The mountain path had grown over with weeds and thistles and condoms and cans and inexplicable maxi-pads and doll parts.She clung to his hand as he pushed through it, stepping in brackish puddles and tripping in sink holes. He navigated the trail like a mountain goat, while Mimi lagged behind, tugging his arm every time she misstepped, jerking it painfully in its socket.He turned to her, ready to snap,Keep the fuck up, would you?and then swallowed the words. Her eyes were red-rimmed and scared, her full lips drawn down into a clown’s frown, bracketed by deep lines won by other moments of sorrow.He helped her beside him and turned his back on the mountain, faced the road and the town and the car with its trunk with its corpse with his brother, and he put an arm around her shoulders, a brotherly arm, and hugged her to him.“How’re you doing there?” he said, trying to make his voice light, though it came out so leaden the words nearly thudded in the wet dirt as they fell from his mouth.She looked into the dirt at their feet and he took her chin and turned her face up so that she was looking into his eyes, and he kissed her forehead in a brotherly way, like an older brother coming home with a long-lost sister.“I used to want to know all the secrets,” she said in the smallest voice. “I used to want to understand how the world worked. Little things, like heavy stuff goes at the bottom of the laundry bag, or big things, like the best way to get a boy to chase you is to ignore him, or medium things, like if you cut an onion under running water, your eyes won’t sting, and if you wash your fingers afterward with lemon-juice they won’t stink.“I used to want to know all the secrets, and every time I learned one, I felt like I’d taken—a step. On a journey. To a place. A destination: To be the kind of person who knew all this stuff, the way everyone around me seemed to know all this stuff. I thought that once I knew enough secrets, I’d be like them.“I don’t want to learn secrets anymore, Andrew.” She shrugged off his arm and took a faltering step down the slope, back toward the road.“I’ll wait in the car, okay?”“Mimi,” he said. He felt angry at her. How could she be so selfish as to have a crisisnow,here, at this place that meant so much to him?“Mimi,” he said, and swallowed his anger.
The mountain path had grown over with weeds and thistles and condoms and cans and inexplicable maxi-pads and doll parts.
She clung to his hand as he pushed through it, stepping in brackish puddles and tripping in sink holes. He navigated the trail like a mountain goat, while Mimi lagged behind, tugging his arm every time she misstepped, jerking it painfully in its socket.
He turned to her, ready to snap,Keep the fuck up, would you?and then swallowed the words. Her eyes were red-rimmed and scared, her full lips drawn down into a clown’s frown, bracketed by deep lines won by other moments of sorrow.
He helped her beside him and turned his back on the mountain, faced the road and the town and the car with its trunk with its corpse with his brother, and he put an arm around her shoulders, a brotherly arm, and hugged her to him.
“How’re you doing there?” he said, trying to make his voice light, though it came out so leaden the words nearly thudded in the wet dirt as they fell from his mouth.
She looked into the dirt at their feet and he took her chin and turned her face up so that she was looking into his eyes, and he kissed her forehead in a brotherly way, like an older brother coming home with a long-lost sister.
“I used to want to know all the secrets,” she said in the smallest voice. “I used to want to understand how the world worked. Little things, like heavy stuff goes at the bottom of the laundry bag, or big things, like the best way to get a boy to chase you is to ignore him, or medium things, like if you cut an onion under running water, your eyes won’t sting, and if you wash your fingers afterward with lemon-juice they won’t stink.
“I used to want to know all the secrets, and every time I learned one, I felt like I’d taken—a step. On a journey. To a place. A destination: To be the kind of person who knew all this stuff, the way everyone around me seemed to know all this stuff. I thought that once I knew enough secrets, I’d be like them.
“I don’t want to learn secrets anymore, Andrew.” She shrugged off his arm and took a faltering step down the slope, back toward the road.
“I’ll wait in the car, okay?”
“Mimi,” he said. He felt angry at her. How could she be so selfish as to have a crisisnow,here, at this place that meant so much to him?
“Mimi,” he said, and swallowed his anger.