Read Online Second Hand Heart by Catherine Ryan Hyde - Free Book Online

the souls who died of bullets fired from Winchester rifles. Adding to it and adding to it and never wanting to finish it, for fear of what would happen if she ever stopped building.
    I don’t know what she thought would happen. I mean, not really I don’t. I should know as well as anybody, having been a guide there in grad school. (Did I ever tell you that, Myra?) I can still recite the entire memorized tour speech. But I can’t tell you what she actually thought would happen if she ever stopped. I only know I’d really appreciate more photos of Lorrie. What would I do without you, Myra?
    Many thanks and much love to you,
    Richard
    PS:
Roger phoned today. From the university. He seems to want this leave of absence to have an end date already. As if I could simply look forward through my grief to the day it will ease to the point of allowing me to function again. And then I guess he wanted me to just read him off that date. The whole thing was so completely ridiculous but also totally overwhelming. My ending to the conversation was a step or two short of hanging up on him. I might need a new position when I’m ready to teach again. Or maybe he’ll be understanding. Right now I can’t find a place in me that cares.
    PPS:
Thanks again for the photos. Whatever you can bring yourself to spare.

Power Cords
    I was still in my pajamas and robe when I stumbled out to get the mail. In my bare feet. With my hair uncombed.
    This would be an easier confession if my mail were delivered in the morning. Let’s just pretend for the moment that it is.
    I opened the mailbox slowly. As if it might contain poison or explosives or, worse yet, something requiring action, like a bill.
    Inside I found a newsprint flyer of missing children. “Have you seen me?” I had not, but it stretched something in my chest. All that loss. Then I remembered that every one of those parents could at least hold hope of seeing their children again, and a measure of my empathy was lost. Or at least dulled. Ignoble but true.
    Under that was a catalogue, and a thick, large-format Priority Mail envelope that I knew was from Myra. It didn’t actually have her name on the return address, but I recognized her street name, and I don’t know anyone else in Portland.
    It made my heart beat too fast. Painfully so.
    I took it inside, and opened it, still standing in my living room. Pulled out the thick mass of snapshots.
    I couldn’t really fan them out and look at them, not without a surface. I tried, but only ended up spilling some. So I dropped to my knees. Literally dropped; there was pain involved. But then, there’s pain involved in everything.
    I spread them out in front of me.
    I didn’t even exactly look at them one after another. I just left them spilled there before me like some false idol, and I just stayed there on my knees and …
    And nothing.
    I just stayed there. On my knees. In front of them. How I would prefer to report that I sobbed like a baby. In truth I never do. How I would love to describe a feeling. But I think I have none left. Except emptiness. Just a blank slate of nothingness that seemed to swell in my chest, causing pressure. Such a large mass of nothingness needs room to operate.
    Lately I’ve been feeling as though Lorrie’s death jolted me in such a way as to pull my plug out of the wall. So now there is nothing. No power source.
    Or maybe she was the entity I was plugged into. Except I walked and talked before I met her.
    But maybe meeting her changed everything.
    I can’t tell you how much time went by before I was able to gather up the photos again. It felt like an hour, but it could have been a minute. I have no idea. If I can’t even name or isolate what’s going on in my own chest, how can you trust me with a thing like time?
    •  •  •
    In time, though I have no idea how much, I separated out four photos. Not for any special reason. In fact, I chose four that had been lying on the rug face down.
    The rest I