Twelve weeks after the accident Alan drags you to the top of St. Louis’ Gateway Arch and thrums the heartbeat signal in the hollow of your chest.
 
Tuh-tum, tuh-tump.

​

Alan wants you to believe the signal is proof of God, some higher power, that nothing is happenstance. He wants you to believe that standing inside this curved metallic structure, sixty-three stories high, forehead pressed to the narrow window, you’re defying gravity, you’re upheld by an unseen force—a great magic—not forty-two tons of concrete and steel.

​

But what do you want?

​

From this immense height, you see the sunset pinking St. Louis—reflecting off the copper dome of the old courthouse, Kiener Plaza’s bone-white ice rink, the caliper-shaped lawn of the arch complex below. And specks of people, moving dots, like motes. Blips. Nothings.

 

“Incredible, right?” Alan asks, but your knees buckle.

​

On the opposite side, you give your weight to the angled platform and stare east, toward Illinois and the silt-brown water of the Mississippi.

 

Despite the air conditioning, you feel the hard heat of Alan’s body against yours, his ever-readiness. He whispers, “We can try again,” as if you still believe you’re a structure that can support life.

​

You think of your own arches—the curve of your foot, the hollows of your eyes, the unforgiving architecture of your pubis.

 

“It was an accident,” Alan reminds you, the agreed upon term. Not a failure. Not a malfunction.

​

The observation deck empties and Alan slides his fingers inside the waistband of your skirt, to the empty space where she used to be, and searches for a sign, a yielding of your body to his. A drum beat.

​

Your eyes rise from the river as newborn stars prick the veil of the sky, and you imagine the scientists, ears cupped. Waiting.