Free Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel by Nickolas Butler Page B

He spit into a paper napkin and wiped at the counter. Muttered, “Filthy.”
    I looked at the pinwheels spinning in my coffee where I added creamer after creamer.
    “I know.”
    “You bored, is that it? You want a job?”
    I looked up at Eddy. Beyond us, at the grill, Howard was whistling a song I recognized from my childhood, something my grandpa used to whistle while we sat in the back of his car—“Magic Moments”—Perry Como, I think.
    “I get it,” Eddy continued. “I do. They all treat you with kid gloves. And you, you’re bored to death. Right? You want to contribute. Let me think about it. Somebody must need some help. We’ll find something.”
    He patted me on the back just as Howard strode up to us, holding two plates. “Who’s got the pie?”
    I raised my hand.
    Setting our plates down on the counter Howard sighed, “Slow as hell in here tonight.”
    Outside, night had fallen and I could just hear the sound of the jukebox at the VFW spilling out into the street. Someone was playing Bob Seger. In the days and weeks that followed, I’d see Eddy around town, he’d wave at me from his car, or heading out of church with his family, but he never did call me about any work, and after a while, everything slipped back to the way it was, and I began to want to leave again, to run away from this little old town.

B
    O UR CHILDREN STOOD on the front stoop with their grandparents, waving us good-bye, and there did not seem to be a trace of sadness on their faces. In fact, they smiled as we pulled away, and before we were even out of sight, they turned to go back inside our house, tugging at my parents’ old hands. It is a strange feeling when your children show no signs of missing you, and I must admit that in that moment, I wondered if going to New York City was the right thing, or whether perhaps we would have been more gracious simply sending our regards and a gift.
    “He sent us the airline tickets,” Henry had argued one night in bed. “What’s our excuse? Our social calendar is too full? Besides, who else is going to take Ronny?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, “his date maybe? He’s not helpless, Henry.”
    “Come on,” Henry cooed.
    I sighed in resignation. And it was true that I had never been to New York City and that I was excited to go. To see Central Park and Broadway and the Empire State Building and all the other places and things that no doubt were invisible to natives of the city. It is odd to think that such a thing as a skyscraper could ever become invisible to someone; I don’t know that it ever would for me. I know that sounds naïve, but there are buildings I always notice in town, no matter what. Kip’s mill, for example. Or the Lutheran church where Henry and I were married. Or the silo between our farm and town where people spray-paint their most important announcements:
    BORN! WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER BURKE 6/1/11
    8 LBS 9 OZ
    Or:
    I LOVE TINA
    Or:
    CLASS OF 1998 FOREVER!
    I look at that silo every day on the off chance that its graffiti might have been refreshed overnight. My world is full of landmarks that I have come to love: an ancient burr oak in the middle of our alfalfa field, a glacial erratic in front of the high school, even the truckstop on the edge of town with its towering pole and oversized American flag. I always know when someone has died just by looking at that flag; I knew immediately, for instance, that the Swenson boy would never come back from Afghanistan.
    Kip drove us all the way to the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport in his black Escalade. Henry was up front with him and I sat in the backseat with Ronny and his date, a woman named Lucinda.
    “But you can call me Lucy,” she had said to me brightly as we shook hands there outside of our house, watching Henry and Kip wedge our luggage into the rear of the gleaming SUV. The bangles circled up and down her arm were too numerous to count.
    “Lucy,” I repeated, studying her face.
    In that Friday morning