Come with Me

by Ronald Malfi

Every marriage has its secrets. I understand this, Allison. I get it. Secrets are what allow us to cling to our individual selves while also being one half of a matrimonial whole, and can be as vital as breathing.

But this is America, where tragedies roll along on a conveyor belt with alacrity. One is boxed up and shipped out just as another arrives, shiny and new, on the showroom floor.

Holly Renfrow was mostly with friends in the photos—a gaggle of bright, shiny girls and boys, peace signs and sexy poses, kisses for the camera, Halloween costumes, funky hairdos and overdone eyeshadow, the mangy mutt from the yard, a teenage boy kissing the side of another girl’s face, someone’s rust-eaten blue Firebird, roasting marshmallows before a campfire, cigarettes in their mouths.

But then I realized the deadbolt had been turned, so I cranked it, yanked the door open, and hurried out into the rain just as a peal of thunder, loud as Armageddon, clashed across the sky. “We’re doomed, brothers and sisters!” I heard the televangelist chide a second before I slammed the door shut.