by Christopher Hess

I was sitting out on the back porch the other day, having a cigarette and watching the rain coat the ground. It was falling slow and lazy, the long blades of grass swaying in wavering arcs off time with the sporadic breeze, the lines in the only puddle, just off the edge of the concrete patio, bobbing outward from the fat splash and taking all day to hit shore. It had been raining a while, at least that's the way it looked judging by the even soak on everything not sheltered.

I noticed, not for the first time, that one of the garage windows on the side facing inward toward the backyard was out. The frame was there and in place, and there was no broken glass to be seen, but the pane itself was gone. Me and Laura had just bought the place and that's the way it was when we got here. There were two windows side by side and the other was there, and the amount of dirt on it made it seem that the wall was winking. I thought of the rain and how it may be getting in, and that there was a wood workbench under those windows on which lay scattered about my tools, wrenches and screwdrivers and I don't know what else, probably out and around the open toolbox. I thought that they should be moved, that even though they were mostly stainless steel or some other kind of rust-resistant alloy they shouldn't sit in the rain. I took another drag and petted the dog, watching the potted plants jerk and sway with every drop that hit them, and I didn't move.

Often these things happen -- or don't happen. Walking by a piece of torn newspaper laying against the floorboard, letting a past-questionable bagel sit in the fridge though I know I won't eat it. I can't simply call it laziness because many times it happens in the midst of not being lazy and I'm clearly disposed to be able to do it, heading to the bookshelf for a third reference book or making multiple trips to the vegetable drawer while making dinner. But I just don't do it.

And I'd never really thought about it much until that moment. Probably the reason I decided to think about it was that me and Laura had just got this place together. I'd lived alone for a long time and that kind of stuff just doesn't matter a whole lot when you live alone.

Laura came out onto the porch in the middle of this train of thought, breaking into it with her slightly-rough-from-cigarettes voice. "Hey kid, when you gonna fix that window? We've already been here, what, a week? I can't depend on you for anything can I? Big jerk. I smell divorce." Me and Laura had an easy time talking, we took jokes pretty far.

And I stared at that window still. It's as if it doesn't really matter if you do or not. Not just because a missing pane or a piece of paper on the floor is no big deal and not because you know that if you clean it up now there will be another piece of something there in the near or distant future so why bother. It's not like either one of those. It's just not that important.

"You want a divorce? Fine, I want half of everything and the dog," I said, pulling on the cigarette again. She handed me a drink and sat down, kissing me on the back of the neck.

"The dog I'll fight you for, sonny-boy. And I'll win, too."

She smiled and I kissed her. "Thanks," I said for the drink, "and I'm sure you would."

Laura is fairly tall, only an inch or two shorter than myself, and she has the posture of a pillar, only without looking like she's trying. She never looks like she's trying. Her black hair hangs around her face and shoulders in perfect disarray, and she wears no makeup. People tell her they envy her natural looks but she shrugs and turns. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, natural looks," she usually says later. And she honestly couldn't care less.

We sat in silence for a couple seconds, me tasting the incredibly hot bloody mary she had mixed up from all the leftover drink stuff. We'd had some friends over a few nights before and the bloody marys were ignored for the beer. "It's a great yard, ain't it?" I said.

"Mmm," she answered, then swallowed, and went on. "I been thinking about all the landscaping we could do. We will do. Xeriscaping and stuff, just like we talked about. I was at the nursery the other day and I saw these -- "

"I was thinking turnips," I interrupted. "Turnips and arugula covering the front yard. It'd be great, and so incredibly nutritious."

"Shut-up. You keep your vegetables out of my elodea and we'll get along just fine. Besides, that window requires your attention. I'm sure all of your lovely tools are being soaked as we speak. Channel-locks and what-not. I've heard that auto glass place up the street cuts panes cheap, and we've got plastic in there in the mean time."

As she told me this I slipped into the haze hanging in the air in front of me and floated there not listening or seeing but just feeling the air and the drink and her voice. I was often inclined to do this; it wasn't entirely voluntary. I could hear the drone of her speaking and the bumping of the raindrops off the wet earth, but it was all more like music than speech and rain. The sounds just blended together and carried me off, making me content -- even loopy -- for no real reason. I think I can honestly say these episodes are the highlights of my life.

"And just what's in that head that's got you so preoccupied?"

"And just what's in that head that's got you so preoccupied?"

"Yeah, I bet."

My stomach dropped. "What's that mean?"

She slipped me a sidelong half-squint and rose, heading for the door. "What do you think it means?" She closed the door behind me and left me to the rain. I couldn't tell if she meant anything by it or not, so as usual I chose to ignore it and assume she meant nothing. The stress and hassle of moving -- and of moving in together -- had been wearing on both of us and the last thing we needed was a confrontation. The other night had brought us pretty close. Nothing really happened, I mean nothing important, but it could have. It nearly did, and I had a flash of life without her in it. A vivid visual episode that was a year crammed into an instant. I thought of the things I'd no longer have, the hole left in everyday. Stretching over to an empty left side of the bed, no arguments about whose turn it is to give the backrub, no sex. No sex with Laura.

It all happened in a flash but it was the most horrifying thing that ever happened to me. I turned cold and nauseous, like I could hit the floor in the very next moment. The fire of the bloody mary and a hand on the countertop, I was in the kitchen, kept the episode from anyone's notice. For that I'm thankful.

Wendy had been a peripheral friend of mine for a couple years now, ever since I moved to Texas. I met her through a co-worker and, even after changing jobs twelve times, somehow I always ran into Wendy. I guess we just did the same things. On a few drunk occasions we hooked up, got together after a show or when there was nothing else to do. We'd have sex and talk about how shitty things were going with everything, how going out and drinking was the only thing keeping us sane. We provided a release, a necessary outlet for each other. Sex and bitching is what we had, and it was fine. But that's as far as it went, and no one really knew anything about it. Not that anyone would care, but it was an unspoken agreement neither of us wanted to break.

But I told Laura. It was one of those things that wasn't really important but I didn't want resurfacing later and catching me by surprise. That had happened to me before and it wasn't pleasant. So I told her. I was honest with her mostly. Maybe the actual numbers were a bit off, but she got the gist of it. And she seemed fine with it, even when Wendy showed up with another mutual friend to help with the moving and drinking. She had been dating this guy Tom for a while, nothing serious she said. I didn't doubt it, nothing was.

Later that night we, me and Wendy, were standing in the kitchen talking about nothing, making a new drink for me and opening a beer for her, and she asked me if I remembered the last Probably Nobody show I saw. They were a local band, crap mostly but fun, and that show was the last time we had got together. I smiled into my glass as I added ice and said of course I remember how could I forget that. The night welled up in my mind and I felt it, I felt the quickening warmth in my legs and head. I looked up and Laura was standing there, behind Wendy in the doorway, with empty glass. I had told her the week before that that Probably Nobody show was the last time. We all three knew. She smiled a malicious curve and shook her head, spinning on her heels and heading back outside. I heard glass shatter and the gate open, and that's when I started spinning.

I think Wendy thanked me for the beer and headed back to Tom. I can't be too sure. What I do remember are the pictures that lit through my mind. The empty bed, an old photo of my family camping on the Upper Peninsula, the four-leaf clover I pressed into page one-ninety of Treasure Island when I was nine, the string and stone necklace my friend David gave me a week before he died. And there were other things too. Some of these images shocked me in that moment -- things I thought I'd lost or forgotten about. Some were still with me though I couldn't explain why.

I didn't go after her, that would have been too dramatic. I fixed my drink and took a long sip, and went outside to see about the glass. I was thinking that's it, she's gone, my life as I know it is over. It's over for something that's been done for a long time, for months. But it's over. That's it.

As I descended the wooden stairs, three steps, Laura came out the side garage door with a broom and dustpan in her left hand. The drink was gone from her other hand, she was busy wiping it on her pants. She approached where I was standing, stunned for no apparent reason, and bent over to sweep the mess. She smacked me in the shin, I was standing in it, and looked up at me with a small smile. "Don't worry about it," she said "It's just a little broken glass."