Bark: Stories by Lorrie Moore Read Free Book Online

candle, like love, flickered—in the brass tops of the sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers. He tried to capture Zora’s gaze, which seemed to be darting around the room. “It’s so nice to be here with you,” he said. She turned and fixed him with a smile, repaired him with it. She was a gentle, lovely woman. Something in him kept coming stubbornly back to that. Here they were two lonely adults in a crazy world lucky to have found each other even if it was just for the time being. But now tears were drizzling down her face. Her mouth, collecting them in its corners, was retreating into a pinch.
    “Oh, no, what’s the matter?” He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away to hide her eyes behind it.
    “I just miss Bruny,” she said.
    He could feel his heart go cold, despite himself. Oh, well. Tomorrow was Easter. All would rise from the dead.
    “Don’t you think he’s fine?”
    “It’s just—I don’t know. It’s probably just me coming off my antidepressants.”
    “You’ve been on antidepressants?” he asked sympathetically.
    “Yes, I was.”
    “You were on them when I first met you?” Maybe he had wandered into a whole
Flowers for Algernon
thing.
    “Yes, indeedy. I went on them two years ago, after my so-called ‘nervous breakdown.’ ” And here she put two fingers in the air, to do quotation marks, but all of her fingers inadvertently sprang up and her hands clawed the air.
    He didn’t know what he should say. “Would you like me to take you home?”
    “No, no, no. Oh, maybe you should. I’m sorry. It’s just I feel I have so little time with him now. He’s growing up so fast. I just wish I could go back in time.” She blew her nose.
    “I know what you mean.”
    “You know, once I was listening to some friends talk about traveling in the Pacific. They left Australia early one morning and arrived in California the evening of the day before. And I thought, I’d like to do that—keep crossing the international date line and get all the way back to when Bruno was a little boy again.”
    “Yeah,” said Ira. “I’d like to get back to that moment where I signed my divorce agreement. I have a few changes I’d like to make.”
    “You’d have to bring a pen,” she said strangely.
    He studied her, to memorize her face. “I would never time-travel without a pen,” he said.
    She paused. “You look worried,” she said. “You shouldn’t do that with your forehead. It makes you look old.” Then she began to sob.
    He found her coat and took her home and walked her to the door. Above the house the hammered nickel of the moon gave off its murky shine. “It’s a hard time in the world right now,” Ira said. “It’s hard on everybody. Go in and make yourself a good stiff drink. People don’t drink the way they used to. That’s what started this whole Iraq thing to begin with: it’s a war of teetotalers. People have got to get off their wagons and their high horses and—” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, though he wouldn’t. She squeezed his arm and said, “Sleep well.” As he backed out of her driveway, he could see through her front bedroom window, where the TV was firing its colorful fire and Bruno was laid out in a shirtless stupor. Ira could see Zora come in, sit down, cuddle close to Bruno, put her arm around him, and rest her head on his shoulder.
    Ira brusquely swung the car away, down the street. Was this
his
problem? Was he too old-fashioned? He had always thought he was a modern man. He knew, for instance, how to stop and ask for directions! And he did it a lot! Of course, afterward, he would sometimes stare at the guy and say, “Who the hell told you that bullshit?”
    He had his limitations.
    He had not gone to a single seder this week, for which he was glad. It seemed a bad time to attend a ceremony that gavethanks in any way for the slaughter of Middle Eastern boys. He had done that last year. He headed instead to the nearest