MERCY

PUBLIC

"It is, certainly, obstinate, compact, self-disciplined, holding itself in check, but also amenable, attractive, polished, soft, agreeable in the hands" (41)

May God be with you (and also with you)

Mercy packs two bags, one large duffel bag full of clothes and one hard suitcase full of books. This is all she takes with her. She stops only twice to go to the bathroom on the way home, the highway empty save for semi-trucks that flash their lights at her because she drives with her brights on. In the second rest area, an old janitor asks her if there is any more chicks in the lady's room and she says I don't know because she doesn't really know but she does, it is 4:00 am and no one else is around. He grumps back at her.

She pulls into the long driveway full of dead trees. She pulls her car behind the run down boat in the driveway, the broken down Mercedes with the legal tags and license plates, everything broken. Her father had always had very stylish cars but now he had a van because it was roomy and didn't hurt him so much coming and going from the hospital and the van was parked in the huge two stall garage, out of sight. In the early morning light the boat looked so much bigger. The yard felt like it went for miles. All of the houses on the block looked fake, like a movie set, like Mercy could pry the sides open with her fingers and open the houses fronts on hinges, a doll house.

The woods rustle behind her. It is a photographer. Flash and snap and rustle and run.

You don't love me anymore.