Living Dead Girl (23 page)
“Whatever you want,” she says. She leans in and kisses me on the forehead, and I realize for the first time what it feels like to have a friend, to have someone who loves you despite it all. “Just be still for me.”
I close my eyes and Molly is there.
She is asleep on the couch in the living room.
A fire burns in the hearth and the room smells like smoke and hemlock cones. I sit down beside her and put my hand on her cheek. Her skin feels smooth and warm and she opens her eyes and says that she was dreaming of me, that we were back in college.
I lift her up from the waist and hold her close, her body is so warm, and I kiss her hair and I tell her to go back to sleep, baby, just sleep. I stroke her neck and along her back and I whisper that she is as beautiful as the first time I ever saw her, that her lips are like velvet, that she has never been less than the greatest part of my life, that we’d always have time to dream, that I’m sorry, that we would always find a place to love each other, that I’d never stop.
I kiss her forehead and her cheeks and her lips and her neck and I know she is dead and that I am lost, and I kiss her mouth again and say take care of our babies, tell them that I love them, that they are blessed, that they have nothing to be afraid of. Just sleep, baby, just sleep. I’m going to hold you forever, until time doesn’t
matter, until we are nothing but dust, until the earth, the sun, the moon are gone and there is no memory of us. I will still hold you.
I set her back down on the couch and stare long into her face. She is asleep again, so I take her face into my hands once more and run my thumb over her eyes and say that we wasted so many moments on madness, that all I wanted to do was sit in our clearing in the forest beneath the sunshine talking about the future, holding on to each other, rocking back and forth, never giving up hope, never letting go of the truth, and she was asleep and I crawled in beside her and pressed myself close to her, until I could only hear her breath, could only feel her heartbeat, and I know I can’t bring her back. And then she’s sitting up and smiling and we are holding hands and it’s ten years ago and we are children, just kids, dumb in love and happy. And then I know that I’m in shock, that nothing is right, that I’ve found the truth, that I found my wife, that truth is slipping, that I am slipping, that Molly’s slipping, that she’s gone, that we’re gone.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the many wonderful people who helped make the publication of this book possible. Foremost, I wish to thank
uber-agent
Jennie Dunham, who tells me and tells me but never says I told you so, for her in-depth reconstruction of this novel; Tom Filer for his passion, wisdom, and honesty; Judi Farkas for her unyielding faith and belief in my work and her uncanny ability to get it in the right hands; Mary Yukari Waters who told me to ground it and then I’d be on to something; all of Goat Alley for suffering through the rough drafts and the false starts and for telling me everything I didn’t want to hear and, certainly, Juris Jurjevics for shepherding this book and for having confidence enough to change it and to publish it. I was inspired by the works of anthropologists like Robert Trivers and Helen Fisher, particularly
on the topic of reciprocal altruism; however, I am neither an anthropologist nor a doctor, so errors in either anthropology or medicine belong strictly to my desire to manipulate both for my fictional desires.
Thank you also to the fine people at Soho Press for bringing this book back into print after a long time away, particularly Ailen Lujo who first suggested it, and Bronwen Hruska, for making it happen.
It is with great affection that I thank Nana and Papa Dave for bringing us all to The Lake. Much of this was written while remembering the precious hours Papa Dave spent on the water with me talking about life and death and about what happens to the people you love. I wish he were here to see this. And now, a decade since its original release, I am so pleased Nana was able to hold it in her hands for so many years.
Finally, I am blessed by Wendy. I wrote this book for you.
O
THER
T
ITLES IN THE
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OHO
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RIME
S
ERIES
Quentin Bates
(Iceland)
Frozen Assets
Cold Comfort
Cheryl Benard
(Pakistan)
Moghul Buffet
James R. Benn
(World War II Europe)
Billy Boyle
The First Wave
Blood Alone
Evil for Evil
Rag & Bone
A Mortal Terror
Death’s Door
Cara Black
(Paris, France)
Murder in the Marais
Murder in Belleville
Murder in the Sentier
Murder in the Bastille
Murder in Clichy
Murder in Montmartre
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis
Murder in the Rue de Paradis
Murder in the Latin Quarter
Murder in the Palais Royal
Murder in Passy
Murder at the Lanterne Rouge
Murder Below Montparnasse
Grace Brophy
(Italy)
The Last Enemy
A Deadly Paradise
Henry Chang
(Chinatown)
Chinatown Beat
Year of the Dog
Red Jade
Colin Cotterill
(Laos)
The Coroner’s Lunch
Thirty-Three Teeth
Disco for the Departed
Anarchy and Old Dogs
Curse of the Pogo Stick
The Merry Misogynist
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave
Slash and Burn
The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die
Garry Disher
(Australia)
The Dragon Man
Kittyhawk Down
Snapshot
Chain of Evidence
Blood Moon
Wyatt
Whispering Death
Port Vila Blues
David Downing
(World War II Germany)
Zoo Station
Silesian Station
Stettin Station
Potsdam Station
Lehrter Station
Masaryk Station
Leighton Gage
(Brazil)
Blood of the Wicked
Buried Strangers
Dying Gasp
Every Bitter Thing
A Vine in the Blood
Perfect Hatred
Michael Genelin
(Slovakia)
Siren of the Waters
Dark Dreams
The Magician’s Accomplice
Requiem for a Gypsy
Adrian Hyland
(Australia)
Moonlight Downs
Gunshot Road
Stan Jones
(Alaska)
White Sky, Black Ice
Shaman Pass
Village of the Ghost Bears
Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis
(Denmark)
The Boy in the Suitcase
Invisible Murder
Graeme Kent
(Solomon Islands)
Devil-Devil
One Blood
Martin Limón
(South Korea)
Jade Lady Burning
Slicky Boys
Buddha’s Money
The Door to Bitterness
The Wandering Ghost
G.I. Bones
Mr. Kill
The Joy Brigade
Peter Lovesey
(Bath, England)