Thunder Falls (Darkthorn Book 3) by Michael Lilly

Author:Michael Lilly [Lilly, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vulpine Press
Published: 2019-04-04T22:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Todd and I walk back to the apartment with the same casual ease as earlier. The noontime sun shines high and mighty, contrasting pleasantly with the nip in the air. The town’s old buildings seem to be made of colors more vibrant and alive than they were yesterday, and the odor on the slight breeze is of the imminently shedding foliage of the mountain.

We pick up a few groceries before heading back, then spend some time cooking and eating together. I am an okay cook. I can whisk and poach and pare and mince. But Todd is a genius. Add to that that I haven’t had the motivation to cook anything more extravagant than ramen over the past month, and Todd’s homemade lasagna with from-scratch sauce makes for quite the delicious meal indeed.

We didn’t plan the rest of the afternoon, but we never do. Never have to. The idea of doing anything right now is laughable, anyway.

So, as the Wyoming sun journeys across the sky, its rays shine upon the sleepiest town in the country, championed by Todd and me as the sleepiest inhabitants thereof.

The afternoon passes like a gasp, sucking in air and pausing for a moment, only to use its exhalation to blow all the blue out of the sky. Mountains rise and silhouette against the monochrome red canvas, like solemn guardians of the night.

Todd and I observe this from my western window. I feel a chill in my spine and don’t know whether it’s from a drop in temperature or the majesty of the moment. The romantic in me asserts the latter and I don’t dispute it.

In my youth, I never knew a moment of pure tranquility, safety, peace. Even on the relieving nights my father spent out of town, when Mom, Trina, and I were able to have an innocent, quiet night and perhaps watch a movie, the threat of my father’s return loomed in my mind. In retrospect, I think we all felt it—that the time we were enjoying was merely rented, time borrowed, and we were the more appreciative of it because of that. It wasn’t so much celebratory as it was a last-ditch effort to convince ourselves that a normal life could one day be attainable.

A more aware version of me might have thought about the classically misquoted, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” But alas, six-year-old Remy hadn’t had the biblical knowledge for that connection and was thus left to revel in the spirit and sentiment without the accompanying scripture.

Now, I reflect on that young Remy—naïve, sure, but with no remaining innocence to speak of—and wonder what he might think if I told him that one day he would experience serenity with such a simple completeness as this. In the drowsy evening of a quiet town, with Todd, undisturbed by car horns or sirens, listening to a silence whose only impurity is our own breathing.

My mother has invoked in me a sense of security I’ve never felt so solidly, and freedom is at the forefront of my mind.

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