First Chapter, First Paragraph: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

[A little long on the entry this time around for First Chapter, First Paragraph, but I am confident that this will intrigue you to consider reading this new Stephen King venture. If you are new to Stephen King (as I am in the past couple of months), I think you will enjoy this intro to his writing].

I have never been what you'd call a crying man.

My ex-wife said that my "nonexistent emotional gradient" was the main reason she was leaving me (as if the guy she met in her AA meetings was beside the point). Christy said she supposed she could forgive me not crying at her father's funeral; I had only known him for six years and couldn't understand what a wonderful, giving man he had been (a Mustang convertible as a high school graduation present, for instance). But then, when I didn't cry at my own parents' funerals - they died just two years apart, Dad of stomach cancer and Mom of a thunderclap heart attack while walking on a Florida beach - she began to understand the nonexistent gradient thing. I was "unable to feel my feelings," in AA-speak.

"I have never seen you shed tears," she said, speaking in the flat tones people use when they are expressing the absolute final deal-breaker in a relationship. "Even when you told me I had to go to rehab or you were leaving." This conversation happened about six weeks before she packed her things, drove them across town, and moved in with Mel Thompson. "Boy meets girl on the AA campus" - that's another saying they have in those meetings.

I didn't cry when I saw her off. I didn't cry when I went back inside the little house with the great big mortgage, either. The house where no baby had come, or now ever would. I just lay down on the bed that now belonged to me alone, and put my arm over my eyes, and mourned.

First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is a weekly feature hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea. To participate, share your selection from the book you're reading.