Signal Fires

by Dani Shapiro

For a brief moment a world of sorrow crosses Ben’s face like a passing shadow, before his features rearrange themselves into something safe and bland.

It is she herself, Sarah Wilf, who is missing. She’s here, sure. But some essential part of her is not fully present.

She numbs her feelings, because they are bigger than she is. And not just the painful feelings—the joyful ones too.

But if she told Peter, what good would it do? It would become a thing. Something real. She’d have to contend with his questions. With his knowledge.

She is lovelier than ever, but it is her sadness that lights her from within.

It isn’t misery that loves company—no, no. Happiness loves company, and misery—misery just wants to be left alone.

His idiotic, careless, carefree children who, at least until this night, hadn’t yet lived long enough to understand that there are fates from which their parents can’t save them.

His gratitude is so wide and deep that it feels, instead, like shame.

The stars, rather than appearing distant and implacable, seemed to be signal fires in the dark, mysterious fellow travelers lighting a path; one hundred thousand million luminous presences beckoning from worlds away.

“If only time could be seen whole, then you could see the past remaining intact, instead of vanishing in the rearview mirror.”