Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle

Author:Jill McCorkle [McCorkle, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2009-12-23T13:00:00+00:00

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The ex-wife’s picture hangs among others near the radiator in Roger’s office. Theresa has trouble not looking at the photo even though she has studied and memorized every detail with a kind of tormenting curiosity. The other photos are linked to Roger’s commercial real estate business —photo after photo of Roger shaking hands with local celebrities, the mayor, the anchor for the local news, and Tripp Trout, owner of a seafood franchise who has never been seen without his fish mask. There are probably twenty such photos.

Beside the ex-wife is a younger, leaner Roger with dark hair and no lines around his eyes. He’s smiling, and there is not a trace of worry or discontent; his hand cups the bare shoulder of the woman beside him: his wife, his mate. Her blond hair is shoulder length and feathered back from her face; her jeans are worn and flared, her feet bare, and she rests one leg over his. She leans in so their heads are touching. His other hand, wedding ring visible, is on her thigh as he hugs her close. He’s wearing an old flannel shirt he still owns, one Theresa used to toss on in the middle of the night or after showering. She has not worn it since recognizing its connection to the past.

His daughter, just a toddler then, is in a little pink jacket off to the side. Her hair is yanked into high pigtails, something Theresa has heard Roger laugh and tease her about when they talk on the phone —“Those tight pigtails did something to your brain, honey,” he always says. Now the daughter is in college on the West Coast. Theresa has not met her, though they have chatted on the phone in a friendly but awkward fashion until he is able to pick up —about Roger’s work or the weather or Elsa, the old golden retriever who was just a puppy at the time of the divorce. The ex-wife, though several relationships and houses and careers beyond the marriage, continues to call and check in.

In the photo, they are a family of three on vacation in the mountains; dark shapes looming behind them in late-afternoon light. There is a history behind them and several years still ahead. Theresa looks once more at their entwined limbs, their child, the place Roger has said they should visit sometime. It was where he had spent his childhood vacations. It was his place first. Theresa holds eye contact with the ex-wife and thinks: I am here and you are way back there.

But Roger is in both places.

“Oh, you wouldn’t have liked me then,” Roger said when he caught her studying the photo. She wanted to ask him why he kept it hanging, but before she could figure out how to ask, he was already telling the story of the day, his daughter covered in poison ivy by the end of it, the oatmeal bath and calamine lotion he bought and brought back to the motel room,

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