Bridge of Clay

“I always hear the crowd,” he said, “going crazy as he came from nowhere.”

* * *

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Soon he got up, and he got her up, too, and they made the mattress bed; they shoved the heavy plastic down and tucked it into the ground.

“Come on,” he said as they hit the lane, and the book was in beside him, the envelope still within.

They walked to the bottom of Archer Street, onto Poseidon Road.

During the movie she held his hand, but now she did what she used to do, when first they’d come to be friends; she linked her arm through his. He smiled and didn’t worry. There was no thought of looking like an old couple, or any such misunderstanding. She did such unusual things.

And there were streets so known, and storied—like Empire, Chatham, and Tulloch—and places they’d gone the first time, up further, like Bobby’s Lane. At one point they passed a barber’s shop, with a name they knew and loved; but all of it led to Bernborough, where the moon hung into the grass.

On the straight he opened the book.

She was up a few meters ahead.

It was somewhere close to the finish line, when he called to her, “Hey, Carey.”

She swiveled, but did it slowly.

He caught up and gave her the envelope.

She studied it down in her palm.

She read her name out, out loud, and on the red rubber track at Bernborough, she’d somehow made her comeback:

He caught the glint of sea glass.

“Is this your father’s writing?”

Clay nodded but didn’t speak, and she opened the thin white package, and looked at the photo within

. I imagine what she must have thought, too—thoughts like beautiful or magnificent or I wish I could be there to see you like that—but for now all she did was hold it, then pass it slowly to him.

Her hand, it slightly wavered.

“You,” she whispered, and “the bridge.”

As spring turned into summer, it was life in tracks of two.

There was running, there was living.

There was discipline, perfect idiots.

At home we were almost rudderless; there was always something to argue for, or laugh about, and sometimes both, parallel.

In the racing quarter it was different:

When we ran, we knew where we were.

It was really the perfect blend, I guess, of love in the time of chaos, love in the time of control; we were pulled each way, between them.

* * *

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