The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories by Ethan Rutherford Page A

was coming heavier now.
    Thomas moved to her side and rubbed small circles at the base of her neck. A comforting, nonsexual gesture. She wasn’t used to the way he looked with a beard; it wasn’t him, he’d never worn one; and for the last two weeks it had been a surprise, always, when he entered rooms. Another surprise: just this morning, she’d caught him masturbating in the shower. He’d apologized through the glass. When she’d asked him, later, and playfully she thought, what he’d been thinking about, he’d said, “Oh, nothing. You.” She was embarrassed. She knew it wasn’t true. What she imagined for him was an orgy of young women who looked just like Sarah, thirty upturned mouths, some bad music—but whatever image or scenario it was that he conjured, Thomas wouldn’t say, and this morning, of all mornings, the inwardness of the action had upset her.
    “I’m not making fun of you,” he said. “You’ve barely slept. I wouldn’t do that.”
    “All right,” she said. “All right.”
    “I’m going to take Zachary down to the pit,” he said. “You want to say good-bye?”
    She shook her head. “No.” Then she said, “I already did.”
    They stood near the window, looking out at the snow. “Call if you need anything,” he said.
    “I will,” she said. Then she said, “Say hi to the nudist for me, if you see her.”
    S he was talking about Sarah. It was a routine between them. Thomas squeezed Joan’s hand, grabbed his keys from the peg by the door, and left the house. On a walk last summer, a few weeks after Sarah had moved in, he’d caught her swimming in the river near their property. He didn’t realize—or, the word he’d used when telling Joan was notice —she was naked until he’d hailed her and begun a conversation. It wasn’t true, of course. He had noticed, her nudity had stopped him dead in fact, but he didn’t think about what he was doing—standing still, watching dumbly, and, the word had come later, peeping—until she’d looked up, started, and then, as she recognized him, relaxed, and put her hand over her naked heart. He’d been embarrassed; she, apparently, was not. She laughed, said something about not having a suit, and then waded to the bank and stood, nude, like some robust Greek emerging from a clamshell. One of her breasts was slightly larger than the other; on her hip was a scar like a holster. She’d asked Thomas to hand over her clothes, hanging on a branch behind him, which he’d done. Before he turned away, he caught sight of her stooping to step into her shorts and it had stilled him, even as he looked down the river to give her privacy. Midstream, there was a rock that was slowly parting the calm water, folding it over itself, and he concentrated on that until she’d said, okay.
    He could’ve understood, and explained away, the sensation if it was merely desire. But it was larger than that. Seeing her exposed, and unafraid, had made him feel responsible for, and protective of, her. She knew very little about their troubles with John. Perhaps that was part of it. He knew Sarah felt affection for him, but also knew that was where it ended. He regretted telling Joan about seeing Sarah by the river. Recently, she’d confessed that she’d come to imagine Sarah as the daughter they’d never had: a successful, out-in-the-world-and-thriving child who offset the leaden feeling that congealed the air in the room whenever they talked about John. She didn’t like that Sarah was waltzing around naked, for anyone to see. Right, Thomas had said. That’s not what I was talking about, but right. That was five months ago, before John had become worse, before Sarah had stitched Thomas up. Before John’s last visit. Before they’d decided, together, that relieving Zachary from the burden of his pain was the humane thing to do, and was, in fact, something required of them.
    Outside, the clouds were low and gauzy, and walking across the lawn to the garage,