A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

to live before dying. If they have a prerequisite number of laps they need to make around Main Street before jetting.

    I also wondered how Travis’s version of “Fire and Rain” was going and what I would say the next time he played it for me. He’d picked me up on Main Street and told me I looked kind of like Federico Fellini’s wife and I said who’s that and he said I wouldn’t know her and I asked him oh, from Raiders of the Lost Ark ? And he said that was funny and I asked him if he wanted to sign a suicide pact and he said that was insane and I said nothing but I did notice that he had some ketchup or something on his cheek which I thought I would try to ignore while focusing some more on things to say between songs.
    I spent way too much time thinking about what I’d say in between songs. I could say trippy or choice or deadly or wordy or hey, nervy . I could say naked. But no more wow, crazy. I’d heard about a girl taking a boy’s hand and putting it on her heart so he could feel it racing. That’s not bad, I thought. But what would I say if Travis didn’t get it. That’s my heart? Beating? Fast?
    It didn’t really matter because mostly he was interested in running around naked in fields. I could do that. All it required afterwards was lying on the ground and staring silently at the sky and I appreciated activities that in the end required silence. The one time I attempted to speak, out of politeness, Travis put his hand on my stomach and said don’t talk, let’s synchronize our breathing. In. Out. Easy, Nomi, there, yeah. I felt like I was being tested for pneumonia. I wondered if a boulder were to be dropped on us from a height of one hundred feet how many seconds we’d have to roll out of the way.
    I must have fallen asleep thinking about it because when I woke up Travis was sitting in the truck and I was wet. I walked over to his window and tapped on it. He rolled it down a crack.
    You left me lying naked out in the rain? I asked.
    I couldn’t move you, he said.
    Or wake me up? I asked. He said there was lightning and the truck was the safest place. I put my clothes on and climbed in next to him.
    Oooh, you’re wet, he said, so I moved back over to stare out the window. I told him his version of “Fire and Rain” was destroying my soul. Except not out loud.
    Do you know, I told him, that when it rains, or threatens to rain, even cows and horses bunch together to protect one another from the elements.
    Really, he said.
    Yes, I said. Look over there. We stared at a thick clump of horses in the field across the road.
     
    When I got home my dad was on the roof. Feel safe up there, I asked. He shook his head. He was crouching and looking at something.
    I put my fist around my mouth like a bullhorn and said please come down from the roof. I repeat, come down from the roof now. My dad stood up. Little lightning bolts seemed to radiate from his head. He looked like the less angry, less commanding brother of Moses coming down from Mount whatever. I asked him what he was doing and he pointed to the eavestrough and said cleaning this stuff out. I said okay, don’t fall. I went to my room and looked out the window. I wondered if my dad had intentionally waited for an electrical storm to strike before going up on the roof to do some cleaning. Giant chunks of crud were dropping to the ground. I could have stuck my hand out the window and caught them.
     
    My sister’s leftover Valium from her wisdom teeth being removed were still in the cupboard above the stove. I took twoand my Sweet Caps and left for Abe’s Hill to stare at the lights of the city.
    The neighbour kid was playing in her yard as I walked by and I did what I always do. I spun her for a long time until we both fell over. I told her she should go inside because it was dark and she asked why, which I thought stood out nicely from all the questions I’d ever been asked. She had a green shiny purse hanging from her shoulder.
    What’s in