Free The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories by Ethan Rutherford

don’t really know, I guess.”
    “Is he seeing anyone now? You know, a therapist?”
    “No,” Thomas said. “Well, yes. Sort of. The last one figured out some sort of medication regimen that seems to be working for him. I think the girlfriend has helped.”
    “Joan told me you guys talk a lot.”
    “More like, he talks.”
    “Are you worried about him?”
    Thomas gripped the steering wheel. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. He wanted to know who had been visiting her, blocking him in, but he didn’t know how to bring it up. “Worried like how?”
    “I don’t know,” Sarah said. She was absently chewing one of her fingers. “Do you think it’s helped? I don’t— I’m not trying to pry. Not my business.”
    “The therapist helped,” Thomas said. “Jocey’s helped. The medicine’s helped.” He felt his throat tightening. “It’s hard to know what he wants sometimes. It’ll straighten out. He will, that is. I’d rather not talk about it. That’s all I’ve been doing. Talking.”
    Sarah adjusted in her seat. “Got it,” she finally said. “I’m glad things are working out.”
    They went back to driving in silence. The heater was cranked and pushing hot air directly into Thomas’s face. He took his hat off, tossed it on the dash, and adjusted the vent. Sarah, Joan. John, for Christmas. He cleared his throat. “So you’ve got plans tonight?”
    “I do.” She’d been digging around in her pockets, and stopped. “Now, that,” she said, “that’s healing nicely.”
    At first Thomas was confused. Then he remembered—his forehead, the stitching, the scar. “It is,” he said. He lowered his head so she could get a better look. As she leaned over the center console, he brought his speed down. He’d taken the stitches out four days ago, in the mirror with sterilized tweezers like Sarah had instructed.
    “Very nice,” she said.
    “Something to be proud of,” Thomas said. He was glad the conversation had picked up again, had moved past John. He glanced at the road, then brought his eyes back to hers. Her lips were pursed. “You can barely see it,” he said.
    Sarah unfastened her seat belt, and moved closer to study the scar. When he’d shown up, bloody, at her door, she’d been so concerned. She had guided him inside her apartment, sat him down in the kitchen. Wiped the blood away gently with a wet and warm towel, applied pressure. Took his face in her hands to inspect the wound and then decided, if he was up for it, that she could stitch him up right then and there. She’d given him painkillers and a small shot of anesthetic so he wouldn’t feel the needle. And he hadn’t felt it, not exactly. He’d closed his eyes. He could feel pressure and tugging and knew the wound was coming together.
    “You should see the wood,” he’d said, a joke.
    “I believe it,” she’d said back.
    At night, while talking—or, rather, listening—to John, he would return to this surgery again and again, rolling the memory around in his head like a marble. The rhythmic tugging. Their proximity. She had been able to help him, in a concrete way. It had been so simple. At one point he’d reached out, put his hand on her hip to brace himself, and she’d let it rest there. Her skin was warm. He could feel her hip bone in conversation with the rest of her body as she concentrated on her work. When, periodically, she’d reached behind him for the faucet, her loose shirt brushed against his upturned face. Thomas had sat with his eyes closed, his hand more alive than any other part of his body. He had loved the touch of her skin. Sarah was professional and quick, and had patted him on the shoulder when she was finished, the way dentists, postcavity, do. The whole thing was over before it had begun.
    Now, in the truck, they were close again. If you would reach out, he thought. If you would just reach out, I can handle whatever’s coming next . And then she did just that, a quick, darting