Stephanie Manuzak
They had divided up the Saturdays of house-hunting, she said, like bath towels. Hers, his, hers, his. Today was his, and Jan was standing on the sidewalk, turned away casually from the house they had come to look at, as if reading the breeze that blew from the harbor and cataloguing the decades-old stained-glass panels that still remained above some front doors. Mac had known she would do this. At least it’s only this one, he imagined her thinking as she crinkled her nose as a stray hair blew across it. She would laugh at him about this house later, he knew, because she loved him. He knew that too and it made his stomach give a lurch that threatened to topple the narrow street, with its rectilinear square-topped rowhomes and parked cars, brick and formstone, pigeons, and an old man walking a waddling terrier: capsize, turtle the whole thing. It was all very new to him, and he supposed the shock would dissipate over time. But a four month engagement and five weeks of marriage still gave him these surreal jolts. How can anyone function like this? he wondered, and he wondered then what would happen if things changed, about how he would handle a lurch in the stomach from something other than happiness, how she would. But that hasn’t happened yet, he told himself again, and concentrated on looking for Kenny, the guy who was selling the house. He would be driving a beige pickup, he said. And right then a small, aged truck rumbled around the corner by the muddy park, driven by a small grayish man with large glasses. [Read more…]
