What Is Left

LOU IS LAUGHING AND RUNNING AND BARELY BREATHING. Patches of light shine through the tree branches, gold spots that light up Lou’s flying hair as she dashes through. Bobby is close on her heels, laughing just as hard. He stretches his hand out and snatches the skirt of Lou’s cotton dress. She is caught short, stumbles as Bobby pulls her skirt backwards. “I win!” Bobby grins exultantly.
“No you don’t!” Lou laughs, “you caught my skirt, not me!” She slips from his grasp, and runs on.

The summer air is wet and sticky. Voices float back to town, winding through the trees with the sluggish wind. Lou is holding court, teasing the boys with her short shorts and half-smiles. Bobby fights the jealousy pinching his stomach. Lou is a flirt, the whole town knows Lou is a flirt. The way she’s looking at Kip doesn’t mean a thing, that’s just Lou. The smirking eyes, the whisper tucked between her lips, those are Bobby’s. And the whole town knows that too.  Just like everyone knows about Lou’s dreams. They float around her like fluffy cottonwood seeds. Sometime they spill from her mouth, an excited torrent of speculation and wishes. They leave traces of wanting in Lou’s mouth, bittersweet and incomprehensible.

She doesn’t say goodbye because she doesn’t know how. She worries that goodbyes will stop her. She wants things she can’t name. She wants to find the names. She clutches her ticket and her hopes and boards the plane.


IT IS COLD AND GRAY HERE. Even the sunlight is cold and grey, on the rare days it fights through the clouds. It was exciting in the beginning; all the concrete, all the blaring noisy life, all the hard edges. But when the shiny newness wore thin, Lou didn’t like the city. The buildings are haughty and the sidewalks are crowded and there are no trees. The food is too expensive and too bland. The people laugh at Lou every time she opens her mouth. “You’re not from around here, are you?” they ask. Lou eyes the rain-spattered tarmac uneasily. She wants to go home. It’s been too long.

THE TOWN LOOKS DUSTIER AND SMALLER. The buildings lean towards each other tiredly, the produce advertisements in the grocery window are sun bleached and age-spotted. Only the tall trees match Lou’s memories. Her parents seem to have been expecting her arrival, though she hasn’t sent word. After she’s unpacked her clothes into her old dresser, and stowed her suitcase in the closet, there is little to show that Lou had ever left. Except for Bobby. She asked after him as soon as she finished greeting her parents. They exchanged a glance. “We didn’t know when you were coming back,” they say. Right then, Lou knows it in her bones.

Lou’s town had shifted in her absence. Her friends from school paired off, and have lives filled with teething and mortgages. Bobby is married to a slight blonde with a hard jaw. They have a son called Little Bob, and another baby on the way. Lou doesn’t like how Annabeth looks when Bobby is looking at her and her round figure. Lou doesn’t like the way folks look at her when she’s looking at Bobby and Annabeth and Annabeth’s baby. One day, Bobby tries to talk to Lou. Lou smiles and says she is awfully late for an appointment, and walks off down the shady street. Bobby runs and catches her hand, presses it so tight Lou could feel it in her bones. Lou squeezes back, pulls Bobby to her house, aching the whole way. They hit Lou’s bed in a tangle of limbs and wanting. Legs twisting, hot mouths on sweaty skin, needing and getting. Sprawled across Lou’s bed, the years without letters and phone calls disappear. They snatch the moment.

Lou and Bobby snatch as many moments as they can. Bobby hints discreetly about divorce to Father Sauvignon, and receives a definite no and a sympathetic look. Annabeth draws her lips together, and gathers her two boys close. Bobby checks his son’s eyes, worrying over what he hasn’t seen. Lou tries not to feel guilty.  Lou’s parents don’t let on that they know, but her mama hugs her tighter and her daddy ruffles her hair like she’s a little girl again. Sometimes Lou has packed her suitcase and bought her ticket before she realizes that she can’t leave again. She knows now what she lost when she left the first time, and she can’t give up what’s left.