CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Variations of Patience* 1 *
The day wound down like an untended clock.
Wilfred went back home.
He opened a tin of beans and scooped them cold and gnawed them down with a wedge of cheddar. He wrapped the leftovers in plastic and stuck them in the fridge. His leg ached from the crash. He wished for a bag of frozen peas to take the swelling down, but the peas were a puddle of green shelled slime on the basement floor.
He grabbed a handful of pain pills.
He washed the pills down with three tins of warm Keith’s beer.
One by one he lobbed the empty beer cans into the trashcan.
Emma would have recycled them.
“f**k that s**t,” he said. “Nothing good ever comes back.”
Then he went downstairs to check on Emma.
He sat by the freezer for two hours after supper, on a folding
