I didn’t have to work again until early morning. I considered my options. I had none. I went to the kitchen for another glass of water and then I went out to my car.

I pulled the whiskey from the glove compartment and I stood out on the icy roadway with no one to see me, no one to watch me take the fall. I slugged a belt from the bottle.

Louise OLD GHOSTS

Louise felt the blistering welts of anger at her back. The cold wind felt good at first and she walked quickly toward the highway. If anything had happened to Baptiste, she blamed Charlie. Charlie who had spent more time looking for her than minding his job. She placed her hand to her heart, tried to measure the absence of Baptiste. But she didn’t feel the dull panicked ache of death. She was certain that if Baptiste had passed she would have felt his leaving. She was sure she would have felt his spirit leaving. If she marched to Dirty Swallow’s house she would find him with his girlfriend. He would laugh at her jealousy. He would catch her up in his arms, spinning, and Charlie would be wrong. She lifted her thumb to the approaching car, heard the crack of blue ice beneath heavy tires behind her, watched the wake of swirling snow in the taillights’ glare.

Night was pressing hard over the hills, a charcoal face, Louise thought, the chest and front legs of a giant horse running, clouds turning. She stood on the road and looked over at the dull river. She could see the black water where the animals had chipped a hole in the ice. Day was sinking. Through the naked trees she heard the river’s voice. A sound like a woman moaning across the water bank. Louise told herself it was only the ice, the fingernail-thin ice pulling on the shore. Louise squinted at the water skin rattling on the river, the place where the current ran hard. The still river place where her sister had died last summer.

She stood for a long time watching the spot of her sister’s death, hoping she could call her sister back. For a moment there was no sound. Winter had laced the trees along the river line. Snow snaked the road. She watched with her eyes clear and seeing. She watched without moving, her heart slowing. She could feel the day around her slipping. The closer you are to life, the closer you are to death, her grandmother had told her. She wondered if now was one of those times.