A Reasonable Match by Martin Brick

She knew I liked long hair. Which convinces me it wasn’t a true breakup cut. She planned to come back, and to make me feel bad, the growing hair a reminder of my gradual forgiveness. Everyone knew those long chestnut locks. So everyone would ask, “what’s the deal?” if they saw her lying in her casket with that spiky cut. Especially her mother who said it made her look like a lesbian. Her mother who knew we were on the rocks, who had a very bad impression of me, looked at her daughter and said, “You’ve driven her away from men altogether, haven’t you?” I think she blamed me for the death. The police simply said she had alcohol in her system, never explicitly said it was a “factor.” There was light snow. Maybe, even sober, she would have slipped. Or maybe the drinks slowed her reflexes. Or maybe they made her melancholy enough that a concrete pillar looked inviting. One thing I know for certain is that I was the reason she was drinking. Another thing I know with certainty is that if you search very hard, with a photograph, you can find a wig that matches reasonably well. And a last thing I know, is that if you ask the funeral director he will let you keep the wig, and provided you don’t tell her the back story, a woman you hookup with months later will wear it and when you say “forgive me” she’ll grant it.

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