Free Shadow Traffic by Richard Burgin

bottle and pouring it into two glasses.
    I took a generous swallow, unable to think of a toast (one more thing my father was good at that I wasn’t) or even to look her in the eye. Instead, I said, “You say that as if it makes you sad.”
    â€œThe last one was like that, too. I gave in to him and look what happened.”
    We both drank a little more. I was trying to deal with a flash of jealousy, which startled me.
    â€œLet’s agree not to concentrate on what hurt us in the past, OK?” I said.
    â€œHow do we do that?”
    I moved closer to her and gently stroked the left side of her face. Then we kissed.
    â€œThat shouldn’t have happened,” she said.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI’m making myself too easily available to you.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” I said, and we kissed again. Several more times, in fact.
    â€œNow I’m doomed,” she half muttered.
    I was too excited to know who was doomed and who wasn’t. I rose from the table and sort of pulled her up with me so we could fully embrace while we continued kissing. Finally, we started moving toward her tiny bedroom. An image of my father’s disapproving face suddenly popped into my head, as if he were saying, “You’re taking her under false pretenses,” so I reached back and took the bottle of beer from the table and drank some more of it while we undressed in her room.
    Afterward, I felt her vibrating softly against me, and I realized how oddly beautiful everything with her had been. Then I realized she was crying, albeit very softly.
    â€œI’m going straight to hell for this,” she said between half-muted sobs.
    â€œIt’s OK,” I said.
    â€œNo, it’s not.”
    â€œWhat we did is happening millions of times all over the earth this very moment.”
    â€œSo is murdering.”
    â€œI hope you see a distinction between the two.”
    I thought I heard her chuckle a little. At any rate the sobbing soon stopped, and feeling encouraged I continued talking. “I thought you weren’t a Catholic any longer. I thought you’d joined the Spiritual Church, which doesn’t believe in an afterlife.”
    â€œI don’t know what I am anymore, other than confused.”
    I put my arm around her and held her against me. Eventually she closed her eyes and began breathing more easily. Outside it had begun raining. I could hear it through her thin, dark windows.
    â€œI love the rain, don’t you?” she suddenly said.
    â€œSometimes.”
    I wondered how long it would last, then if it were raining back in St. Louis on my father’s grave. I remember one day we drove to the lake in Creve Coeur. He always loved to be in any kind of water, while my mother usually considered it too much of a fuss. I was somewhere around eighteen, and he was walking with me along the water’s edge in bare feet. My first girlfriend of any consequence had recently left me, and I’d confided in him about it.
    â€œDid you love her, Gerry? Did you feel that you did?”
    It was the first time I’d really considered that question. “I don’t know,” I said.
    â€œYou want to feel that you do before you have sex with a woman. I know you can’t always tell, but you should try to know if you can,” he said, looking straight at me, “and then be sure to tell her you do. It works out best that way for everyone.”
    A minute or so later I whispered the words that would have pleased my father, if they were true. But I decided they were close enough to “truth,” given the wide latitude he allowed for individual confusion. Paulette said nothing after my short speech that ended with the “l” word. When I checked, I couldn’t tell if she’d fallen asleep or not. A little later I rolled over on my side and fell asleep myself.
    In the morning when I woke up, I was alone. It was the kind of thing I’d