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Show -277 thought about Jacob's mother, who left him, and my mother Linda who ran off with her Hawaiian convict, her last words to hell with you. And Alice. Three bitches in succession. How could one man have such consistent bad luck in women? Just about when I thought I couldn't stand it any more, I found that the feeling of horror had finished sweeping through me, leaving behind only some muddy thoughts and bits of melancholy like dead leaves. Instead of starting up and going home I drove us up a hill on the west side of town, further out than Adam's house. The asphalt changed to dirt and gravel; we went up more and more steeply, winding our way in low gear over uncertain footing until we crested a little ridge. In the years since I'd been gone someone had started a subdivision and given it up again. Narrow dirt streets bulldozed out of the grass curved back and forth across the slope; here and there wooden stakes with bits of red ribbon tied to their tops stood like simple dead flowers. In front of us the grass was dotted with darker clumps of wild rose, an indestructible thorny plant. Young fir-trees stuck straight up everywhere like green arrows, full of determined life, fueled by the wet red earth just under the grass. At the bottom of the hill another would-be street ended in two sad muddy ruts. "What is it that drives us?" I said to Jacob. "Is |