University of Northern Iowa

CongenitalAuthor(s): Damon McLaughlinSource: The North American Review, Vol. 292, No. 3/4, The Annual Summer Fiction DoubleIssue (May - Aug., 2007), p. 30Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25478902 .

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NAR

"Why not?"

"I didn't show up today, and I didn't call or anything." "Oh."

"I've been a little forgetful recentiy. Well, I guess you could call it worse than that." She was still looking away from me.

Two men came in the bar and passed by our table. Both of them looked at Mar. Their pants were wet and had long dark streaks down the legs as if they'd wiped their hands on their knees over and over again. They smelled like fish oil and diesel. Perhaps they noticed that Mar's pants were also wet and dirty.

I watched the two men leaning over the bar toward the bartender. I heard the bartender say, "I know."

"Do you draw?" I said.

"Oh, yeah, I do. I was an art major in college. Have you seen that poster around town for that art contest the Arts Association

put on? The shapes coming in on the surf?" I stared at Mar unbelieving. I'd noticed that poster every

where. Three shapes in primary colors, a circle, a square, and a

triangle were washing in on the surf, and in the distance were identical shapes, only smaller, also washing in on the surf. The

painting implied that behind the second set of shapes, there could be a third and a fourth, as many sets of shapes, in fact, as there are sets of waves. Every time I saw it I felt disturbed. At first I couldn't figure out why, until I decided it was because it felt so

impossible and yet so clearly present, a bold statement about what was not. It made you shrink inside to see the world that

way. "Sure, I've seen that."

"That's mine." She took a sip of beer.

The pitcher was almost gone, and the bartender was looking our way.

"Let's go," Mar said.

"Okay."

"Goodnight," she called to the bartender, and we left. I left my truck in the parking lot because my place was close,

and both of us liked walking up the paths on the hillside. We walked down to the Uniontown Peddler, got a six-pack, and headed up the dark trail to my apartment. Blackberries grabbed at the cuffs of my pants. It was funny how we didn't even talk about her coming over. She just came, and I expected that.

My apartment was warm and bright. Mar remarked immedi

ately on my print of Hopper's "Rooms by the Sea." There's an empty room with just shadows

and a doorway that opens to only water. The rooms are clearly the rooms of a house?solid,

rooms that wouldn't rock; however, the view

from the door makes you feel as if you're looking out from inside a boat. "Sometimes

my place feels like this," she said, gesturing toward the print. "Sometimes I feel like this," she added in her gravelly voice.

"Listen," Mar said as I came out of the

kitchen with two open beers. "I really appre ciate you taking me into town tonight. I wasn't

real sure how I was going to get back."

"Well, you seemed a little, oh, confused

or something." "I've been real confused. Things happen, and

then I don't remember them, except there's

always, oh, you know, a mark or something to

let me know they happened. And my stomach's been pretty messed up. Sometimes I can eat, and other times I can't." I looked straight into her face to see if I could recognize anything bizarre, unusual, crooked. She looked

concerned, even a little frightened, but mostly just earnest. I didn't say anything.

"Well, anyway, thanks. This is a really fun

evening, too. I'm having a lot of fun."

"Me too," I said, happy to leave behind what ever it was she was trying to tell me.

That night I told Mar everything about the books I'd recently read, the hikes I'd taken since I'd moved here, my visits to the

mooring basin where I'd watch the seals piled on top of one another. I told her about my

DAMON MCLAUGHLIN

Congenital

Brittle teeth I say so she will feel her mouth for sores, remembering that girl I'd dated in college and dumped out of pity, her lips

thin when enclosing, disclosing secrets

| I didn't care to know. Some secrets deserve release.

Some barriers should never be broken.

When my wife informs me our perfect three-month-old

daughter suffers the same eye condition she did?glasses at six months, blindness?I want to say brittle teeth

before I realize this condition can be outgrown

obviously, like a boy outrun on the playground I and my jaw grinds to a halt. Is it wrong

to pass on blame like pain, to swing language like a saber? I wrestle with these old knives j in my mouth, tasting blood. And it is my blood. It is hers.

30 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW May-August 2007

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