Free In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien

hard to explain," he said, "but I don't feel real sometimes. Like I'm not
here.
"
    They were in the apartment, making dinner, and the place smelled of onions and frying hamburger.
    "You're real to me," Kathy said. "Very real, and very good."
    "I hope so. Except I'm afraid to look at myself. Literally. I can't even look at my own eyes in the mirror, not for long. I'm afraid I won't be there."
    Kathy glanced up from the onion she was chopping.
    "Well, I adore looking at you," she said. "It's my second favorite thing to do."
    "Good. I still wonder."
    John put the hamburgers on a platter. Kathy dumped on the onions. She seemed nervous, as if she were aware of certain truths but could not bear to know what she knew, which was in the nature of their love.
    "If you want," she said, "we'll skip supper. Do my favorite thing."
    "I'm serious."
    "So am I."
    "Kath, listen, I need to
tell
you this. Something's wrong, I've
done
things."
    "It doesn't matter."
    "It does."
    She smiled brightly at a spot over his shoulder. "We could catch a movie."
    "Ugly things."
    "A good movie wouldn't hurt."
    "Christ, you're not—"
    She picked up the hamburger platter. "We'll be fine. Totally fine."
    "Sure," he said. "Wait and see."
    "Sure."
    They were quiet for a moment. He looked at her, she looked at him. Anything could've happened.
    ***
    Sorcerer didn't say a word about PFC Weatherby. It was reflex, after all. But for many days he felt a curious discomfort, almost giddy at times, almost sad at other times. On guard at night, watching the dark, Sorcerer would see PFC Weatherby start to smile, then topple backward, then make a funny jerking motion with his hand.
    Like a hitchhiker, Sorcerer thought. A poor bum who couldn't catch a ride.
    Â 
    On the afternoon his father was buried, John Wade went down to the basement and practiced magic in front of his stand-up mirror. He did feints and sleights. He talked to his father. "I wasn't fat," he said, "I was
normal.
" He transformed a handful of copper pennies into four white mice. "And I didn't jiggle. Not even once. I just
didn't.
"
    Â 
    It was in the nature of their love that Kathy did not insist that he see a psychiatrist, and that John did not feel the need to seek help. By and large he was able to avoid the sickness down below. He moved with determination across the surface of his life, attending to a marriage and a career. He performed the necessary tricks, dreamed the necessary dreams. On occasion, though, he'd yell in his sleep—loud, desperate, obscene things—and Kathy would reach out and ask what was wrong. Her eyes would betray visible fear. "It wasn't even your
voice,
" she'd say. "It wasn't even
you.
"
    John would force a laugh. He would have no memory beyond darkness.
    "Bad dreams," he'd tell her, which he believed to be true, but which did not sound true, even to himself. He would hold her in his arms. He would lie there quietly, eyes wide open, taking from her skin what he needed.
    And then later, sometimes for hours, Sorcerer would watch his wife sleep.
    Sometimes he'd say things.
    "Kath," he'd say, peering down at her, "Kath, my Kath," the palm of his hand poised above her lips as if to control the miracle of her breathing. In the dark, sometimes, he would see a vanishing village. He would see PFC Weatherby, and his father's white casket, and a little boy trying to manipulate the world. Other times he would see himself performing the ultimate vanishing act. A grand finale, a curtain closer. He did not know the technique yet, or the hidden mechanism, but in his mind's eye he could see a man and a woman swallowing each other up like that pair of snakes along the trail near Pinkville, first the tails, then the heads, both of them finally disappearing forever inside each other. Not a footprint, not a single clue. Purely gone—the trick of his life. The burdens of secrecy would be lifted. Memory would be null. They would live in perfect knowledge, all things visible, all things