Free The Death of All Things Seen by Michael Collins

about Misty’s exploits, the phrase Junior Olympics bandied around for years, suggesting in reality nothing more than you could pay the entrance fee to a regional tournament. I hated Dave at that moment, and yet, the truth was, Sheryl and Dave deserved credit to a certain extent. I wasn’t beyond acknowledging it. Sheryl had sat through all the practices, Sheryl holding to certain family values like this was a Tea Party political battle she’d understood was always coming and had now. I might have said something, but I didn’t.
    ‘There was maybe a point of reconciliation. I was willing to concede to my own shortcomings, but weakness never played with Sheryl, so in just standing there, I kept thinking this was it, this was the extent of all our lives. I kept staring at Dave staring at Misty, and knowing that it didn’t get better than this for most everybody, and that what I was witnessing was the contained dream of all those tramps who lived with the ever-lasting hope that they might make it onto a Wheaties box. All you needed was one tramp to make it onto a cereal box to keep it all within reach.
    ‘I thought Peter must have been thinking the same. This was all grist for the mill. Dave was standing with a Genesee beer in his hand, watching me out of the corner of his eye. They had a signed autograph of Mary Lou Retton alongside Bela Karolyi. Sheryl made Misty go get it, like it was a testament to her talent. It said something like, “Keep reaching for your dreams!”– something vague and inspirational, but not specific to Misty’s actual talents, or lack thereof. It was never established if they’d met either Mary Lou or Karolyi.
    ‘At dinner, Peter got talking to Sheryl about an idea for a cookbook, some potential collaborative project they had been discussing while I had been downstairs with Dave, when Dave reached for Sheryl and said, “I have a marriage license that, among other things, entitles me to exclusive rights to Sheryl’s cooking, and, anyway, we’d have to ask Sheryl’s campaign manager.” And that’s how it came to light Sheryl was considering running for the State Assembly in Albany.
    ‘I nearly shit myself. Even Dad looked up. He had gravy all over his lips, Dad, who couldn’t stand Dave at one point, and now it was all changed. There was already talk of building an extension onto the house for the two boys that was a vague cover for anticipating the long-term care of Dad and Mom. I was a cast-out. It was like I didn’t know these people sitting around me. A trial and jury had been convened in my absence, and I was found guilty.’
    Joanne looked up, so Norman could see her life was there before her, in the way life can sometimes make itself known.
    ‘When I got back, I looked into the Peace Corps as a way out. But, you know, it’s not easy to give yourself up to the prospect of cholera or typhoid or malaria. There are waiting lists of people ready to sign up. Nobody ever says, “I’m going to lose myself in Cleveland!” That same year, I got pregnant a second time. I didn’t tell Peter. He was lost in another round of national academic job searches and had come up empty again. I knew he was cheating on me. We were maxed out on credit cards. I saw a receipt from the John Hancock, a revolving restaurant we had gone to early in our relationship. I was aware of him telling the same stories, but to a different girl, like we were all interchangeable characters on this merry-go-round. He asked me, not long after I saw the John Hancock receipt, if I had ever been with another woman, or if it had any appeal, so, for the life of me, I thought he was trying to shore up all his options, that perhaps the burden of life was better shared with more than one person, in the way certain religions make the allowance for the taking of more than one wife. I told him I wasn’t interested. It wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
    ‘That Christmas, we got a postcard of Misty in a plaster cast, a