Mud Vein by Tarryn Fisher Read Free Book Online

is hiding behind a hedge. I am so fucked up.
     
    “Need help?”
    I look over my shoulder and see Isaac. I’d sent him upstairs to take a nap. He looks rested. Surgeons are used to the lack of sleep. He’s taken a shower and his hair is still wet.
    “Sure.” I point to the remaining potato and he picks up a knife.
    “Feels like old times,” I half smile. “Except I’m not catatonic and you don’t have that perpetually worried look on your face.”
    “Don’t I? This situation is kind of dire.”
    I put my knife down. “No, actually. You look calm. Why is that?”
    “Acceptance. Embrace the suck.”
    “Really?”
    I feel his smile. Across the two feet of air between us and a sink speckled with new potato skins. For a minute my chest constricts, then the peeling is done and he moves away, taking his soap smell with him.
    I have a need to know where a person is in a room at all times. I hear him in the fridge, he crosses the room, sits down at the table. By the noises he’s making I can tell that he has two glasses and a bottle of something. I wash my hands and turn away from the sink.
    He is sitting at the table with a bottle of whiskey in his hands.
    My mouth drops open. “Where did you find that?”
    He grins. “Back of the pantry behind a container of croutons.”
    “I hate croutons.”
    He nods like I’ve said something profound.
    We take our first shot as the meat is simmering in the skillet. I think it’s deer. Isaac says it’s cow. It really doesn’t matter since this sort of situation steals most of your appetite. We don’t really taste anything—deer or cow.
    We both pretend that the drinking is fun instead of a necessity to cope. We click glasses and avoid eye contact. It feels like a game; click your glass, shoot whiskey, stare at the wall with a stiff smile. We eat our meal in near silence, faces hanging like limp sunflowers over our plates. So much for fun. We are coping willy-nilly. Tonight it’s with whiskey. Tomorrow it might be with sleep.
     
    When we are finished, Isaac clears the table and washes our plates. I stay where I am, stretching my arm across the wood and resting my head on the table to watch him. My head is spinning from the whiskey and my eyes are watering. Not watering. Crying. You’re not crying, Senna. You don’t know how.
    “Senna?” Isaac dries his hands on a dishtowel and straddles the bench to face me. “You’re leaking fluid otherwise known as tears. Are you aware of this?”
    I sniff pathetically. “I just hate croutons so much…”
    He clears his throat and squashes a smile.
    “As your doctor I’d advise you to sit up.”
    I sniff and straighten myself until I am in a sort of upright slump.
    We are both straddling the bench, now, facing each other. Isaac reaches out both thumbs and uses them to clear my cheeks of tears. He stops when he is cupping my face between his hands.
    “It hurts me when you cry.” His voice is so earnest, so open. I can’t speak like this. Everything I say sounds sterile and robotic.
    I try to look away, but he holds my face so that I can’t move. I don’t like being this close to him. He starts seeping into my pores. It tingles.
    “I’m crying, but I don’t feel anything,” I assure him.
    He pulls his lips into a tight line and nods.
    “Yes, I know. That’s what hurts me the most.”

After the deal with the F. Cayley print, I take inventory of everything in the house. We could be missing something. I wish I had a pen, some paper, but our single Bic ran out of ink a long time ago… so I have to use my good ol’ memory for this one.
    There are sixty-three books scattered throughout the house. I’ve picked up each one, flipped through the pages, touched the numbers at the top right corners. I started reading two of them—both classics that I’ve already read—but I can’t get my mind to focus. I have twenty-three light, colorful sweaters, six pairs of jeans, six pairs of sweatpants, twelve pairs of socks,