Read Fellow Mortals for Free Online Page B

animals around, there behind the tree, behind the bush, there behind that tree. Mud and birds, scat, things rotting in the understory. Smells on smells and everything alive.
    They come upon a clearing—goldenrod, leaves, thick green ferns massing at the border. It’s sunny here but shady in the back, where the rock face trickles on a small, mossy hill. Dead center is a bag and a Styrofoam cup. Henry hesitates, pondering the evidence before him, till he notices that Wingnut’s staring farther off.
    Sam partially emerges from the corner of the clearing. He’s carrying an ax and stands behind a maple, wary of the visitors and ready to defend himself.
    “Hello?” Henry calls.
    Sam reveals himself and stares. He’s wearing work boots and dungarees and doesn’t have a shirt. Dirty sweat accentuates his muscles and his bones, and his hair’s unkempt and shadowing his eyes. He has a feral, almost mystical appearance in the trees, like a reindeer standing on his two hind legs.
    Wingnut barks and it’s embarrassing, offensive.
    “Quiet,” Henry says. “Stop. Settle down.”
    He ties the leash around a tree and walks across the clearing. Sam advances several steps but doesn’t leave the shade.
    Henry greets him with a nod, moving in a hunch. When he’s close enough to talk, he draws a breath and straightens up, lungs so full he feels the pressure in his ribs. They’ve never met before—Henry always missed him on the route—and it suddenly occurs to him that Sam might be wondering who he is. He’d gone to Laura’s funeral and sat in the back with Ava, convinced he ought to be there but terrified he’d make matters worse if people noticed. He snuck out early, having stared throughout the service at the back of Sam’s head until the light played tricks and he could almost see an aura.
    “I’m Henry Cooper.”
    Sam blinks but the blink looks purposeful and slow. “What do you want?”
    Henry’s at a loss. He’s been picturing the pale young man that he remembered, scorched around the eyes and fragile to the touch, but here he is now, vigorous and lean, with a strong, ruddy sweat and brandishing an ax.
    What’s the question? What does he want ? Henry shakes his head until he can’t really see and says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I had to see you, I had to say that, I could kill myself, I’m so sorry.”
    Sam retreats half a step, leery of the outburst. He double-grips the ax, opening his stance. Wingnut barks, only once but with a comical effect, like a hiccup, and yet it doesn’t seem to register with Sam, not at all.
    “Was it an accident?” he asks.
    “Was it … my God, of course it was,” Henry says. “I didn’t know she was home. I’d have run right in. I tried to and fell, they wouldn’t let me…” and he stops, looking down at the dark crust of mud ruining his sneakers.
    “You’ll have to live with it,” Sam says.
    A cicada buzzes, right in Henry’s brain, followed by the far-off stutter of a nuthatch. Ten or twenty seconds and the lull could be forever, stronger than whatever they could do to break away.
    “What are you doing out here?” Henry asks, so faintly that he wonders if his words are even audible. When Sam doesn’t answer, Henry looks at him and says, “I’ll do anything you need. Anything at all.”
    “I want you to go.”
    Henry slumps from the inside out. It’s like his blood’s given up, barely pumping anymore. He reaches into his pocket and hands Sam a card with his phone number written in permanent marker.
    “Call me day or night,” he says. “Even if it’s twenty years from now.”
    Sam takes the card and holds it at his side, looking like he might just drop it in the leaves. Henry starts to go.
    Sam says, “Wait,” and then he pauses there, expressionless, long after Henry turns to look at him again.
    “Did you see her?” Sam asks.
    Henry nods, feeling ill.
    “Was she still alive?”
    “I don’t know,” Henry says. There’s a fracture in his