He leaned and struggled to leave.
* * *
—
In the afternoon, he finally managed it, though, and walked the curves of Circular Quay; the clowns, a guitarist. The traditional didgeridoos.
The Manly ferry beckoned him.
The smell of hot chips nearly killed him.
He walked up to the railway, changed at Town Hall, then counted the stops and walked. He’d have crawled if he’d had to, to the racing quarter. There was one place, at least, he could go.
* * *
—
When he got there, way up on that hilltop, for the first time in a long time, he paid proper notice to the gravestone:
PENELOPE DUNBAR
A MANY-NAMED WOMAN:
the Mistake Maker, the Birthday Girl,
the Broken-Nosed Bride, and Penny
MUCH LOVED BY EVERYONE
BUT ESPECIALLY
THE DUNBAR BOYS
When he read it, he dropped to a crouch.
He smiled hardest at the last part, and our brother lay down, cheek-first on the ground, and he stayed there alone a long time. He cried silently, nearly an hour—
And these days, so often, I think of it, and I wish that I just could have been there. As the one who’d be next to beat him up, and bring him down, and punish him hard for his sins, I wish I’d somehow known everything.
I’d have held him, and quietly told him.
I’d have said to him, Clay, come home.
And so they’d be married.
Penelope Lesciuszko and Michael Dunbar.
In terms of time, it took approximately a year and seven months.
In other terms more difficult to measure, it was a garageful of portraits, and paintwork at the piano.
It was a right-hand turn and a car crash.
And a shape—the geometry of blood.
* * *
—