The Tent: A Novella Read Free

arms again—a natural reaction to the hostile weather, but also, according to their marriage counselor, a defensive posture, the manifestation of which seems directly proportional to her proximity to her husband. When she reaches him, he sees that she is shivering.
    “Is it safe to be out here with all this lightning?”
    “It’s not like we have a choice,” he says. “But we’ll be fine.”
    “We ll, whatever the case, we should keep going,” she says, a bead of rain suspended from a nose the cold has made red and raw.
    He nods. “I think we should be close to the campground offices. Can’t be more than ten, twenty minutes from here.”
    She looks at him for a long moment before speaking again. “What makes you think that?”
    It’s a question he had hoped she wouldn’t ask, because the truth is that he doesn’t think that, has no idea how far they are from anything except lost. The truth is that he knew an hour ago, right around the time he felt the ground begin to rise ever so slightly upward instead of down, that they had gotten completely turned around. The campground offices were in a small valley between the hills. This much, he remembered. If they were headed the right way, the going would have been easier because they’d have been on a decline. The trees would have thinned out too, but the longer they walk, the denser the woods become. The reality, as terrible as it is, is that, yes, he has them well and truly lost, probably miles away from anyone who might be able to help, and all he’s doing now is walking in the hope of finding a cabin, or a lodge, or any kind of shelter.
    H e knows Emma knows this too, and that the long look she gave him was her way of parting the veil of his deception and looking at the complete truth of the matter for herself. He decides the best thing to do is to change the subject, and what better subject than the one that’s hanging over them as heavy as the storm.
    “About earlier…” he says.
    She shrugs, but does not meet his gaze. “Forget it. You were upset.”
    “Yeah, but still, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It wasn’t your fault. The tent was a cheap piece of crap anyway.”
    The slight smile is very slight indeed, but more than he hoped for, so it will do just fine for now. “Yeah, it was. I did try to tell you that. Made a better kite than a tent.”
    The levity, here in this frightening, storm-washed darkness, is so unexpected and so desperately needed, he bursts out laughing. Cody, still enthralled by the hissing, weaving, thunderous woods around them, looks in their direction and smiles. Such a happy child , he thinks. So unflappable. He didn’t get that from me . But in the extensive catalogue of his failures, he’s thankful that he can at least count his son as a success, a good thing, the one bright spot in the Rorschach pattern of his uneven life, even if ultimately he cannot find a way to keep them all together.
    And yet you didn’t want him here . This is yet another unpleasant truth. It isn’t that he doesn’t love the boy, because he does, more than anything. It was just that he’d wanted to be alone with Emma, to get her out of the quagmire of routine of which their son was an integral part, and to discuss with her the kinds of pressing issues not meant to be spoken aloud around children for fear of shattering their illusion of familial security. That she had insisted on bringing Cody with them gave the impression that she wasn’t nearly as enthused at the idea of being alone with him as he’d been. Even his choice of destination had left her nonplussed.
    “If you want to take a trip, why don’t we go to a resort somewhere and enjoy a little luxury for a while?” she’ d said, and even now he can’t say why that had rankled so much. Perhaps it was the implication that she had never enjoyed luxury with him and would have embraced the opportunity to do so. Either way, it has been a disaster from the start, and nothing that’s