One Last Thing Before I Go

accomplishment to propel her. The sweat, originating beneath her helmet, is trickling down her forehead, stinging her in the thick scab that has formed at the corner of her eye.
    It was the corner of the door that hit her, the effect both severely bruising as well as lacerating, and now she looks like the battered wife in a television movie. It’s been three days since Silver stormed the house—that’s how she thinks of it, in those exact words—and despite an aggressive regimen of prescription anti-inflammatories, the swelling is only now beginning to recede, the deep purple bruising starting to yellow at the edges.
    As she hits the second incline, she hears “On your left” as another cyclist passes her. He’s forty-five or so, riding a carbon fiber Pinarello, for God’s sake, and wearing one of those absurdly colorful racing jerseys like he’s training for the Tour de France instead of getting in a morning ride before putting on his jacket and tie and heading off to an office somewhere. The Pinarellos start at $5,000, like you need a bike of that caliber to ride Lake Terrace Boulevard. Men and their hardware. Rich is the same way about golf, always looking for the latest equipment. And she remembers teasing Silver about his constantly evolving drum kit. He couldn’t walk into a music store without finding something to buy. She wonders about the nature of the hole they’re trying to fill with all of this gear.
    She is suddenly filled with a fury that makes her bowels clench. Rising off her seat, she leans into her pedaling, unwilling to let this brightly colored asshole beat her. She has had it with men, with their gear and their holes, their relentless cocks, and the messes they make.
    The cyclist, sensing her approach, takes a look over his colorful shoulder and Denise sees his own ass rise from his seat. It’s on. She shifts down one gear and speeds up her pedaling. Ahead of her, she hears the grind and click of his $5,000 gears, and she knows he’s done the same. He’s not about to let a woman pass him.
    Fuck you, she thinks at him. Fuck your middle-aged, weekend warrior, veiny-calved, overcompensating, overspending ass.
    She’s barely spoken to Rich since the accident. He’s been staying back at his house near the hospital, at her request. Denise told him she needed some one-on-one time with Casey, but she could see in his eyes that he suspected something more. She knows she’s being irrational, that it was an accident, as much Silver’s fault as anyone’s, but something happened in that room, something she hasn’t quite been able to wrap her mind around. In that instant just before Rich had broken through, she’d been looking at Silver, and she’d seen something in his expression—a passion and determination she hadn’t seen in years. The dull, defeated expression that had become his default in recent years disappeared, and she’d seen, well, her Silver. For that one instant, she had felt her family around her, Silver and Casey, and something in her, some long-dormant protective instinct, had sparked to life. And it had thrown her, badly. So much so that when Rich burst into the room, she felt like he—and not Silver—was the intruder. And then the door hit her in the face.
    They have reached the second crest. There’s now a small straightaway, the briefest stretch of downhill, before the road curves sharply into the third and final incline. She is inches from his rear wheel. She bends over her handlebars and comes up one gear. “On your left!” she shouts as she starts to pass him. But the guy doesn’t yield. He stays where he is so that they are neck and neck, their legs pumping just inches apart from each other. The bike lane is narrow up here, and it’s nothing short of reckless to be riding abreast like this. She should let it go, give him his senseless victory, but something in her won’t yield. She’s on the left, closer to the passing cars, and as she leans in, she can feel their elbows tap lightly. She turns to look at him, sees the sweat sliding off his pointed chin, the long muscles of his forearm grinding as he presses forward. For the briefest moment they make eye contact. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
    She is filled with a fury she doesn’t understand. Ahead of them, a large fallen bough lies across the bike lane. She’ll pass it with no problem, but it’s directly in his path. He will have to fall back to get behind her. Instead, he speeds up and tries to