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T U S C A R O R A R E V I E W 2 0 1 8

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2 0 1 8 T U S C A R O R A R E V I E W

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“His eyes soften,

and he swallows.

I can’t let her think

I’ve forgotten.”

“Why are you so fixated on marriage? We’ve talked about this! I’m not ready

for someone else’s name, I’m not ready to be a wife.” She scraped her tongue

with her teeth as if the word tasted foul. “I’m just not! You know I love you

and I want to be with you, but it’s suffocating to think about my identity being

erased like that! Ben, I just want to be able to exist outside this timeline of

marriage and kids and a first house and then some tired blur until retirement,

and I feel like once we’re married that gets put on a stubborn, inescapable

timer. Don’t you want more than that?” She wrung her hands. She had been

resting her feet on the dash before all the arguing, but now she was small and

kept her feet to the ground.

Stunned, Ben asked, “You don’t want kids . . . ever?” He completely stopped

looking at the road and turned to her. “I thought you wanted them just as much

as I did. Not right now, maybe, but–” He looked away from her, back at the road.

“I’m just so afraid of missing out. Of not being around for their firsts, their

loves, their graduations, all of it. I want to see our children find what we’ve

found.” His voice was on the verge of tears. Jaime put a hand on his thigh.

“They will, just not yet,” she said, a warmth restored to her voice. “You want

to be the best dad to those kids you can be, right? If you want to have stories for

your kids, lessons, life experience to guide them through whatever happens,

you’ve gotta experience it all yourself. What they go through will be different,

but the best parents try to understand their kid’s world and there’s no way you

can do that if all you ever do is have kids, right?” Jamie looked over at Ben’s

face and he was crying in silence, letting out stifled short breaths over tightly

pursed lips.

The sound of wipers against glass punctuated the quiet, and snowfall

washed over the windshield in thin, hazy waves that marked the heartbeat of

the storm.

“You know what?” he said, voice shaking. “You’re onto something. You and I

are building a life for the kids just by being together. We’ll get there.” He took

her hand in his and kissed it.

“Every day we’re together is a little bit more we can give them,” she said,

squeezing his hand and smiling. The snow was whipping harder against the

glass, and the headlights’ beams were splintering into shadows across the

road ahead. “This is just like us, huh? Fighting and everything’s suddenly okay

again. Well,” Jamie told him through an incredulous smile, “I’m happy this is

how it is. Every time I have doubts about you, we end up here. Safe

and certain.”

The tires needed only to slide a dozen feet off the road for the car to end up

in that tree. With the roads patched with ice and especially at night, it could

FLOWERS

Jeremy Rock

now falls on Ohio back roads, crescent moon illuminating the white back-

drop on which mottled evergreens are painted. There are no streetlights, no

power lines, only unassuming black asphalt enduring the weather. The moun-

taintops and valleys are thoroughly covered, but the salt on the road keeps it

mostly clear. A dark blue mid-80s Honda Prelude gleams through the slushy

mist, its headlights the only unnatural light in the faint glow reflected by the

snow. A man is driving, his arms stiff and fingers tightly wrapped around the

wheel. He is wearing a stained Oxford shirt, the top few buttons left undone,

and looks directly ahead with glazed-over eyes fixated as if unconcerned with

ice or the curves of the road. His lip is raw from chewing it along the way and

he has a knot in his throat, the kind that grows waiting for a jury verdict or the

tail end of a funeral procession. I’ve gotta do this, he thinks, I’ve gotta make it

back. His eyes soften, and he swallows. I can’t let her think I’ve forgotten.

Two years prior, he had driven on this road through much heavier snow. On

that day, the chill was the kind that bites the inside of a person’s lungs until it

drowns in a warm bed or drink,

and the roads were slick with

weeks of melted-and-refrozen

ice. Every mile or two, the car

would pass a house decorated for

Christmas, glowing with cheer or

pretense or tradition. The travel-

ers in that car did not share

those sentiments.

“Do you really think I’m not

trying as hard as you are to make

this work?” Jamie shouted, looking directly at him. “Do you really think I

don’t care? I can’t believe this.” The man listened and looked straight ahead

at the road, watching snowflakes like kamikazes diving onto the windshield

and grille. “I moved out here, knowing no one, so I could be with you. I left my

friends and my job for you, and you think you can tell me I’m not committed

enough? What else do you want fromme? What else do you still need to feel

like I’m doing my part?” she asked, her eyes focused and lips trembling with

need for an answer.

“I don’t…” Ben said, sighing. “I don’t know.” His shoulders were tense, and his

face was pained. “We’ve lived together for what, three years now? Four? I know

how important to you I am, how important to you we are, but I want a more

outward recognition of that.” His tone softened. “And you’re saying it yourself.

You’re effectively as committed as you could be. Why is it such a big deal for

that to be formal?”