Free Hunger and Thirst by Wayne Wightman Page A

surprise?
    He turned toward the house and walked back as though it were a normal day. He considered that it probably was. For two months, as far as he knew, she had killed only three rabbits for trading. They had rarely put dead things on the table for themselves.
    Nearing the house, Jack realized two things: First, he was no longer thinking, “If I leave....” It was “When I go....” And second, if he knew when he was going to leave, her bones would also know. The best he could do was nothing at all, and then, on a whim, without planning, run. It would be the best he could do.
    ....
    Same day, Jack sat on the upper deck with one of the paperbacks. Last Exit to Brooklyn , life in the 1960s. It wasn't anything he would want to go back to. He could understand the depravity, but there were so many references to things that no longer existed that couldn't keep his focus on it. He kept looking up at the Sierra Nevada, at the snow pack.
    He heard Natalie come in behind him. She came out on the deck and pulled a chair around to face him.
    “I tried to be what you wanted me to be.”
    “For several months. I probably shouldn't have agreed.”
    “You never asked me to change. I wanted to try. I wanted to try to be a nice guy, so you would stay.”
    It was the closest he'd seen her come to tears. He put his hands on hers. The troubled sadness left her eyes.
    “The worst thing,” she said, “would be if you stayed only because I wanted you to.”
    “I wouldn't do that, to either of us.”
    “I love you as much as ever, if that counts.”
    “It counts for everything. Wherever we end up, whatever happens, I'd never, could never forget how much you count in my life.”
    “That almost sounds like goodbye.”
    “You keep waking up in the morning and I'll keep being there.”
    She kissed him like it was the last time.
    ....
    The sun had set clean and white behind the mountains. The air had started to cool.
    Jack sat at the counter, paging through a magazine she had brought in a few days earlier. Natalie came in carrying her jacket, already in her boots. She stuffed gloves in her back pocket.
    “There is a trap over in the ravine I need to bring in.”
    “That's quite a way to go this late in the day.”
    “Piece of cake,” she said with a confident smile. “And then I'll swing down to the highway and meet a traveler. I should be back in two or three hours.” She came over and kissed him. “Warm my side of the bed for me.”
    “It'll be warmed for two.”
    “Back before midnight.” And a dozen steps later, she was out the door, it was locked behind her, and she was gone.
    Jack turned another page. Hand lotion. Take a vacation to Disneyland.
    He'd been feeling slow and lazy all day and was looking forward to going to sleep, waking up in the morning and trying a new day. Another page. Bake special brownies for your kids. Take a cruise. The picture showed an immense liner on an even more immense blue ocean. He had never seen blue water, but pictures always showed the ocean as bluer than the sky. He couldn't imagine it.
    Jack listened to the silence.
    The ravine was a good five miles east.
    Jack tore through the house, digging his old pack and his canteen out of the closet and then put on his walking boots. He put three days' worth of food in his pack, filled the canteen, and strapped it on.
    On a piece of paper, he wrote, “I love you but it's time for me to go. Maybe someday”  
    He was stuck.
    Then he wrote, “Forgive me.” He stared at it, considering what else to add, whether he should throw it away...
    “My god,” he said, slumping. “What am I doing?” The idea of leaving Natalie was unthinkable.
    Five seconds later, he went to the front door, almost at a run.
    “Artie!” he called from the front step. In front of him was the row of flowers he had planted. They were a foot tall and had two early blossoms. With his pocket knife, he cut the stems, hurried them back inside and left them across the