Lees meerGeorge: Well, you got no place to go. I’ll tell you what your problem is, you brought your queen out too fast. What do you think? She’s one of these feminists looking to get out of the house? No, the queen is old fashioned. Likes to stay home. Cook. Take care of her man. Make sure he feels good.
Liz: Checkmate.
George: I don’t think we should see each other any more.
Lees meerRob: You could have a costume drama here, couldn’t you?
Steve: I would just love to do a costume drama in these hills, leaping, vaulting over dry stone walls with a scabbard, with that dead look in my eyes, ‘cause I’ve seen so many horrors that I’m sort of immune to them, and they always say something like, “Gentlemen, to bed! For we leave at first light. Tomorrow we battle, and we may lose our lives. But remember: death is but a moment. Cowardice is a lifetime of affliction.”
Rob: Nice.
Steve: To bed, for we rise at daybreak!
Rob: Very good. Very impressive.
Steve: But they always leave at daybreak. They never leave at, you know, nine-thirty. “Gentlemen to bed, for we leave at nine-thirty!”
Rob: Ish.
Steve: Ish. “Gentlemen to bed, for we rise at… What time is the battle? About, oh, twelve o’clock? Twelve o’clock. How is it on horseback, about three hours? So we leave about eight, eight-thirty?”
Rob: Eight-thirty for nine.
Steve: “Gentlemen, to bed! For we leave at eight-thirty for nine. And we rise at just after day- seven-thirty, so just after daybreak. Gentlemen to bed, for we leave at nine-thirty on the dot. On the dot.”
Lees meer“I will,” I say. I stand there wanting to say something else. But I don’t know what. We keep looking at each other, trying to smile and reassure each other. Then something comes into her eyes, and I believe she is thinking about the highway and how far she is going to have to drive that day. She takes her eyes off me and looks down the road. Then she rolls her window up, puts the car into gear, and drives to the intersection, where she has to wait for the light to change. When I see she’s made it into traffic and headed towards the highway, I go back in the house and drink some coffee. I feel sad for a while, and then the sadness goes away and I start thinking about other things.
Lees meerWhat came into my head right then was the memory of those nights when Jane would have her dreams. Sometimes the dreams would infect me, too. I’d wake up screaming along with her, almost seeing that man with us in the room, knowing just a thin second stood between a hammer or a hatchet and the back of my head. She’d get up, cut the lights on, check the closets, under the bed, and I’d get up and do it with her, and not because she asked me to. When we finally got back under the covers, we’d stay up a long while in the dark, half sleeping, hearts going, conscious of all the places in our house where we hadn’t thought to look.
Lees meerYou gotta go where the story takes you, Lisa