Free The Hour of Bad Decisions by Russell Wangersky Page B

near to vertical, for hours, maybe evenfor days. He walked up from the truck, turned the key in the lock slowly, keenly aware of the wobble that his world had developed.
    He walked around the dark kitchen, picking things up and putting them back down again. No real order to his choices: a pepper mill, a wooden spoon, the hem of a dishcloth hanging from the handle of the oven. Walking through the living room, still touching things as if trying to convince himself that they, at least, were solid and familiar. And they were familiar: even though he felt as if they should all be changed under his touch, every single thing was where it should be. Then he climbed the stairs, his hand loose on the railing.
    He could hear Helen breathing in the darkened room, steady, long breaths that ended in a half-snore he had always loved teasing her about. The light from outside, leaking from the edges of the curtains, lit up pieces of the room: a bed table here, the edge of the comforter at the foot of the bed.
    For a moment, he wasn’t sure what to do next. He could feel his hand tight around the key ring in his pants’ pocket, the truck key large and sharp-edged and ready.
    Instead, he undid his belt, took off his pants and shirt, and, naked, slid into bed, still distracted by the reality that the sheets felt exactly the way they had when he had gotten up that morning.
    Then, almost of its own accord, his right hand reached for her, cupping the dome of her right shoulder. She was sleeping on her left side, her back to him.
    Helen murmured in her sleep, and nestled her back in against his stomach, against his groin.
    He wanted to say wait, this is not what I thought … but the thought was a fleeting one. She was naked and warm, and Helen. He felt himself getting aroused, and at the same time, horrified.
    She rolled onto her stomach, and arched towards him again, both familiar and eager.
    He suddenly realized, his hand resting flat on the middle of her back, the skin there soft and sleeping-warm, that he was trying to say with his body what he couldn’t say out loud. He thought of it as a warning, like yelling for help without ever speaking – and also, strangely, an attempt to make things right again.
    Desperate and determined, trying to prove he was exactly the person he always had been, yet frantic about whether or not he would be able to pull it off. It was, in the end, a rivetting combination. When it was over, he shuddered violently and fell back against the bed.
    For a moment, the room was almost silent, only the sound of their competing breathing in the dark.
    Then, fully awake, Helen finally spoke. Even, slow words, each one shaped carefully, each one dropped like a pebble.
    â€œNow,” pulling the sheet back up over her breasts, “what exactly is it that you’re trying to tell me?”

Bowling Night
    H E TOOK THE BOWLING BALL, AND LET THE car burn.
    His hand was already sweaty around the handle of the bag. The ditch beside the road was full of clover and bees. Long, even rows of apple trees ran down the hill, the fruit heavy and reddening and pulling the branches down, and behind him, his car wasn’t only smoking. It was well alight now, the windows gone, red-orange flames boiling out and the oily black smoke standing straight up in the sky in an ever-widening column.
    Ray had felt, more than heard, the windows blow out, scattering safety-glass diamonds into the grown-over road gravel and out onto the hot, late-August road. He hadn’t looked back as the sound rolled over him, hadn’t turned around once, just kept walking awkwardly down the long incline towards New Minas, shifting the bag from one hand to the otherevery hundred feet or so. He wasn’t used to walking any more, just like he wasn’t used to putting on a coat in the depths of winter because the car was next to the house, his keys familiar in his hand. Walking along the side of the highway, he could feel his thighs