Lori & Joe by Amy Arnold

Author:Amy Arnold [Arnold, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913513375
Publisher: Prototype

JOSEPH’S IN THE HOUSE

He’s dead. He’s dead up there on our bed, Lori thinks, and she waits to see if she feels anything, something, and well, she doesn’t. You can’t go forcing a thing if it won’t come on its own, she thinks, and Lori looks down at her boots. She’s too late with the leather, she thinks, and she thinks of those photos you get, the ones of huge river deltas and she thinks of the boy who put his finger in the dike and she thinks, what’s that got to do with anything? And she’ll hunt out the neatsfoot anyway and she thinks, Moor Head, yes, then she’ll decide, and she feels the cold around her middle, or perhaps around her heart, although she’s never been able to pinpoint where the heart is exactly, and she thinks of all those diagrams you get, the ones of lungs and kidneys and intestines and she thinks, slippery yellows and pinks and browns and reds, and she’s supposed to feel something, if all those obituaries she reads are true, if the time she spends in the back pages of The Gazette is worth anything at all, and Lori thinks, Joseph and Lori Fitzgerald are delighted to announce, no, Joe and Lori proudly announce, and she thinks, the safe arrival of their much awaited, and she thinks, daughter or son? and she looks down at her boots and she thinks, not this, Lori, we’re past all this, and she sees her boots moving over the rough ground, grasses and sedges, swollen mosses and it’s with great sadness that we announce the passing.

Empty, she thinks, apart from the stomach, although the stomach’s for disappointment, she’s almost sure, yes, the eyes for sadness, the stomach for disappointment. But no, she thinks, it’s as if the whole damn thing sits down there in her bowels and never shifts, and she thinks of those diagrams you get and she thinks, there’s something repulsive, and the hand will slip inside her jacket if she wants it to, if she can keep the fucker still, she thinks, and she can’t, no, she can’t, and in all truth she’s stopped wanting it, although the emptiness weighs and she thinks, sticks and stones and she thinks of Annie with her swollen bellies, six swollen bellies, all that life she pushed out into the world, yes, miracle after tiny miracle and Lori feels it right down there in her bowels and she thinks, if it’s anything at all it’s resentment, yes, or something pushing, because it isn’t exactly a giant leap to say pushing, if that’s what she really feels, and she thinks, no. No, no, she’s finished with wanting. All she’s got left is some kind of, and she thinks, sediment. And she sees her future there in front of her, a dark blue-grey, and she looks at her boots and she thinks of those aerial photographs you get and she thinks, there’s something repulsive

a sedentary body of water

silt, sand

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