(Another) Bullet in the Brain
When she saw the line at the bank, snaking all the way back to the deposit-slip island, the afternoon splintered around her and all the things that had seemed possible now seemed impossible. Now there was no way she’d make it to the grocery store before she had to pick up the kids from school. This meant she would have to take the kids with her to the grocery store, which would make the trip twice as long, which meant she would not get home early enough to take the dog on a reasonable walk but would only walk him around the yard long enough to pee, which meant he’d be riled up all night, and even with the around-the-yard walk she’d still need 15 minutes to put the groceries away and would not start dinner until probably 5:30, and even if the kids started on their homework while dinner was in the oven they would need help with their reading journals after dinner, thus pushing back bath time until as late as 8:00, which meant wet hair, which meant no bed before 8:45 at the earliest, and then the requisite up-and-down-can-i-have-a-goddamn-glass-of-water continuing until 9:30, at which point she was supposed to call her sister — her long suffering sister who was battling breast cancer (early stage, great prognosis, but still) with her characteristic good cheer — and she could not bear the thought of that phone call so late, all that cancer-ridden good cheer right before bed, could not imagine how she’d be able to respond with anything other than grunts and sighs and didn’t her sister deserve more? And then — still more! — another phone call, from wherever he was (Boston maybe?), and a recap of his day, some visit to some investment property, he on his bed in a hotel, the TV on mute, his clothes for tomorrow laid out across the easy chair like another man, watching him, waiting for him to get off the phone.
Why wet hair? The hair dryer was broken. Two weeks before she’d plugged it in and a little spark had popped from the outlet in surprise. And she had not had time to get a new hair dryer.
So she paused, for a moment only, literally for somewhere between one and two seconds, maybe even mid-step, considering the possibility of skipping the bank, not depositing the checks until the following day, saving that time, getting to the grocery store, walking the dog, making dinner and helping with homework and timely baths and enough energy to not be a total drain on her sister, a downer to her husband. She saw that day, believed it possible again for 1.64 seconds, during which time she easily could have taken another step, thereby removing herself from the direct path of the indifferent bullet which at that moment was dislodging itself from the barrel of a gun 18 yards to her immediate right and .27 seconds later lodging itself in her head.
Here is what she did not remember. She did not remember the time, at summer camp, when the girl from her cabin disappeared and was found on the rocky shore of Indian Creek two days later wearing nothing but her shoes. She did not remember that night sophomore year, the first time she saw him, walking a service dog through the crowded cafeteria, his lips whispering praise as the dog kept in step, both man and dog undeterred by the chaos that surrounded them. She did not remember slow decline of her beloved father, who forgot all the rules to gin rummy every night and had to be re-taught the game every morning. She did not remember the birth of her children, the cross-country trip with her sister, the mailman delivering flowers from a stranger.
What she remembered was the heat, the whine, the vibration, the thing like a gun in her hand pointed towards the head of her son, his dripping hair, his pruned fingers, his eyes closed, his frog towel slipping from his narrow shoulders. She catches the towel as it falls, holds it awkwardly in place with her left hand, pressed against his back. If she had the time she would wrap him in it, but this, for now, will have to do.
