Read If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This for Free Online Page B

into the lymph nodes. One doctor spoke about saving the breasts and I said, Just do whatever will make this stop. I don’t give a shit about my breasts.
    New questions arise:
    Just how many fifths of scotch were the two of us going through every week?
    We tried not to count them in the recycling bin. And eventually we began to throw a couple of bottles into the garbage cans instead, split them up. Maybe Sam would take a bottle or two in the car and dump them somewhere else. It’s almost funny.
    We were drunk the night we realized Todd would have to be moved. In vino veritas . In whiskey are decisions born.
    Is this the brave thing to do or the coward’s way out?
    Sam said, I don’t know, honey. I just know it’s what has to happen to now. And so do you.
    L awrence House. It’s a low-lying building filled with heartbreaks, amongst whom my son looks like part of a crowd. And people like me and like Sam pass one another with guilty looks on our faces. The first year, I went to see him just when I was well enough. The second year, there was no sign of spread. I was off chemo and I went almost every day.
    Maybe we could bring him home, I said to Sam. We managed before and I’m feeling fine now. He could come back.
    Sam’s voice was quiet. He said, I don’t know if that’s something we should do. Remember how the two of you used to struggle? You were covered with bruises, Ruth. You couldn’t handle him at all.
    Well, let’s think about it anyway. Let’s just not say that we won’t.
    Okay. If you want. We won’t say that we won’t.
    S am deals the cards, counting quietly to himself. We’ve kept the same deck beside Todd’s bed for all these years.
    Fives? I ask.
    Go fish.
    So I draw from the pile.
    No, I say. Not a five. It’s your turn.
    I look over at our boy. He is staring somewhere else.
    M y son is eighteen years old. His head is covered with thick black curls like my own used to be and his eyes are the same bright blue as Sam’s. He would have been a very handsome man. He would have been something wonderful, I’m convinced. But for the travels of a blood clot to his brain, while he burrowed small and silenced in my womb.
III.
    It’s been two months now since your six-foot fence went up. Two months, more or less. From my bed, I can hear your children playing on the other side. Sometimes I turn the television up louder just to drown them out. It’s a terrible thing to feel yourself hate a child.
    Sam didn’t want to go to work today but I argued him out through the door.
    Nothing will be improved by you losing your job, I said.
    He drives my car these days. It was always the more dependable one. It’s parked down the drive, near the street, of course—thanks to you. His is stowed in our garage. He argued when I first told him he should take my keys. We went through the game of my telling him not to be silly; it would just be until I felt stronger. It wasn’t a big decision at all. Stop being ridiculous, I said. You look like you’re murdering me. It’s just the better car. You should use it while I can’t. I’ll be taking it back soon enough.
    And so he gave in.
    I know that you go to work a little after he leaves—I hear your car door, the ignition. I know the hours you keep, can predict when you’ll come home. And I know you have a wife. A friend who visits me, brings us food, brings me gossip, has told me that your wife is very pretty, slender and naturally blond, in her thirties. She stands on the corner in the mornings and puts your daughter on the bus. Then an older woman comes in and watches your little boy, while your wife keeps herself busy, though no one in the neighborhood knows exactly what she does.
    There are speculations about you. The new family on the block. There are rumors that you’re putting in a pool. But winter is coming now, I know, and it isn’t the right time. Maybe in April, when the world has thawed again so the ground will be soft enough to dig.
    S am drives out