Free Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink Page B

had experienced discord until that moment.
    Troy moved out of Night Vale when Josh was one year old.
    A month later, Troy sent Diane a letter. It said something about a military family. It said something about being children. It said something about mistakes. It said something about remembering each other. It said something about never forgetting her face.
    She doesn’t remember if he said he would never forget her face or if she should never forget her own face. Either way, neither happened.
    Some people told her they knew she would never keep a man. Some told her that good parents would have insisted Troy marry her. Some told her she dressed inappropriately. Sometold her she was too tall. Most told her she would never get married now.
    This was fine with Diane. This is still fine with Diane.
    We meant to say you’ll never meet anyone now, let alone get married, most would clarify.
    Josh was always curious about who his father was. He understood, based on what his friends had told him, that many children had two parents, and there were periods where it was clear he felt one short. Often he would ask questions. Sometimes those questions were out loud.
    Diane sometimes hears that Troy is an actuary. Sometimes she hears Troy is a florist. Sometimes she hears Troy is a cop. A toll collector. A professor. A musician. A stand-up comedian. Once she heard a terrible rumor he became a librarian, but she could not imagine Troy becoming the darkest of evil beasts, no matter what he had done to her. Is it even possible for a human to become a librarian? Diane wondered.
    And now she and Josh in the movie theater, and Troy, unnoticed by Josh.
    The dark strip of floor lighting turned back on. Troy, still not looking her way, gave a big thumbs-up to somebody out of sight, just around a dark corner. Troy’s teeth shone in shadow. He did not look at Diane. Troy exited the theater slowly, still grinning, thumb still extended.
    She looked back at Josh, her arm reflexively tightening around him. He squirmed and glanced at her.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said, and removed her arm.
    â€œNo, it’s fine,” he said, looking down at his half-eaten Twizzler.
    â€œReally?” She put her arm back around him.
    They waited quietly for the movie to start.
    Later, Diane would return to the theater on her own.

9
    Jackie started her car in the direction of the library, but soon it strayed. Or she strayed it. Whatever the verb is to cause to stray. Corrupted. She corrupted her car toward her mother’s house.
    Her mother had called, and being a good daughter was as convenient an excuse as any. Anything to avoid the library.
    She turned onto Desert Elm Drive, a name which was evocative of nothing real. She drove past the Antiques Mall. The antiques in the window were especially cute, wrestling with each other and playfully snapping at each other’s tails. But she could never seem to justify the money for an antique, and besides she was rarely home, so how would she care for one?
    Her mother lived in the neighborhood of Sand Pit, which was between the developments of Palm Frond Majesty and the Weeping Miner. It was a neighborhood of single-family homes, with small front yards, mostly kept gravel by water-conscious residents, and backyards that rose steeply into hills unsuitable for planting without extensive and time-consuming terracing.
    Her mother’s house was like any house that was pink with green highlights, or any house with a manually opening wooden garage door fallen half away to splinters, and any house with a rosemary bush slowly encroaching its way into every other plant in the yard, and a front gate that sagged into rusted hinges, and a thick green lawn that frustrated her water-conscious neighbors. Her house could easily be mistaken for any other house that happened to be identical to it.
    Jackie felt unease she could not express with any sort of coherent gesture or incoherent word when she eyed the house.