American Masculine Read Free

the street, a huge cold light that turned buildings and cars and people pink, as if everyone blushed, she thought. As if everyone was ashamed, and everyone beautiful. She entered the Greyhound depot and took the night bus to Billings on a weekday special for eighty dollars. When she arrived the following night she walked from the depot through the stunted buildings of downtown Billings, below the hospitals, and into the city to the YMCA. She peered in the front window for a moment but kept moving and walked to the Amtrak station just past First. From the phone booth near the door she thought she might call Benjamin but thought better of it. She boarded the North Coast Hiawatha at 10:00 a.m. and rode nineteen hours, arriving in Minneapolis aching and hungry, her cravings awake and ravenous like animals. She sat down near the drinking fountain in the station and wiped the sweat from her forehead and drank as much water as she could. She filled her stomach. She knew she couldn’t arrive drunk. She walked most of the day, panhandled some, and took the last stretch by cab.
    Her mother taught accounting at the University of Minnesota, and most of what Sadie remembered of childhood with her was austere and severe, but when Sadie knocked on the door and her mother answered, her mother’s face broke and she put her arms around Sadie’s neck and wept. Sadie stood blank as her mother held her, and said nothing as her mother kissed her face. “Are you okay?” her mother said, gripping Sadie’s shoulders, speaking into her eyes. “I’ve missed you. I thought you were dead.” Sadie stared at her.
    “You’re alive!” she said, kissing her forehead. “I’ve missed you so much, Sadie. I love you.”
    Sadie didn’t respond and her mother led her to the kitchen and prepared tea for her and wrapped her in a comforter and sat next to her and held her hand. She made a grilled cheese sandwich for her, and sliced some apples, and afterward she walked her to the bathroom and when Sadie was ready she led her to the guest bed and tucked her in and covered the bed with blankets. Sadie stared out as if from a cave. Her eyes focused on the spare nakedness of the room. No pictures. Blank walls. Blankets of solid color with no pattern. Near her head a square night table, a simple lamp. The burgundy shade looked like a small well-lit house.
    Her mother slid in next to her and stroked Sadie’s hair until she fell asleep.
    HER MOTHER waited until Sadie started to find her feet again. They were at the kitchen table over tea. Her mother held the picture in her hand, a photo Sadie had managed to keep with her through everything.
    “Your husband?” she asked, holding it up, staring. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, arms folded, legs crossed as he leaned against the hood of a Camaro. “Handsome,” she said. “Very handsome.”
    “Was he good to you?” her mother asked.
    “Yes,” Sadie said. She looked at her mother. “He meant something.” Sadie went quiet. They watched each other. Her mother ran her fingers through Sadie’s hair.
    DAYS INTO DAYS. A year, two years, more. Benjamin hadn’t heard a thing.
    At night in the subtle glow from the dash lights, he drove alone among the fast-moving cars and his mind returned to Sadie. She’d been too open-handed and easy, and he harsh, too fragile. She was gone a very long time. He hadn’t saved himself. No illusions. They’d lasted some he had to admit, but even at the end of it, sober as he wanted to be, they were poison to each other. He’d grown too rigid and couldn’t stand her running to the bars. He thought of his eyes on alcohol, gray coals in a bricklike face, a vicious mouth that lifted flesh from bone like a man field-dressed a deer. He’d eyed her often with ugliness and misdirection, his lips pursed, his look piercing and cruel—and now on the other side of the divide his only hope despite how he’d been back then was to be different. He’d be tenderhearted this time, ready to