Read Thief River Falls for Free Online Page B

bones.
    It was the middle of the night, but Denis got dressed for the workday. He wasn’t going to sleep again. Throughout his life, he’d carefully laid out his clothes for the next day before getting into bed, so his suit was waiting for him. He put on a blue Arrow shirt and wool dress slacks, and he knotted a paisley tie carefully at his neck. He sat down on the bed and bent over with difficulty to tie the laces on his brown leather shoes, and then he slipped his arms into the sleeves of his suit coat. In the bathroom, he tried to tame his hair with a brush. These were the routines that shaped his life day after day, and right now, they were the only thing keeping him sane.
    Denis used the railing on the steps to help him as he limped downstairs. The house was cold. The lights weren’t on in the living room,but there was enough of a moon to show him Gillian’s silhouette in an armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on the backyard. Like him, she was dressed. Her posture was rigid. He spotted a glint of crystal in her hand, which was the last thing he wanted to see. It meant she was drinking again. Ten years ago, she’d nearly drunk herself to death before finally emerging from her downward spiral, and since then, not a drop had crossed her lips. Now the bottle was open again, and there was no such thing as a little slip with Gillian. She’d made the decision, knowing what it meant.
    “You couldn’t sleep?” he murmured in the darkness.
    “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.” Her voice was harsh.
    “Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”
    He heard the clink of ice cubes as she finished her drink. Languidly, she reached to a bottle of gin on the end table and refilled her glass. It was as if she was daring him to say something, to try to stop her. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t hate what was happening to her, even if he understood the reasons.
    “Drinking isn’t the answer,” he said.
    “Really? Because I think it’s the only answer.”
    “I can take away the bottle, Gillian. Pour it out. I can make sure no one in this town sells you anything. You know that.”
    “Go ahead.”
    They both knew it was a hollow threat. Yes, he could try to choke off her supply, but she had her ways around that. The last time, every liquor store in Thief River Falls had been under strict orders to keep the booze away from Gillian Farrell, but regardless, he would find the recycling bin stocked every week with the broken glass of half a dozen empty bottles.
    “You’re not just hurting yourself by doing this,” he said.
    “Oh, I’m sorry. Is this hard on you, Denis? Forgive me.” The sarcasm in her voice was as hot and sharp as the knife in his dream.
    “You can’t blame me for what happened.”
    “I never said I did.”
    “No? You’re acting that way.”
    “As usual, you make everything about you. This has nothing to do with you.”
    “It wasn’t my fault,” he reiterated. “I did everything I could. We both did. In the end, this was up to God.”
    “Don’t talk to me about God ,” his wife snapped. “I don’t want to hear about him. Maybe you think you’re closer than everyone else, but you’re not, are you? All that power over life and death, Denis, and in the end, you’re just as impotent as the rest of us.”
    He shook his head in frustration. “You’re not the only one grieving, Gillian. Don’t you realize I’m as devastated by this as you are?”
    “You? Devastated? When has that ever been the case? You’d have to be human, Denis. You’d have to have emotions.”
    “That’s terribly unfair.”
    Gillian took another long drink before answering. “Honestly, I don’t care about being fair right now.”
    Denis knew there was no point in arguing with her. She was drunk and going to stay that way. He left her alone with her bottle of gin, and he limped down the hallway to his sanctuary, his library, his office. It was a big room with dark furniture and dark carpet, and it