Bridge of Clay

A few weeks later, they left.

* * *

—

Yes, they packed and headed for the city, and how do you sum up four years of apparent, idyllic happiness? If Penny Dunbar was good at using a part to tell the whole, these were parts that remained only that—just fragments and drifting moments:

They drove eleven hours, till they saw the rising skyline.

They pulled over and watched the length of it, and Abbey stood up on the hood.

They drove onwards till they were in it, and part of it, and the girl was in her commerce degree, and Michael was painting and sculpting, surviving the surrounding geniuses.

They both worked part-time jobs:

One serving drinks in a nightclub.

The other as a laborer, on construction sites.

At night, they’d fall into bed, and each other.

There were pieces, given and taken.

Season after season.

Year after year.

Now and then, on afternoons, they ate fish-’n’-chips at the beach, and watched the seagulls appear, like magic, like rabbits out of hats. They felt the myriad sea breezes, each one different from the last, and the weight of heat and humidity. Sometimes they’d just sit there, as a giant black cloud floate

d in, like the mother ship, and then run in its oncoming rain. It was rain that fell like a city itself, with the coast-long nighttime southerly.

It was milestones, too, and birthdays, and one in particular, when she gave him a book—a beautiful hardcover with bronze lettering—called The Quarryman, and Michael staying up reading, while she slept against his legs. Always, before he closed it, he’d go again to the front, to the author’s short biography, where below, midpage, she’d written:

For Michael Dunbar—the only one

I love, and love

and love.

From Abbey

And of course, not long after, it was going home to get married on a still spring day with the crows aaring outside, like inland pirates:

Abbey’s mother sobbed happily in the front pew.

Her father traded a worn work singlet for a suit.

Adelle Dunbar sat with the good doctor, eyes glowing behind some brand-new blue-rimmed glasses.

It was Abbey crying herself that day, all wet, white dress and smoky.

It was Michael Dunbar as a younger man, carrying her out into sunshine.

It was driving back, a few days later, and stopping halfway, where the river was awesome, something insane, raging downstream—a river with a strange name, but a name they loved—the Amahnu.

It was lying there, under a tree, her hair itching him, and him not moving it, ever, and Abbey telling him she’d love to come back; and Michael saying, “Of course—we’ll make money, and build a house, and come here whenever we want.”

It was Abbey and Michael Dunbar: