Wish You Were Here by Stewart O’Nan Read Free Book Online

were playing, and suddenly fall seemed that much closer. Arlene said the chance of rain tomorrow was thirty percent. His mother was worried about Meg.
    â€œIt’s six o’clock,” she said. “Don’t you think we ought to get dinner started? I imagine these kids are hungry.”
    â€œThere’s no rush,” Ken said.
    â€œWell I’m going to need something to eat soon.”
    â€œWhat are we having?”
    â€œWe were planning on hamburgers, if you can manage the grill.”
    â€œNot a problem,” he said, and went out to the garage, the screen slapping shut behind him. He was almost to the door when he slipped on one of the flat stones and fell hard on his bottom. “Son of a bitch,” he said, checking his wrist. The edge of one stone had gouged out a pale twist of skin but there was no blood. They were always slick; it had something to do with moss and condensation, the fact that the chestnut kept them in shadow most of the day. He was pissed that they’d tricked him again.
    He was still shaking his head at his own stupidity when he opened the garage door and saw the shot. The whole garage was stuffed with his father’s junk, and everywhere he looked he saw interesting collisions. He stopped automatically, wanting to run upstairs for the Nikon. The light was wrong, too soft to get the detail he wanted—the extension cord coiled in the enamel basin like some Far Eastern delicacy, the child’s life jacket protecting the jug of wiper fluid. But this was exactly the problem, according to Morgan: he had to stop building his shots.
    Tomorrow he’d bring just the Holga, leave the details to chance. He turned from the messy workbench and found the shallow grill and a bag of charcoal and dragged both out under the chestnut.
    They had an old electric charcoal starter, a loop of wire the size of a spatula on a black plastic handle. He plugged it into an extension cord running from the strip of outlets on his father’s workbench and piled the charcoal on top of it. While he waited for the wire to warm, he took an Iron City from the little fridge in the garage and stood there sippingand looking out at Sam and Ella on the dock, Rufus tucked between them. He wondered if they were happy, and thought at least they were happy to be out of the car, away from their parents. He could not help but see them as himself and Meg, sitting there thirty years ago, but what he and Meg would have discussed at that point—she thirteen and ready to leave, he so far behind at nine, snug in his own private world—he could not recall. The water made everything seem possible, as if they could cross it and begin a different life on the other side, shed the past and be those other people they’d dreamed of. Perhaps that was why his work was so dull: his desires had become practical when they needed to be extravagant.
    He tipped the bottle and checked the starter, glowing away under the coals, just beginning to smoke. Another five minutes. The Lerners’ was for sale, and as he was wondering what they were asking, the balance from the ATM came back and stung him, hovered and flitted off again. He would not be done with it until he looked at their checkbook. He took another sip and realized the beer was already working on him, and he remembered his father doing this, standing out here by himself, tumbler in hand. When it rained, he’d set up directly under the chestnut and the smoke would filter up through the leaves. Before his father, his grandfather Maxwell was in charge of the barbecue. Now it was his turn.
    The last sip was mostly air. He flipped the bottle and caught it in his palm like a gunfighter and went to get another. The interior of the little fridge impressed him in its simplicity, the beers he’d bought last year still vigilant, ranked shoulder to shoulder, the freezer compartment clogged with frost. He could see what the print would look like (another