He had grabbed the pillow anyway, ignoring her hostile glare when he’d stuffed it under her head. Now, a low snore drags through her open mouth, the sound waking her up, and she starts in her seat. “I’m not sleeping,” she calls out loudly, though he sits just two feet away, hunched over the desk. “Oh-kay,” he calls back, as if he can’t care less, his pen moving across the crossword puzzle page, filling in the boxes with neat and careful letters. A-S-P-H-A-L-T. Before he finishes the next clue, she has fallen asleep again, another soft sound coming out of her open mouth.
He closes the crossword book and sits for a moment, watching her. Two weeks together, and they’ve finished the first seven chapters. She’s refused to give him a full outline, so it’s hard to tell how far into the story they’ve gone. At this pace, they should be fine, finishing the manuscript and submitting it to publishers before she gets too bad. He’ll get paid and be back in Memphis by Thanksgiving, spending Christmas with Maggie while Helena—his chest grows tight, like it hasn’t for a long time. There, in the recesses of his chest, the yearn for a drink. He reopens the crossword and stares at the rows of blocks and blanks, dark specks blurring as he struggles to focus.
Adult Insect. 12 across. Five letters.
I-M-A-G-O. Her, alone, bent over a bucket, vomiting. Snow outside, her struggling to walk, to fix herself something to eat.
He steels himself against the visual. She’s a wealthy woman. She can afford nurses, twenty-four-hour care. Kate will come, Kate will be here, surely. It won’t be like that.
One of her hands curls against the white fabric of her sweatshirt and he watches it, the thin fingers, the blue veins along its back. Such tiny hands to create such huge worlds.
He looks back down at the page, but his mind is blank.
I’m worse. I didn’t think I could be worse, but my body is an asshole. When I roll over on the couch, I feel my stomach heave. When I close my eyes, the room spins. Everything aches. Everything tastes terrible. I am freezing, yet I can see the damp stains underneath Mark’s armpits and the sweat dotting his forehead when he brings me hot tea. When I made it to the bathroom, I looked at the thermostat. It’s eighty-three degrees in here. My teeth shouldn’t be chattering. I shouldn’t have goosebumps along my arms.
“Here.” He moves in front of me, a blanket in hand. He covers my chest, and I watch a bead of sweat run down his neck. I don’t need his help. I’m not an invalid. I am perfectly capable of getting my own blanket and tea. I can fight this bug, or whatever this is, without his help. He should be writing. One of the two of us should be productive right now. “Open up.” He has a thermometer in hand, and he’s forgotten the clear disposable cover, the one that keeps the tip free from germs.
“It needs a cover.” I sound pathetic, the words scratchy and weak.
“We ran out. I’ll grab some tomorrow.”
I pin my lips together and he smiles in response. “Open your damn mouth.”
Bethany, her lips in a tight line, eyes wide at Simon. The dental floss stretching out from her lips, the end of it in his fingers. Open up, Bethany. It won’t hurt. Just a quick tug.
That night, their quiet slip into her room. Glitter dusted across her pillow. The silver dollar replacing the tiny tooth.
I open my mouth and close my eyes, trying to hold onto the memory, the sound of her squeal when she discovered the silver dollar, the way she had run into our bedroom and crawled in between us, glitter sparkling off her hair. She had laid back and held the coin up in the air. She had called it magic, and Simon had cut off my rebuttal with a warning look. “Yes,” he’d agreed, his head settling on the pillow beside hers. “It’s magic.”
The dirty thermometer pokes at the underside of my tongue and I reach up, taking it from Mark and closing my mouth around it. I watch his hands as they move to his hips, hanging there. He needs to be writing, yet he has nothing to write. I have to tell him something, anything. I have to give him the next story, yet all I seem capable of is sleep.
It beeps and I relax my jaw, passing the stick over to Mark, who brings it up to his face. “Ninety-nine point nine.”
“I told you I was fine.”
“Your chills say otherwise.”
“I’m fine.” I say it louder, and he raises an eyebrow at me. I bet his wife handled her death better. I bet she wore makeup and cracked jokes and was one of those annoyingly happy individuals. She probably didn’t sweat him out of the house or snap at him. “Go back to your hotel.”
“I will in a bit.” He’s been saying that for two days. If I knew where my phone was, I’d call Kate and complain. I’d have her come, purely as an excuse to get him to leave. But I don’t know where my phone is. I don’t know, right now, much of anything. “Drink some water.” He holds out a bottle and I take it. I take enough to wet my tongue, but little else. Nothing is staying down in my stomach. My body, like my mind, hates me.
My flu gives up, and two days later, I am able to eat a real meal. Kate comes to town, and brings a Scrabble board. We play in the kitchen, and I beat them handily. When they leave, it is together. I watch his hand on the small of her back, and feel a faint pull of longing. It’s been so long since I was touched. Caressed. Cared about. There had been a kiss between Simon and I, the morning that he died—a brief peck on his way out the door. In that kiss, had there been love? It’s hard to remember, my memories tainted by everything else that happened that day.
October comes, and I outline, write an intro, and tell Mark about Bethany’s second year. It was better. Less crying. Less frustration. Her words grew from day to day, hesitant pronunciations, a wide grin flashing at our praise. Mark and I sit on the back porch and watch the last leaves fall off the trees, and I tell him about our walks, how Simon and I would take her hand, and swing her into the air, the toes of her sneakers flashing at us before she landed. Mark builds a fire in the living room and I describe the forts we built, all over the house, sheets stretched across dining room chairs, and tucked under couch legs, flashlights lighting the interiors, a sea of pillows inside.
I lie on the couch, watching the slow spin of the fan, and tell him about her singing, her tiny voice filling the bathroom, my fingers working berry shampoo into her hair. Sing, Mommy. She had held out an imaginary microphone and I had leaned in close, wiping away my hair with a sudsy hand. Paired with her voice, mine sounded huge and deep, our melodies echoing off the tiled walls. Before she’d get out, she’d draw smiley faces in the fogged glass of the shower door.
I wake up and hear Mark’s hushed voice, his phone to his ear, his back to me as he paces through the hall. He says his daughter’s name, and then laughs at something she says. I close my eyes and float back down into nothing.
The days blur in a mix of pills and mounting exhaustion, and when I wake up, he has written two more chapters, moving us into Bethany’s happy days—her adorable time as a three-year-old. I read over his words, smile and nod, my pen scratching notes in the margins. I try to focus on those happy memories, those bright moments of her life, but I can’t enjoy any of it, not when I know what is coming up next.
Do we all live in such oblivion? I thought he loved me. I thought the ring on his finger meant something, that my taking of his last name bound us in some way. I thought, when he smiled down at me, when he reached over and cupped my face, his lips lowering to mine… I thought all of that is brick, solid and strong, the building blocks of a lifetime together.
The letter, folded over and tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, rescued in the moment before they drop into the washing machine, changes all of that. In that letter, in the moment I read her words… everything pure and lovely between us implodes.
I should have left him, right then. Maybe then, no one would have died.
“Who was she?” Mark passed the hot cocoa over, and I took it cautiously, watching the creamy liquid almost slosh over the rim. I lifted it to my lips and stole enough off of the top to reduce the risk of spillage.
“I haven’t had hot chocolate in forever,” I remarked, lifting the giant can of whipped cream and carefully dispensing a giant mound of it into the cocoa.