Route 7 Review | Page 138

sions, a Thursday. He glanced at the spine but didn’t acknowledge it.  Later, she noticed Karl had added ”Shadows of the Night” to the index cards on the floor.  The next session, she brought in Auden and Wilbur.  A new index card appeared: “So much fear.”  And next: “Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?” And then John Donne.   And a new card: “Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?” She knew for sure when she came home early one March afternoon.  Jackson was in the kitchen wrestling with an old frame.  He held it up to her, shyly.  It was a sketch she’d made weeks ago.  In his studio.  A mother and her daughter, in matching raincoats, under a street lamp in a drizzle. “Where’d you find that?” she asked. “When I washed your car a few days ago.”  The statement held no hurt or malice, but she hadn’t noticed, had plowed through miles of spring sleet and road salt the past week.  Thoughtless. “I hoped it would be a present.” He paused.  Please don’t say it, she thought, and he said “the cat’s out of the bag.” “How’d you know it wasn’t one of the kid’s?”  He glanced at her, then to the refrigerator where an assortment of purple mermaids and short-necked, heavy-bodied horses hung from magnets. “You’re serious?”  He set the picture down.  “You drew in college.” “Yes.” “It’s neat that you started again, is all.” “Neat.”  She picked up the frame and examined the picture.  “Well, you like everything I do.” Jac