THE WEDDING MASK DOOR PULL

They’ve selected Concord Gray Thermal—after working with Steve—for the deceased wife.

The newly married pair had had to stay in Montpelier overnight, as if on the sly, to buy her headstone.

“It still hurts,” the wife says, when they’re back on the road. “I wonder what’s wrong.”

Gently, from time to time, the husband had placed firm pressure to a point slightly below the tilt of the new wife’s torso at the pubic bone.

At Greg’s Place en route to Westport where they live, the wife says, “This wine is sour if you’d like to taste it.” She says, “Maybe the doctor injured my tooth.”

Akin to their lion mask front door pull, they both have brown circles under their eyes and yellowed teeth.

Indignation shows on the lower ledge of the wife’s eyes. Her pointed chin is so unlike her predecessor’s.

“What are you doing?” the husband says.

“I am checking out my jawbone.”

Her husband turned his head this way, away from her, half-pleased. Then the thought came to him. He still hesitated. He did not want to rush. He wanted to live a little.