’ll hear from him today because writing is like listening to ghosts. And without some real voices soon, I might go crazy.

I make the turn around the baseball field as two young men throw a hardball back and forth. They’re dressed in shorts, tee-shirts, and they’re wearing mitts. I hear the thump of the ball as it’s caught. I watch each young man shift his weight and bring back his arm, wind up, then power the ball through the air. Thump, it lands in the glove. Very satisfying, deceptively easy. I stand by the chain link fence, Jake’s nose buried in a patch of clover, and think I made you do that.

As we walk back to the car, Jake is in a slow trot beside me.

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