Free Black River by S. M. Hulse

mirror used to be. When he was fifteen and in the midst of one of his rages, Dennis threw a book at the mirror and cracked it. All the way across, from one corner of the frame to the other, a finer spiderweb of fractures at the point of impact. Now there were a handful of photographs in its place, each carefully matted and framed. A yellow stand of aspens in low sun; a distant image of a broad-antlered bull moose; a horse running blurred, scattered sharp catches of image standing out: the glint of a steel shoe nailed to a hoof, the bristly texture of a tangled mane, a taut line of muscle powering a stride.
    And his wife. A photograph Wes had never seen before. Dennis must have taken it during one of Claire’s last visits before she became ill. She had never liked having her picture taken, and Wes was suffering the consequences of her aversion now; he had so few photographs of her. Soft light on her skin, highlighting her profile as she turned from the camera, her hair in a thick, heavy braid over her shoulder, a shy close-mouthed smile curving her lips. A beautiful portrait. But her eyes were aimed a few degrees away from the viewer, and no matter where Wes stood, he couldn’t pretend she was looking at him.
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    The Black River Presbyterian Church was a block off Main Street, in a wide building whose geometric shape had probably seemed innovative (rather than ugly) when it was built. The sign by the road had been replaced, but that was the only obvious change Wes could see. Same kinds of trucks in the lot. Same kinds of people walking in.
    He waited until three minutes to nine before he went inside. The usher looked distantly familiar, but he smiled through Wes and handed him a program with a rote greeting. The town had grown in the last eighteen years, but the sanctuary was emptier than he remembered it, no more than half full, and the sign outside listed this as the only service of the week. Wes took a seat in the second-to-last pew, near the windows, dotted today with a scattering of raindrops making a slow descent toward the ground outside. The stained glass spanned the entire left wall of the sanctuary and reflected a typical Presbyterian austerity: no figures of Christ or saints, just thin bars of color: pink, gold, blue, green. As a young child, Wes thought the windows looked like they were made of sheets of hard candy. Knew it was mere fantasy even then, but as he and his father filed out of the pew one morning, he’d leaned close and touched the tip of his tongue to the cool glass.
    When Wes was a boy, church was for him and his father alone. His mother bowed her head at the dinner table, and on the bookshelf at home there was a small Bible with her name in script on the dedication page, but she stayed home Sundays. Later, when he was an adult, Claire stayed home, too. She had never come with him to church, not in Black River and not in Spokane. Not even to the chapel in the hospital. But she never laughed at him, never belittled his commitment, though she knew the strength of his doubts.
    The pastor today was new to him, a younger man with a voice that was stronger than his thin face and slight frame suggested. Wes passed judgment on him over the course of the hour and decided he was a good pastor for a town of corrections officers, hitting the Old Testament heavily, making plentiful references to justice and duty. During the litany of sorrows and misfortunes that made up the weekly prayer list, Wes heard Claire’s name. It rang in his head, seemed a strange convergence of his own thoughts and the outside world. Claire Carver, Claire Carver. Claire Carver, dead and gone, pitied and prayed for. It took Wes a minute to find Arthur Farmer in a pew near the front; he’d gone bald beneath his hat. He’d have put her name on the list. He’d have thought it was his business. The ringing of her name died, the service went on. Wes bowed his head for the prayers and recited words that were good