Free A Simple Plan by Scott Smith Page B

car. As I climbed inside, the porch light flicked off behind me.
    I called my father the next morning, from my office. I wanted him to come into town and go to the bank with me, so that we could have a talk with the manager, but he refused. He thanked me for my concern, then told me that if he wanted my help, he’d ask for it. Otherwise I should assume he had everything under control. Having said that, he hung up the phone.
    That was the last I ever spoke to him. Two days later, he was dead.
     
    S ARAH turned off the shower, and—as if to fill the sudden silence—a voice whispered in my head:
you forgot to go to the cemetery.
    It was New Year’s Day, which meant that Jacob and I had let a year pass without visiting the graves. I considered this, debating its importance. It seemed to me that the thought behind the ritual, the simple act of remembrance, was more important than the visit itself. I could see nothing that was gained by our actual presence at the cemetery. Besides, it was only a matter of a single day. We could go this afternoon, twenty-four hours later than we’d promised. I was sure that, considering the circumstances, our father would forgive us our tardiness.
    But then, at the same time, I realized that much of the visit’s importance came through its strict observance, the fact that we were forced to put aside a specific afternoon each year, block it off from any outside interference, and devote it to the memory of our parents. The minor inconvenience of it was exactly what gave it its weight. The new year was a boundary, a deadline we’d let pass.
    I began to consider several possible forms of penance for this transgression, all of them revolving around an increased number of trips to the grave site in the coming year, and was up to twelve, one each month, when Sarah reappeared from the bathroom.
    She was naked except for a yellow bath towel wrapped around her head. Her breasts had become so full that they looked comical on her tiny frame, like something a pubescent boy might draw. Her nipples were a brilliant crimson, two scabs against the bloodless white of her skin. Her belly hung low and heavy, and she cradled her hands beneath it while she walked, as if it were a package she was carrying, rather than a natural distension of her body. She looked awkward, clumsy. It was only at rest that she had any grace, holding her eight months’ weight with a peculiar stateliness, an animallike elegance. I watched her waddle to the windows and, one at a time, pull open their shades.
    The room filled with gray light. The sky was cloudy, cold looking, the trees beyond the glass dark and bare.
    My eyes were partly closed; Sarah glanced toward the bed but didn’t seem to realize I was awake. She unwrapped the towel from her head, bent over, and rubbed at her hair. I watched her, her body framed against the window and the winter sky beyond.
    “We forgot to visit the cemetery,” I said.
    She looked up, startled, her body still bent partly over. Then she went back to rubbing her hair. She worked vigorously at it; I could hear the sound of the cloth against her scalp. When she finished, she straightened up and wrapped the towel around her chest.
    “You can do it this afternoon,” she said. “After you go back to the plane.”
    She came over and sat on the edge of the bed, her legs spread wide, her weight resting behind her on her hands. I sat up, so I could see her better. She looked at me and put her hand over her mouth.
    “Oh, God,” she said. “You’re all bloody.”
    I reached up and touched my bump. It was virtually gone, but I could feel a wide swath of caked blood arcing out from it across my forehead.
    “It bled during the night,” I said.
    “Does it hurt?”
    I shook my head, probing the wound with my fingertips. “It feels like it’s almost gone.”
    She nodded but didn’t say anything.
    “Think if it’d hit me in the eye,” I said.
    Sarah examined my forehead, but with a distracted