The Weight of Stones. C.B. Forrest

are grades to these things, levels to be achieved,” McKelvey said. “I don’t really remember what it was like being a husband in my early thirties, but I can guess that I wasn’t very good at it. You think you learn about women as you go along, but you don’t learn anything. They’re light years ahead of us.”

      “I never cheated on my wife, but I came close,” Tim said, and it came out so fast that it reminded McKelvey of a typical amateur’s confession. A breathless burst of information. “This supply teacher, she invited me to her place for a drink.”

      “Listen, you don’t have to...”

      “No, I want to tell you. I want to tell somebody, because it drives me crazy sometimes. I have to get it off my chest. There was this supply teacher, and we really hit it off, you know, joking around and being stupid. Getting caught up in the whole school flirt thing. She invited me to her place for a drink. She knew I was married, but I guess she didn’t care.” Tim paused, looked down into his drink, rolled the frothy remains in the bottom of the glass. “Anyway, we didn’t do anything. I had a drink, and we fooled around a little, then I got my senses back. I felt sick about it. And then six months later, Jennifer was killed by a fucking drunk driver. She was hit walking across the street that she crossed every day when she was leaving work. The same street.”

      “Don’t do that to yourself. You should be proud of the fact you got the hell out of there. Most men would have jumped at the opportunity without even thinking, then lived with the consequences,” McKelvey said, and his mind flashed with childhood memories—listening with an ear to the floor while his mother and father argued below in the kitchen, accusations of infidelity, the awful words his mother spat. “Your tavern whores,” she said. And then the arguments seemed to simply dissipate, and McKelvey was left to decipher the silences, the glances that fell between his mother and father. The male gossip at Bud’s barbershop, the coded language that belonged to men of that era. Life in a small northern town. Every aspect of your life is everybody else’s business. To believe otherwise is to be an elitist—like anyone who came from a city in southern Ontario or anyone perfectly willing to pay four dollars for a cappuccino.

      “Listen, we’re idiots. Face it,” McKelvey said. “I used to think women had no place on the police force. I’ll admit to that line of thinking at one time. But not now. I see that women come at things from a whole different angle. I can’t tell you what that fucking angle is, mind you, but we need it. We need it.”

      Tim wanted to order another round, but McKelvey declined. He made an excuse about work, but the truth was his guts were on fire. The worst heartburn imaginable, like goddamned napalm cutting a line from his stomach to the back of his throat. It was a new sensation, a flash of heat and stabbing pain. Like something tearing. He was dizzy when he stood from the table, and he set a hand down to steady himself. It was the weight of the day, a bad day, and the fact he’d had too much coffee on an empty stomach. He did it to himself all the time.

      “You look like you’re getting the flu,” Tim said, sitting forward to pull his wallet from his back pocket. “It’s going around the school like wild fire. I got the free shot at the clinic.”

      “I’m fine,” McKelvey said, though the room was beginning to undulate, the hazy lights fading, flickering. “Listen, this is on me.”

      He tossed a few bills on the table then wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

      “Next time I’ll buy,” Tim said. “If you’re up for it, that is.”

      “Just give me a call,” McKelvey said, and the two men shook hands.