R J Hembree - Writers' Village University

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42 A t the break of dawn, before Bill Mundle roused his daughter, he stood over her bed and watched the light drop, moth-like, upon her face and sip from the shadowed pools beneath her eyes. Sometime during the night she’d kicked the comforter to the floor and now lay huddled beneath a thin blanket, her spine curled and her knees tucked into her stomach. One hand was hidden beneath the pillow, the other fisted inches from her mouth. Her hair flowed gold against the sheets. “Annie?” He stood amidst a haphazard collection of stuffed animals, teen magazines, and paperback romance novels. He suspected that she’d hidden a message to him in this mess, a message he had yet to decipher. He looked at the chaos surrounding his daughter and almost changed his mind. Then he remembered how often he'd found an excuse to postpone this trip and he knew his weakness had made his family vulnerable. “Get up, Annie.” Her legs kicked under the sheet. The tip of a fuzzy sock popped into view at the bottom of the bed. “What for?” she mumbled. “We’re going for a ride.” He placed a warm egg sandwich wrapped in a napkin next to her nose. Her eyes popped opened. When he left, she was seated upright on the edge of the mattress, her feet planted in the shag carpet, her hair mussed, and the sandwich clutched like a stone in her hand. He found his wife lying on the bed in the guestroom, shrouded with blankets. He went to the window and raised the shade. The vestiges of a late frost lay like glass splinters on the lawn. “Time to get up, Rachel.” He turned away from the window and flicked the light switch on his way out of the room. In the master bedroom, he put on a flannel jacket, checked his wallet for cash before shoving it into the inside pocket, and made the bed. Rachel’s scent lingered faintly in the sheets. He placed the pillows side by side so that they touched. Annie appeared in the doorway. She wore a pair of hipsters and a sweatshirt with “WHATEVER” printed across front in scrawling red script. A thin wire ran from the earphones she’d slung around her neck to the i-Pod clipped to a belt loop
of her jeans. She glanced at the bed. Her face paled until the freckles across the bridge of her nose stood out like tiny pinpricks. “You guys gonna get a divorce?” Stuffing his keys in his pocket, he walked past her into the hall. “’Cause if you do, I want to stay with you,” Annie called after him. “Wait in the car. I’ll get your mother.” Route 29 ran southeast from Lambertville to Trenton. Flanked by the Delaware River on one side and the outskirts of the city on the other, it slipped beneath Skudder Falls Bridge and past The Calhoun Street Bridge before it expanded into three lanes and entered the business district of the city. As Bill drove towards Trenton, the morning light cast the clapboard siding of Trenton’s oldest homes in silken tones of gray and the homes took on a nostalgic aura that soothed the desperation from the neighborhood. Bill soaked up the illusion and tried to ignore the space between himself and his wife. Half way across the Calhoun Street Bridge, Annie’s face appeared inches from his own. Her head bobbed in time to the thrum of rubber on steel. “Cool. I can see straight down into the river. Think we’ll fall?” “It hasn’t fallen, yet.” “It’ll fall someday.” “Not today.” “Says you,” Annie sat back. A heavy staccato beat drifted from the back seat. “That better not be rap,” he warned. “Everything else sucks.” Gritting his teeth, Bill leaned forward and adjusted the heat. His gaze skimmed Rachel’s lap. Her hands rested there, palms down. As the jeep cleared the bridge and swerved onto River Road, she turned and gave him a long, searching look. River Road followed the shore of the river along the Pennsylvania side. From this side of the Delaware the state museum stood in silhouette against a colorless sky. Beneath it, the dome of the planetarium sat like an inverted cereal bowl. As they left the bridge behind, they entered the old Pennsylvania suburbs and saw many stone-faced mansions with multi-leveled roof lines. The homes sat far back from the road, fronted by deep lawns and onyx driveways that bumped against three-car garages or slipped out of sight behind expensive landscaping. fists. “Everything looks so perfect,” Rachel said. “It’s an illusion.” “I know that.” Her shoulders sagged and her hands shriveled into two small “I miss you.” The word escaped from him before he could stop them. He 43
Page 2 and 3: RJ Hembree - Publisher & Editor-In-
Page 4 and 5: 4 She glides slowly at first, this
Page 7 and 8: I am trying to write, to work. I dr
Page 9 and 10: Chicano at a private school in New
Page 11 and 12: give a damn what anyone else thinks
Page 13 and 14: them to some internal revelation wh
Page 15 and 16: Sergio Troncoso, philosopher, econo
Page 17 and 18: ties years ago. It was a scandal, a
Page 19 and 20: disciplines. Do you feel it's a nat
Page 21 and 22: up.” “I’m cleaning! It’s sp
Page 23 and 24: “Have you been taking your medica
Page 25 and 26: was there? “You can’t live a no
Page 27 and 28: In his modest wooden stall Pir Gul
Page 29 and 30: When he was done with the vest, he
Page 31 and 32: On the outskirts of the farming vil
Page 33 and 34: down at him as he walked through th
Page 35 and 36: ight on you.” She still held his
Page 37 and 38: Dear M, I wanted to let you know I
Page 39 and 40: I hope you’re doing well. --K Dea
Page 41: Dad cried. He sat at his desk, crie
Page 45 and 46: the lacquer finish dulled as the wa
Page 47 and 48: “Do you think it just gave up and
Page 49 and 50: “Unlock the doors,” Bill ordere
Page 51 and 52: When I was asked to write an articl
Page 53 and 54: are important. You’ve only got to
Page 55: If you want to earn some serious mo

R J Hembree - Writers' Village University

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