Read Online All Rivers Flow to the Sea by Alison McGhee - Free Book Online
Authors: Alison McGhee
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seasons out of the year. I would give up all my hair. No hair anywhere. Eyebrows, eyelashes, all gone.
A sacrifice, but enough of one?
Of course not.
Joe’s fingers are busy. He’s almost through with one big stack. Soon he will be on to the next.
“What would you give up to have Ivy back the way she was?” I say.
He looks at me with a who-the-hell-do-you-think-I-am look. He shakes his head, and he goes back to his sorting.
“Nothing?”
“Stop it.”
“If it were possible, I mean. If you could.”
Sort. Spike. Toss. Sort. Sort. Spike. Toss.
“It’s not possible,” he says.
“But if it were. Imagine if it were. What would you be willing to give up?”
“Jesus Christ, Rose. Anything.”
That’s his answer. Anything. He doesn’t stop to think. He doesn’t go through the machinations, as William T. would have said, the machinations of analysis. The endless process. The series of what-if’s and but-if’s, the if-this-then-not-that’s.
“So you would give up anything, then?”
His fingers stop flickering through the scraps of paper. He leans over the counter toward me.
“There is nothing I would not give up.”
“You can’t walk everywhere for the rest of your life, Younger,” William T. says. “There are times when a car is a necessity.”
He sits in his blue chair. I’m in my green chair with the chrome handles, one hand on Ivy’s leg through the white sheet and the white blanket.
“The Pompeians didn’t have cars,” I say.
“My point exactly. Had the Pompeians had cars, they could’ve gotten the hell out of Dodge, so to speak. Outstripped that lava. Made it to an olive grove, taken shelter in the shade.”
“I don’t want to drive, William T.”
“I know you don’t, Younger. Nevertheless.”
He holds out a New York State Department of Motor Vehicles driver’s manual.
“Study up on the rules of the road,” he says. “So that someday, if you decide that you might after all give it a try, you’ll be prepared.”
The car that Ivy and I were in was a station wagon. Now it’s a lump of crushed metal that used to be a station wagon. In my imagination, our crushed car was perfectly square, the kind of square that appears in third-grade math books. One inch on every side. What is the perimeter of this square?
If you were me as a third grader, you did what the teacher told you to do and counted all the sides:
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4
If you were Ivy as a third grader, you took one look and said, “Four.”
Ivy didn’t bother with the process. The process was what the math books wanted you to bother with, but Ivy didn’t care. Instead of learning multiplication the way the book wanted you to — which was to understand the concept, and they had all kinds of ways to help you understand the concept — Ivy just sat down and memorized the times table. She made herself flash cards, the ones table through the twelves table, and sat there for a week. Every afternoon after school, every morning after breakfast, every night after dinner, until she had them down. Done.
I open the manual at random.
If you want to make a left turn from a one-way road onto a two-way road, you must approach the turn in the left lane or from the left side of a single lane. As you cross the intersection, enter the two-way road to the right of its center line, but as close as possible to the center line. Be alert for traffic, especially motorcycles, approaching from the road to the left. Oncoming motorcycles are difficult to see, and it is difficult to judge their speed and distance away.
“Read aloud,” William T. says. “Maybe I’ll learn something.”
“‘Single broken line,’” I read. “‘You may pass other vehicles or change lanes if you can do so safely and not interfere with traffic.’”
“Well, hell, who doesn’t know that one?”
“‘If two drivers enter an intersection from opposite directions at the same time, one going straight, the other turning left, which must yield the
A sacrifice, but enough of one?
Of course not.
Joe’s fingers are busy. He’s almost through with one big stack. Soon he will be on to the next.
“What would you give up to have Ivy back the way she was?” I say.
He looks at me with a who-the-hell-do-you-think-I-am look. He shakes his head, and he goes back to his sorting.
“Nothing?”
“Stop it.”
“If it were possible, I mean. If you could.”
Sort. Spike. Toss. Sort. Sort. Spike. Toss.
“It’s not possible,” he says.
“But if it were. Imagine if it were. What would you be willing to give up?”
“Jesus Christ, Rose. Anything.”
That’s his answer. Anything. He doesn’t stop to think. He doesn’t go through the machinations, as William T. would have said, the machinations of analysis. The endless process. The series of what-if’s and but-if’s, the if-this-then-not-that’s.
“So you would give up anything, then?”
His fingers stop flickering through the scraps of paper. He leans over the counter toward me.
“There is nothing I would not give up.”
“You can’t walk everywhere for the rest of your life, Younger,” William T. says. “There are times when a car is a necessity.”
He sits in his blue chair. I’m in my green chair with the chrome handles, one hand on Ivy’s leg through the white sheet and the white blanket.
“The Pompeians didn’t have cars,” I say.
“My point exactly. Had the Pompeians had cars, they could’ve gotten the hell out of Dodge, so to speak. Outstripped that lava. Made it to an olive grove, taken shelter in the shade.”
“I don’t want to drive, William T.”
“I know you don’t, Younger. Nevertheless.”
He holds out a New York State Department of Motor Vehicles driver’s manual.
“Study up on the rules of the road,” he says. “So that someday, if you decide that you might after all give it a try, you’ll be prepared.”
The car that Ivy and I were in was a station wagon. Now it’s a lump of crushed metal that used to be a station wagon. In my imagination, our crushed car was perfectly square, the kind of square that appears in third-grade math books. One inch on every side. What is the perimeter of this square?
If you were me as a third grader, you did what the teacher told you to do and counted all the sides:
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4
If you were Ivy as a third grader, you took one look and said, “Four.”
Ivy didn’t bother with the process. The process was what the math books wanted you to bother with, but Ivy didn’t care. Instead of learning multiplication the way the book wanted you to — which was to understand the concept, and they had all kinds of ways to help you understand the concept — Ivy just sat down and memorized the times table. She made herself flash cards, the ones table through the twelves table, and sat there for a week. Every afternoon after school, every morning after breakfast, every night after dinner, until she had them down. Done.
I open the manual at random.
If you want to make a left turn from a one-way road onto a two-way road, you must approach the turn in the left lane or from the left side of a single lane. As you cross the intersection, enter the two-way road to the right of its center line, but as close as possible to the center line. Be alert for traffic, especially motorcycles, approaching from the road to the left. Oncoming motorcycles are difficult to see, and it is difficult to judge their speed and distance away.
“Read aloud,” William T. says. “Maybe I’ll learn something.”
“‘Single broken line,’” I read. “‘You may pass other vehicles or change lanes if you can do so safely and not interfere with traffic.’”
“Well, hell, who doesn’t know that one?”
“‘If two drivers enter an intersection from opposite directions at the same time, one going straight, the other turning left, which must yield the
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