Free The Journey Prize Stories 24 by Various Page A

the portrait back into place so the glass reflected her lobes. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? But I have to use it. He doesn’t tolerate mirrors. He says they’re vain. It’s got something to do with the book of Daniel. Is there anything going on at your place tonight?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I was just out with your husband in the river. We’re both soaking wet.”
    “In the river?” She stopped and examined the gin. She declined. Perhaps there was something better down the road.
    “Whatever for?”
    “Listen, he dragged this thing out of the water. You might want to have a look.”
    “What kind of thing?”
    “I’m not sure. It’s grotesque, really.”
    “Just give me the synopsis, okay?”
    She walked over to the picture window and let some ashes drop into a chrome tray. The ashes fluttered down like owls and I thought for a moment she might lick one up.
    “Well, you’re going to find out,” I said. “He’s bringing it inside.”
    “Figures,” she said. “Maybe I’ll go over to Jamieson’s. He’s a bourbon drinker. They’ve got friends in from the Coast. Why don’t you come along?”
    “Not tonight.”
    She opened her mouth a little and the smoke crept out. She reached over and adjusted my lapel. She picked off a reed.
    “That’s too bad. I need to get away. Look, he hasn’t told me much,” she said. She shrugged. “I’m leaving. He’s keeping the house. I don’t care. I don’t want it. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s not the greatest with words. Besides, I don’t tell him everything, do I?”
    There was sick mutton feeling in the room. The floor had gone gritty with the silt my boots had dragged in from the river and between my teeth there was a dirty feeling too. She reached out and rested the end of her cigarette an inch away from my Adam’s apple, then teased me by drooping the ember closer.
    “Where is your daughter?” I said.
    “What?”
    “Where is your young daughter right now, I mean, is she at relatives’, or out lawn bowling or drinking Jack Daniel’s or in her room sleeping or what?”
    “I have not a clue what you’re talking about.”
    “Who is this portrait of?”
    She picked the framed photo off the mantel. The girl sat on the swing with a trace of sepia melancholy on her lips.
    “I have no idea,” she said.
    “Where is the photo from?”
    “He cut it out of a Sears catalogue, I think.”
    “He said your daughter was drowned in the river.”
    “Is that what he told you?”
    She sucked on her cigarette with her thumb under her chin. She was nodding, gazing off to the ceiling, perhaps at the crepe-paper chickens, perhaps at the jar of cashews. Not at all at the photograph. The young girl was wearing boots and bells around her neck, dressed up and delicate as if her parents were shipping her off to an event that she was too young to understand.

JASMINA ODOR

BARCELONA
    O ver the course of a couple of weeks, Amanda has moved some of her things into a spare guestroom down the hall from her and Earl’s bedroom. She now spends a lot of time in this room, rather than in the living room, or the bedroom, or the room that was once her study. She’s moved only a few books, her laptop, some underwear, and pyjamas. This move, though deliberately slow on her part, has nonetheless put the entire household on edge: her aunt Grace, her mother Millie, who walks around looking perplexed and afraid, and of course Earl, who has so far been quiet about this problem. Earl strokes his beard a lot and occasionally smokes a cigarette somewhere in the yard, out of view.
    When Amanda started being down, crying in the evenings in secret, dressing badly, Earl must have decided that optimism was the best attitude to adopt. Better encourage her than dwell on the sadness. He is nearly thirty-eight and has suffered from depression before; Amanda is twenty-four and until recently has seemed to everyone confident and happy.Now, no one is sure what Amanda does in