“Taking Blues No. 27” by Dan Leach (Fiction ’20)

Taking Blues No. 27

Once, at a work party, I overheard my boss talking to my wife. He did not flirt with her, but neither did he confine himself to the innocuous small talk that marks the supervisor-spouse interaction. He had cornered my wife in a hallway and was describing his recent trip to a twelfth-century monastery in Spain. “I spent the night in one of their cells,” he said. “The silence up there. The darkness. It’s really too pure to talk about.”

What was this voice he was using? It was sweet and warm, as if he had been drinking, and it was low and vulnerable, as if he and my wife were old friends. Except that he had not been drinking, and this was only the second time he had met my wife.

When I turned the corner and crashed their conversation, this new voice disappeared, and the voice I knew from the office—that stiff and anxious trill—returned. “There he is!” my boss said, throwing his arm around me. “You better keep an eye on this one!”

A news anchor from my hometown, who was known for her bright smile and wholesome demeanor, once wrapped up her segment by saying, “From all of us at the Channel Four family, good night and God bless.” Believing she was no longer on air, she then belched into her fist, cracked her neck, and said, “Christ, I can’t wait to get home and sit on Brian’s face.” The following night, she opened the show with a tear-soaked apology. She said, “I have let down my viewers. I have let down my family. I have let down my God.” Even now, I want to write her a letter and tell her how wonderful it felt, for that one moment, to hear that other, truer voice.