It’s dawn and I’m sneaking back up Guillermo Garcia’s fire escape.
Once on the landing, I again crawl along under the sill until I’m at the same vantage point as last night, then rise just enough to see into the studio . . . He’s still there. I somehow knew he would be. He’s sitting on the platform, his back to me, head hung down, his whole body limp. He hasn’t changed his clothes. Has he slept at all? The clay sculpture beside him appears to be finished now—he must’ve worked all night—but it’s nothing like it was when I left. No longer are the lovers entwined in each other’s arms. The male figure’s on his back now and it looks like the female figure’s wrenching herself out of him, climbing right out of his chest.
It’s awful.
I notice then that Guillermo Garcia’s shoulders are rising and falling. Because he’s crying? As if by osmosis, a dark swell of emotion rises in me. I swallow hard, accordion my shoulders tight. Not that I ever cry.
Tears of mourning should be collected and then
ingested to heal the soul
(I’ve never cried about Mom. I had to fake it at the funeral. I kept sneaking into the bathroom to pinch my cheeks and rub my eyes so I’d look right. I knew if I cried, even one tear: Judemageddon. Not Noah. For months, it was like living with a monsoon.)
I can hear the sculptor through the window—a deep dark moaning that’s sucking the air out of the air. I have to get out of here. Tucking down to leave, I remember the lucky sand-dollar birds still in my pocket from last night. He needs them. I’m lining them up on the windowsill, when out of the corner of my eye, I catch a quick flash of motion. His arm’s whipped back and is starting to reel forward—
“No!” I shout, not thinking and slamming my own hand into the window to stop his from making contact and sending the anguished lovers tumbling to their death.
Before I fly down the fire escape, I see him staring up at me, the expression on his face turning from shock to rage.