The Brink by Austin Bunn Page B

the barking and come. He had to undo time. Graham stepped backward and his hand fell on the stem of the pitchfork, resting on the back banister.
    At the grave, he could see the black plastic shredded already. He had been wrong—he could never hide or forget the fact of the burial. It was a sinister molecule in the universe, pulling things toward it, like his family, his future, like his right foot, moving one step forward, which shattered some invisible perimeter around the dog, and it dove forward and snarled.
    Graham held the pitchfork out. Schatzi snapped and backed up. Graham went to the door in the fence and flipped the latch. It swung open and the dog’s ears pricked up, quizzically. Now, Graham edged in wide circle to the opposite flank.
    â€œCome on, come on,” Graham said, trying to settle him, making eye contact.
    Schatzi rotated with him. Graham’s two hands held the pitchfork out, his only defense. When he took a step toward the hole, the dog lunged. Impulsively, Graham thrust. The tines of the pitchfork jabbed once, into the dog’s fur. Schatzi yelped and reeled away toward the fence, where Aaron stood in the opening, mouth agape.
    â€œJesus Christ,” Aaron said, leaning over to grip Schatzi’s collar. His hand came away smeared with blood. “What the fuck?”
    The screen door to the house slammed. Graham felt a wave of relief. Marlena was here. Marlena would know which lawyers, everything.
    But it was his daughter, Em’s face contorted in horror, andredheaded Helena, Aaron too, these witnesses, every one of them seeing him and the pitchfork and the gray limbs exposed to the air. Graham could not move.
    â€œEveryone, please, go back inside,” Graham said.
    Then, in a kind of trance, Helena stepped down the stairs. She wore tight, ripped jeans and a sweater that looked collapsed. Her face had spots where she picked at it. She walked straight past Graham and fell to her knees at the side of the grave, the black plastic visible. The German shepard barked and tested Aaron’s grip.
    â€œWhat did you do?” Aaron said, staring into the hole.
    Helena looked at him, bitterness etched in her face, Aaron’s face went slack in recognition, and she began to rake the earth into the hole with her hands. Graham dropped the pitchfork and led Em inside, Come with me , where they looked at each other across the kitchen island, both of them shaking, trying not to hear the low voices outside. His daughter’s eyes were imploring, terrified, and he realized he had grown accustomed to not seeing them, not knowing her. Em tucked her hands into the sleeves and he told her to tell him what she knew, what had happened in the basement, and then they would bury the details and, together, never say another word.
    The five acres at Five Mile will not be theirs. The market will shit itself again, but they will sell their house and buy another house. Em will go away to college, but she will call regularly, and when she calls, she will ask to speak to her father because, and this he couldn’t have predicted, she will want him to know her. The event of a secret will become a kind ofgift. She will tell him about strange boys she meets, about her anxiety, about the place she volunteers. Eventually she will talk about traveling, as her father and mother did once, to ruins in Asia, to the coast of Spain, gathering distance from them and from the dark molecule. And when Em does, Graham will hear his voice, across the years, saying, Go, go, go .

Ledge
    Mother, I have seen such marvels. Like the ocean aglow at night with a cold green fire and a fish with a child’s face and two fleshy whiskers. (No man would eat it. We blessed the creature and tossed it back.) I’ve seen a corpse with golden hair in a boat set adrift; his eyes were the slits on a newly born kitten. When the boatswain came to after three days on the garrucha for the crime of sodomy—his wrists tied behind