but wiping his eyes, looking at his phone. And when it was time for his refill, she approached him carefully. Poured. Asked if he was okay. And he told her he was fine. He’d be fine. It was just that he and his wife had thought their young son was sick, really sick, and his wife had texted him from the hospital and told him the tests finally came back clear. He was crying from relief. He’d been at the hospital with them early that morning and only left to open the hardware store, to keep it open. And he’d given himself ten minutes to take a break, to come over and have a cup of coffee. He hadn’t had a day off in months, he said. He said his wife couldn’t call him yet, but she would soon. He said his wife and son would be going home. He couldn’t stop talking to her in that booth and she loved it. She sat across from him for a little bit, took her break right there with him and listened to him talk about his son, show her pictures. She’d miss him most of all when she left. She had to leave. It was how she’d stay unknown.
But she told herself she wouldn’t leave until the trucker stopped back in for the third time that month. And when he stopped back in for the third time, she’d tell him something she hadn’t ever told anyone else and then she’d leave. On the last day of the month with the clock almost running out, he stopped in. Passing through. She asked if he would mind if she took her break with him. Asked him if he’d like to get a booth with her. He said yes.
He was surprised she knew how to drive a stick shift. He liked that she was from Kentucky. He asked if she’d grown up riding horses. They talked about Neil Young and how she always listened to Harvest Moon when the harvest moon was full. A superstition. He said he’d start doing it too and think of her. For good luck. She asked him to show her his truck and when they went outside to stand next to it, she put her hand on his stomach. Touched him, gently. Told him she loved the desert towns, that she was still waiting for that magic kiss. And she cupped her hand around his ear and like she promised herself, she told him a secret. Something she’d never told anyone else. His beard was brushing against her face—soft soft soft—when he was squeezing and hugging her, so sweet and tight.
Low, Small
We were a dying wasp. The only thing I still liked about him was the shape of his nose when he was looking down. Not enough. He would get his words twisted around when he was upset. He’d say gold bright instead of bright gold. Light the turn on instead of turn the light on. Tiny things, which kept his anger small. Small. In bed I curled into a catlike C, tightened myself to the edge. I was on a boat lost at sea—there was fog, there was rain. I made a C, I was lost at sea, I couldn’t see. He was careful not to touch me, afraid I would scream. There were nights when I would’ve screamed and other nights when I would’ve let out an ocean-water sigh, a beckon, a beacon of sound. Low, small. When he came inside from cutting the grass, my husband wove a thick ribbon of good-stinky animal musk from the back door to the bedroom, from the bedroom to the shower. It was leathery, whiskey and wood. Beard and muscle, it was breath and sweat; it was a swallowing shadow of man and men. A darkening cloud, a cup emptying and filling up. His hulking enormity, made slight. It brought me back to him—a smoky, creepy, long, sharp-nailed cartoon finger. I met him in the hallway and told him our love was decoration. We wore it like jewelry, slipped the thin posts into the holes in our ears, slid slim goldbright bands over our wrinkly knuckles. We were deep-green parsley on a runny-yellow dinner plate. Garnish. I took his rough hand. Led him to the teeming backyard gardens where the bees hung and swung. Hovered low, small. “Our love is sad. We need to grow it,” I said, stretching my arms wide, wider. Widest. Titchy fireflies winked neon light around