The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier Read Free Book Online Page A

her teeth and reapply her lipstick. She looked herself over in the full-length mirror, kicking her leg up to tug a thread from her skirt, then smoothing a ruck out of the fabric. It was years since she had been on a date, and though he had already seen her at herworst, or at least what he must have presumed was her worst, high on narcotics and stained with her own blood, she said a prayer that if she presented herself to him with enough poise and self-possession she might erase that other woman from his mind.
    She returned to the living room just in time to see him taking the journal up from its spot on the walnut table. “What’s this?” he said.
    “That—it’s not mine.”
    He let the book fall open and read aloud the first lines that met his eyes:
I love the concavities behind your knees, as soft as the skin of a peach. I love how disgusted you get by purées: “Who would do that to a poor defenseless soup?” I love waking up on a wintry morning, opening the curtains, then crawling back under the covers with you and watching the snow fall
. “I know what this is,” he said. His voice quieted as he spoke. He shut the book and looked up at her. “An orderly told me you had this, but I told him it wasn’t possible. Carol Ann, Mr. Williford has been looking everywhere for this book.”
    “Wait. Mr. Williford?
Jason
Williford? But he died. He died in the accident.”
    The prickliness in his voice made her stomach tighten. “Obviously he
didn’t
die. Obviously if he had
died
he wouldn’t be phoning the hospital all day long asking if we’ve found his wife’s
book
yet.”
    “You don’t understand.”
    “You’re right about that.”
    “His wife asked me to take it. She said he was dead and she couldn’t bear to read it again. That’s what she said, those words exactly. I told her it wouldn’t be right, but then
she
died, too. Right there in front of me. I watched her go, and I thought it was what she would have wanted.”
    “Well—” He shook his head. “All that may be true, but I still have to tell him we’ve found it. Excuse me a minute,” and he tucked the journal protectively under his arm and flipped his phone open. Within seconds he was talking to someone at the hospital. “Hello, this is Dr. Alstadt. I need you to get a patient’s number for me. His name is Jason Williford. That’s Williford, spelled W-I-L-L … yes, that’s right. Thank you.” She tried hard to listen as he dialed the number, but the sound inside her head was so much louder than the sound outside that she could barely distinguish his voice. It was like a rainstorm beating against a tin roof, thousands of drops landing like little round stones, and by the time the storm faded, she was sitting next to him on the sofa and he was repeating her name, meeting her gaze while he cocked his head to the side. He waited until he was sure he had her attention before he said what he had to say.
    “Mr. Williford wants to come over right away. I gave him your address. He’s a mess, Carol Ann. I don’t know whether he plans to build a shrine to this thing or burn it,” he told her, brandishing the journal, “but one thing I’m sure of—if he’s ever going to move on, he needs it back.”
    He was silent for so long that she thought he might have finished, but eventually, pausing to take the weight of his words, he continued. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m sorry about that. I believe you when you say it was an accident, and I’m sure you never intended to hurt anyone. But you need to know that you’ve taken the most terrible month of this man’s life and made it that much worse.”
    He gave her hand a consoling squeeze. She felt as if he had slapped her face.
    For a while the two of them waited on the sofa. She thought,
This is not really happening
, and also,
In an hour this will already
have happened
, the same phrases she had found herself repeating as the orderly wheeled her onto the elevator to have her