Church of the Graveyard Saints. C. Joseph Greaves

that he’d already taken up the shovel.

      9

      Decker and Dixon.

      Dixter. Deckson. Colt’s invocation of their high school portmanteau had rattled inside Addie’s skull for most of the night like a pebble in an empty can. Or like a hit song from summers past that drags you back in time—a riptide sucking you further and further from the shores of present tense. And though the tug is backward and the waters deep and dangerous, what sweet release to float for just awhile and give your arms a rest.

      Vignettes as in a slideshow clicked behind her eyelids.

      Freshman year, first day of school. Addie at her locker breathing the heady perfume of fresh paint and new textbooks and sharpened No. 2 pencils. Colt in his jayvee jersey, number nineteen, loose mesh over a tight black T-shirt, doing a double-take in the hallway and stopping to ask her name. Just like that, with none of the usual fumbling or hemming or my-friend-thinks-you’re-hot preliminaries. Just Colt Dixon with his acne and his mullet, his slouch and his smile, oblivious to his own limitations.