Thirst (28 page)
Authors: Benjamin Warner
“My wife,” he said, and his tongue was thick again, but he collected himself.
The woman looked down at the grass that covered the short distance between them. She was silent for a while.
Then she said: “It’s brackish water, you know? It has a salt content. Maybe that’s why it’s still here. We’ve got a couple of geniuses on our side. My husband’s an engineer. If you boil it and let it condense, you can drink it. It’s distilled.”
Beyond the fires, the Bay stretched full and smooth beneath the two spans of the bridge. The sun was going down and the water was gray, but to the west it was bright as neon where the light was touching it.
“Look,” she said, motioning to the fires and the people tending them. “All this in just two days. A day and a half, really. The human mind is really something when you need it to be.”
She glanced beside her and squinted against the last of the sun. The two little girls had gone off somewhere, and the grass was empty.
“When my kids were little,” the woman said, “they used to love when the power went out. We’d read to them by candlelight.”
She looked at him and her face softened to accommodate what must have been devastating his. She was standing nearer to him now. She hadn’t touched his hand, though he felt that she would—that she would take it and hold it without thinking it a kindness.
Then she closed her eyes, as if letting the evening settle over her, and together they stood and faced the expanse of darkening water.
I would not have been able to write this book without the friends and family who read and reread its earlier drafts. Many thanks to Andrew Ewell and Hannah Pittard, Nick Soodik, Dr. Alex McQuoid, Patrick Somerville, H. Jerry Cohen, Jerry Gabriel, Mark Rader, John Watt, Rob Roensch, Ari Lieberman, Jeff Klein, Cathy Chung, Mikail Qazi, John Moses Jr., Thor Polson, Murray Warner, Dara Warner, and the Warner I live with, Joanna.
For their continuing collegial support and willingness to discuss books and writing, I’d like to thank Michael Downs and Andrew Reiner.
For her keen eye, attention to detail, and equanimity in working with a first-time novelist, I’d like to thank my editor, Lea Beresford, and the team at Bloomsbury
USA
for whipping this book into shape.
I’m also grateful to Christy Fletcher and Sylvie Greenberg at Fletcher & Company for their intellectual generosity and
dedication to my work. Thank you both for seeing something special in these pages.
And, of course, a thank-you to my folks, Rona and Steve, who not only taught me and my sister to read and write, but with infinite patience did the same for middle school kids across the state of Maryland. For forty years.
Benjamin Warner teaches writing at Towson University.
Thirst
is his first novel. A Maryland native, he lives in Baltimore.
Bloomsbury
USA
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First published 2016
© Benjamin Warner, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-63286-215-0
ePub: 978-1-63286-216-7
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Warner, Benjamin.
Thirst / Benjamin Warner.
pages cm
ISBN
978-1-63286-215-0 (hardback) / 978-1-63286-216-7 (ePub)
I. Title.
PS
3623.A86248T66 2016
813′.6—dc23
2015015311
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