Free The Dark Lake by Anthea Carson Page A

out I had a parking ticket, too.
    I drove home from Milwaukee thinking about my classes and my meetings and my job search and my therapy appointments , and I actually felt pretty good. It seemed like things were looking hopeful. Things were going by fast, my weeks, and my days. So fast the summer was almost over.
    I drove up and parked in the driveway and walked inside the house. My dad was mowing the front lawn. He was wearing these brown and white plaid shorts and a silly , yellow baseball cap. I laughed out loud to see him. He couldn't hear me over the lawn mower so I just went inside.

 
11
    I had a good talk with my mom, and we drank iced tea and looked out at the backyard. He had already mowed that one. It was such a huge one, and it looked wonderful when freshly mowed. We talked about how therapy was going, and she seemed really encouraging. She didn't ask about job-hunting at all. But the subject of money still came up.
    "We need to think about you getting down to the social services office and applying for disability."
    "What? I can't believe you think I'm disabled."
    "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
    "Why do you think it?"
    My gaping jaw probably made me look really stupid, even more stupid than I was feeling.
    "Oh, come on Jane, just get it, you're entitled to it. It wouldn't mean you couldn't work."
    "I can't believe it. I can't believe you would say this to me."
    "Miriam will vouch for the fact that you can't work. You can't work."
    On the one hand, I loved hearing the words 'you can't work' ; but on the other hand, it made me want to cry.
    "I just need to get my high-school diploma,” I argued.
    "That's ridiculous."
    "Then a GED. And a college degree."
    "Maybe someday you can think about doing that too. But for right now…"
    I didn't want to hear anymore.
    Disability? This was a first.
    I might as well be in the grave.
     
    We used to hang around in graveyards at midnight.
    "I think we should get used to lying in graveyards,” Krishna says, lying on her back on Ed Becker's grave, born 1866, died 1928.
    "What difference will that make?” Ziggy asks, after an elongated silence. "Getting used to lying here, no matter how long, will still be the same fraction of eternity."
    More silence. Except for the night owl hooting. He lingers in a leafless tree.
    "True."
    We can, in the silence, also hear cicadas, crickets , and bats.
    "Mine says Millicent Janine Baker, who loved life. Born 1903, died 1964. That's the year I was born,” I say. The moon is full, and it is easy to read the carvings.
    "Mill loved life,” Krishna begins, "and what difference did that make?” Then she begins to giggle softly to herself, as if she alone were in on some joke.
    "And so it passed more q uickly I would imagine,” I say.
    "Therefore, the trick is to be miserable, and hate every second of it, and then it will pass very slowly. And you will be very glad when it's over. You will long for it to end," I continue.
    The night has an eerie, dim, yellow glow. The clouds keep passing the ghastly moon. The branches of the trees cuts the midnight bleakness into fractured patterns. The gravestones people the leaf-blown lot like a small town. The wrought-iron fence reminds me of my kitchen. Moonlight reflects off the headstones, and I can even see and read some of the names from gravestones far away. Edna Marie Smyth. Walter Rydell. Clay Cormack. Jay Peter Wilkinson.
    "No,” I sigh . "Unfortunately, no matter how miserable one is, one wants to live forever. Pass me that God-awful Mad Dog."
    "Kind of like, no matter how bad the alcohol tastes , you still want to drink it."
    ***
    "Jane, you already do know what happened at the party,” Miriam said.
    "What are you inferring?"
    "It's not infer, it's imply. When you infer something you are deciding or interpreting something about what's being said. When you imply you—"
    "Ok ay, then, what are you implying."
    "I am implying that pe rhaps if you looked at what you already know, you might be free