Jess Row

“As she leaves the toll booth and pulls toward the right lane the traffic gains momentum, and the great cables of the bridge rise up on either side, like giant wings, like Gothic arches. She thinks, this is my cathedral. She rolls the windows down, and hot, sticky air rushes through the car, smelling of the river. Roger, she thinks, if I had your ashes I would carry them out to the middle in a Chinese takeout container, and toss them off, just casually, over my shoulder. Roger, if you could have died the way you lived, with sarcasm, with subtlety, with the Pixies on the stereo, then it would have been all right. If it had been AIDS, if it had been leukemia, it would have been OK, as long as we had twenty-four hours’ notice, enough time to call a few friends and chill a bottle of champagne, so we could drink it at the bitter end, like Chekhov.”

from “Nobody Ever Gets Lost”