On
a Saturday morning in early December you are deciding exactly what it is that
you want. You want your mother healthy, and you want a husband or at least a
boyfriend or at least a date for Friday night. Right now, though, you’re in bed
with one more man you barely know. He’s sleeping, and you’re wondering how to
get out of bed without waking him. The two of you are on your sides, his soft
crotch up against you. You’re facing the wall, and his arms are wrapped around
your body, his fingers intertwined, locked under your breasts. It feels good
and suffocating at once, the position you are in, and you think that if this
man were your husband he would know when you want him like this, bundled around
you, and when you don’t. But he’s not, and he doesn’t. You’re
gently picking his fingers apart while making a list in your head, resolutions
aimed at changing things. You’re not waiting for New Year’s Day this time
because it’s never worked for you. You know it’s not always enough, just
deciding what you want; there are necessary steps. And even then, if you take
those steps—if you sleep only with men who know your full name and occupation,
if you start ballet or jazz or modern dance, if you eat more bran—even then
there’s no guarantee you’ll get what you want, or if you get it, that it will
be what you really want after all. Also, there are things you can control and
things you can’t. Say, if you’re approachable, dressed casually in denim and
tennis shoes with a smile on your face, you might be approached. Then there’s
your mother’s health that you can’t control, and it doesn’t matter if you
scream and sob and shake all night long, if you run your fingernails across
your bare thighs, drawing blood, or if you behave like your pragmatic married
brother who hasn’t yet shed a tear. What you want doesn’t affect anything;
cancer disappears or comes back on its own. You’re
hoping that with a husband or a boyfriend or a date for Friday night you will
have someone to soothe you when she dies. Who knows, if you have a husband, you
might turn from him with a scowl on your face. Everything he says and does not
say in response to her dying might be all wrong. He might run off with David
and Tommy and Jack to get a beer because your sorrow is too great and ugly,
filling every room and cup in the house. He might sit across the table from
you, shrug his shoulders, and say nothing. He might try, “She’s in a better
place,” or “She’s with Jesus,” or worse, “God’s got a special plan for her.”
You might hate him suddenly, asking, “Yeah, what’s that? What sort of plan does
God have?” And when he mumbles something else, you might wish him dead instead
of her. You might barter in your head with that God you don’t believe in for
her life back—take this from me, take that, take this mumbling idiot and my
job, but please let me have her sitting at the kitchen table in one of her
handmade dresses, lifting a bite of pumpkin pie to her lips. But now, you are
prying at Rex’s fingers, convinced that a husband might make the unbearable a
little less so. Depending
on what magazine you open or what relative you talk to, there are specific
things you must do to get a husband: lose ten pounds, balance cucumber slices
under your eyes, smile when you’re miserable, keep the number of former lovers
you’ve had to yourself, learn to cook a perfect brisket, pretend you’re sweeter
than you are, less educated, more educated, younger, taller, talk during sex,
scream during sex, be quiet during sex, take him into your mouth because he’ll
love it, don’t take him into your mouth because it’s a whorish act, smile some
more, and above all, stop cussing. “Fuck,”
you say softly, just now breaking Rex’s hands apart and getting free. You turn
and look at him. It’s still early, and the sun is coming in a bit at a time,
lighting the sheets and half of his face. The other half of his face is smashed
into the pillow, but the half you can see looks fine, full lips and long girlie
eyelashes. Still, he isn’t your future husband. The reasons are numerous: he
lives in England, he already belongs to another woman, there is a baby boy and
a teenage girl, but mostly, you slept with him after two days, two brief
meetings, which is one thing most magazines and all of your relatives agree
on—don’t offer up the dressing unless he buys the salad. You’re
still a little drunk from last night’s cider, and you fear your heart is
somehow visible, puffed up, obvious and eager inside your chest. “Coffee?”
you say, waking him. “Yes,”
he says, groggily. “Is your mum still here?” “No,”
you tell him. “She went to buy ointment. The radiation burns her skin.” He
grimaces. You
step out of bed and pull the sheet with you. You turn at the door, knotting the
sheet at your chest. His dick is curled and humble on his thigh. “Your
room is cold,” he says then, yanking the blankets up and around his body. He
shivers or pretends to. “God damn,” he says. “Books everywhere. Even in your
bed. How come it’s so cold?” “What
did you expect?” “Heat.” “No,
I mean, about the books?” “I
don’t know—less of them maybe. None in your bed perhaps.” He softly boots your
Jean Rhys biography to the corner of the bed. “I
thought you’d like her—she spent all that time in Paris, drinking, rebelling.” “I’m
British,” he reminds you. “I
know,” you say, “but still…” “And
it’s not her, it’s the size and weight of the book—you try sleeping with that
against your calf.” “You
try sleeping with a pair of huge hands clenched around your ribs.” He
winks at you. “Did you mention coffee?” “Right
away,” you tell him, opening the bedroom door, thinking that you must look like
a ghost, moving down the hall in a white sheet, away from him. You
have a problem with your imagination. You might be doing something with someone
and you’ll be nodding or moving your torso or moving your tongue or handing him
a beer or whatever it looks like you’re doing, but inside your head you’re with
someone else, doing something else entirely. Like skiing (which you’ve never
been able to do) or accepting a literary prize for that novel you haven’t yet
written, or bathing in a huge tub with that husband you don’t have. From far
away the husband is fine, an average Joe, but when you try to focus on his
features, they’re indistinct; he could be anyone. Or sometimes you’ll be with
the person you’re with, but you’ll have scooted the two of you ahead in time
and space so that you’re better, closer friends than you actually are, or long
time lovers or maybe even walking down the aisle, although it’s not an ordinary
aisle with sisters and mothers weeping to the left and right, and little girls dressed
like grown women with pink lips and elaborate hair, but an empty room that’s
not a church, and your dress is black and tight and low cut, and your legs are
three inches longer than they really are. Like
right now. You’re here, but you’re not, standing at the kitchen counter,
wrapped like a mummy, making coffee. You want it strong. It’s one of the steps
you’re going to take, drinking one cup of strong coffee instead of four cups of
regular. You’ll save time, and perhaps with a little less caffeine you won’t be
edgy and impatient. The men you meet might have a better chance. While
you’re scooping the fifth tablespoon of beans from the can, it occurs to you
that you haven’t learned one damn thing in eighteen years of fucking. Not one.
Since that first wrong boy on the bathroom tile took your new nipple between
his teeth like a fisherman. You were worried even then about being unlovely,
unloved, and on that black and white floor of his everything was slick and
cold. Within minutes of your first kiss you were stripped like a squid, and
knew he didn’t care whether you were Carol from third period or Angela from
sixth or bad Brittany who didn’t even go to school anymore, and something
inside you hardened, turned into a chunk of cement. A
girl becomes a comma like that, with wrong boy after wrong boy; she becomes a
pause, something quick before the real thing. Even now, you’re certain that the
light coming from his parents’ room was a warning that the sincere lovers of
the world existed elsewhere, not where you were, and that it would always
somehow be just like that—the light on the other side, not even seeping in
enough to illuminate his thin cheeks or the stubble you felt with a curious
teenage palm. You
couldn’t see each other in that bathroom, and now, making coffee for a stranger
in your ailing mother’s kitchen, you realize that you’re stirred by darkness,
bars and rooms and clubs, by movie theaters where your date’s hand might rest
on your thigh without responsibility, without complete admission—without light,
you mean. And a man who is traveling excites you because he is traveling. You
imagine Rex’s plane waiting for him right now with its doors open, the tunnel
he’ll move through as easily as he moved through you. He’ll pull his bags
behind him, the tunnel filling with people walking too slowly or too quickly,
but no one—and here’s the thing—no one will match his exact stride. The flight
staff will look and sound like mannequins, saying, hello, how are you? and then
one starched blond will point her ridiculously long nail in the direction of
his seat before he has the chance to answer, before he has the chance to even
wonder how he is. When
the plane lands he’ll be across the world from you, and you’ll both be
relieved. No chance of him interrupting you during a class. No chance of you
showing up at his studio where he’d surely be annoyed. He’d answer the door
with a paintbrush between his teeth, rubbing his palms on his jeans. “What are
you doing here?” he’d mumble through the brush’s handle. “I mean, really, just
what do you think you’re doing?” There’d be spots of yellow, red, and blue
paint on his T-shirt, splattered everywhere, on his chin and forehead, those
full lips, on his walls, tables, and chairs, so that he’d look like just one
more painted thing, a piece of furniture or art equipment, but with a face. Sometimes
you go with your mom to the radiation clinic and your imagination works in
another way. You keep your sunglasses on and try not to look at people. You try
not to smell the Chinese noodles the receptionist is eating. You try not to
hear when she scolds a patient on the phone about his missed appointment. “It’s
your life or death, Mr. Simian,” you try not to hear her say. You pick up that
kids’ magazine Highlights and follow the path to the defined words: delusion,
destruction, feline, reiterate, problematic. You pretend you’re not in your
thirties, but younger, that she’s not ill at all, that you’re there for someone
else—someone you love less than you love her, your least favorite aunt, your
slowest cousin, someone you don’t need as badly, and that’s about the time she
comes bouncing towards you, all smiles and bright wig. When
the doctor came out of surgery six weeks ago you asked him what the cancer
looked like, what color it was. His jaw fell. “What?” he said. “Why?” Four
years ago when he took her first breast and a dozen nodes you were twenty-nine
and fell to the floor after he spit out her prognosis. You were a panting heap,
wiping your eyes with the hem of your skirt. You were drooling and sobbing, an
animal. This last time you were someone else, new, in Italian shoes and silk
blouse, your hair dark and shiny. You looked at him. You were curious, wanting
to see, wanting a color, a shape, a texture to the disease. “What
color is it?” you said again. “It’s
gray,” he said. “Jesus,” he said. Some
people tell you that she’s in denial because she’s happy, that her mood can’t
be real. They don’t know her the way you do. It’s always been little things
that made her angry, like burning a chicken or ripping a new pair of pantyhose.
About cancer, she says, “I don’t know why people make such a big deal—it
doesn’t hurt.” She
does understand what it means when it pops up in her neck or hip or thigh, so
she’s busy everyday, shopping, cooking, visiting friends. Sometimes you look at
her face and try to see it, what it is, what is happening, and she says, “Don’t
look at me like that. I’m not going anywhere just yet.” And you try not to, but
it’s a hard thing to do, trying not to see what’s right there in front of you. Rex
interviewed you just two days earlier about your first book of poems. He sat in
the leather chair by the window. You sat on the couch. It was tense, sexy. He
had you read your poems into a microphone. He drank a diet cola, crossed and
uncrossed his legs, nodded while you read. From his body language and the small
sounds he made in-between poems, you knew he preferred the ones that mentioned
parts of your body—even when those poems dealt with cancer and fear, knives and
blood and fate, you sensed they turned him on. It was on his face, his
excitement, and every now and then you looked up from your book to see it. He
kissed your cheek before he left, quickly, awkward in his black boots, moving a
piece of hair away from his eyes. When the door closed behind him you went to
the phone. You called your friend Jane who’d lived in London for three years. “Do
they kiss strangers?” you asked her. “Never,”
she said. “They’re cold.” “Not
even on the cheek?” “Look,”
she said, “you’re lucky if a Brit kisses you after he fucks you, if he pats you
on the back the morning after—that’s how removed, distant, they are. You think
American men are visual and weird? God damn, good luck with this one,” she
said. “It
was probably nothing,” you told her. “He’s a friendly guy, that’s all.” “Right,”
she said, sarcastically. “I should know. I fucked a whole bunch of them.” “I
remember the stories, Jane.” “They
were cute,” she said. “Icy and seductive at the same time.” “I’m
sure it was meaningless. The kiss, I mean.” “And
then there’s that whole bit about land and territory, ownership and war. It’s
all about jealousy. It’s all about rage. We hate each other and are curious as
hell.” Jane was talking more to herself now than to you. “I remember one,” she
continued, “tall, big, hair to his shoulders, and a pierced tongue. Do you know
what a willing man can do with a little gold stud in his mouth? My God,” she
said. “I
have to go,” you told her. “A
pierced tongue,” she repeated. “I’m telling you there’s nothing quite like it.
A pierced nipple on a guy is worthless. I mean, how’s he going to please you
with a decorated nipple? A tongue, though, is something else all together. I
haven’t had anything like it since…” “Jane,
I’m going. I have to go.” “Wait,”
she said, “how’s your mom?” Last
night at the Reno Room you offered him up excuses though he was leaving the
country in a matter of days, and it wasn’t necessary. “Why are you still
single?” he asked. “My
mother’s been sick for four years and she needs all of me,” you told him. “Come
on,” he said. “Really.” He shook his head. “O.K.,
how about I’d rather finish my second book than get involved. I don’t want
kids.” You lifted the cider to your lips, then looked away from him toward the
bar. “I
felt like we were on a first date yesterday,” he told you. You
looked back at him. Then
he mentioned his wife, his fourteen year old girl who broods and rolls her
eyes, who’s just now beginning to hate him, and his baby boy, Blake-what words
he knows, how the boy clings to his shoulders when it rains. He mentioned his
farm. You’re the kind of woman a man can do that with; he can be honest about
who he loves, that he doesn’t love you, and still you might let him in. You
pictured Blake with horribly pink skin, riding a fat gray pig like a horse, and
said, “I’m not capable of much.” He stared into his dark beer, the darkest beer
you’d ever seen. He nodded. Things became blurry then, and you were scooting
one of your purple nails into the thigh holes he’d made in his Levis. “They’re
bloody expensive where I’m from,” he said, and you wanted to nibble those jeans
right off of him, right there in the booth, with Brenda Lee or a voice just
like hers coming from the speakers behind you, with smoke and dust and cinnamon
wafting up from his schnapps, and hot little Christmas lights that kept falling
off the edge of the booth, making a tangled mess in your hair. There
was an old woman at the bar you recognized. She wore a lopsided wig and too
much blush, a bitter orange smeared across her lips. She was screaming that her
drink wasn’t strong enough. “I can’t fucking feel it,” she said, tugging at the
wig with both hands. “I can’t fucking feel it.” “It
doesn’t matter how much she drinks, she’ll never feel it,” Rex said, leaning
into you, gently beginning to untangle the lights from your hair. “What?”
“She’s
empty.” He pointed at the woman. “And her wig doesn’t fit.” You
wanted to tell him about your mother, how she owns a dozen wigs. Red and brown
and blond and black. A thick wig. One made of human hair that doesn’t wear
well, that falls in thin strands across her face after a day outside. You
wanted to tell Rex about the synthetic ones, how superior they are, about the
two that promised to make her look famous, like Cher or Dolly Parton, the one
that hung down her back, another that framed her face and fell just below her
chin. You wanted to tell him how sometimes, if she was in a rush or being
picky, trying to match her hair with her dress, she’d scatter the wigs around the
apartment. First you’d see several naked Styrofoam heads on her desk, and then,
throughout the day, you’d find wigs, one on the couch, another under the
kitchen table. You wanted to tell him how one late night you accidentally sat
on the Dolly Parton, how it frightened you, how you pulled the wig from behind
your back, screaming. You wanted to tell him how the two of you laughed so hard
that you fell into each other’s arms. You wanted to tell him how in the right
light an unexpected wig looks like a little dog, asleep. You
wanted to tell him, but you knew from past experience that stories about your
mother’s illness, even ones meant to amuse, made people cringe and move their
bodies away from you. You let him talk instead. He was telling you about the
farm, its many acres, its wide open spaces, all that air. He was telling you
that the clouds where he’s from are thick and heavy and black, how sometimes he
feels that standing on just the right chair or ladder he’d be able to touch
one. He lifted the beer to his mouth and finished it off. He licked his lips.
He gave up on the lights a moment, set them behind you so that they were still
with you, but not as intricately. You could move your head but still with an
irritating sense of being attached to something. “Do
you like animals?” he asked you, picking up the lights again. You were trying
not to panic, but the lights were warm against your scalp, and the fake holly
was sharp. “No,”
you said, “I don’t.” “That’s
too bad,” he said. “They’re wonderful. She needs a pet.” He jutted his chin in
the old woman’s direction since now both hands were occupied in your hair. “She
comes here all the time,” you told him. “Every time I’ve been here she’s
sitting on that exact stool complaining about something. And she has a pet. Her
moody poodle is probably outside right now chained to a streetlight.” “Poor
thing.” “Who?” “Both
of them actually—the woman and her dog.” “That
dog’s a beast,” you told him. “It snaps at anything that breathes. I hate that
damn dog.” “I
don’t want you to think that because I got a wife at home, I don’t like you,”
he said, suddenly. “What?” “Even
though I got a wife…” he began. “I’m
not even thinking about it, about her.” “Because
sometimes you accept your lot in life, that’s all I’m saying.” “Fine,”
you said, not knowing exactly what it was he meant. “Whatever, Rex. I’m not
thinking about your lot—” “And
sometimes you’re lucky enough…” he stopped then, was quiet a moment, working
hard at the lights. “There,” he said, finally, “you’re free.” “Thank
God.” You tossed your hair because you could. He
kissed you then, his tongue inside your mouth, yours inside his. When the kiss
ended, he took your face in his hands and tried to look at you. You shook away,
saying, “What’s your full name again?” You
fucked him once without protection for the flesh of it, you think, or for the
death of it, your mother ill and sleeping in the very next room. “Let’s
not wake her,” you said. “You’re
over thirty and you live with your mum?” “She’s
sick,” you reminded him. “Piece by piece.” “Piece
by piece? What’s that mean? What are you saying?” “Like
a turkey.” You made a carving motion with an extended index finger. “That’s
gruesome.” He shook his head. “Leg,
thigh, breast—” “Stop
it,” he said. “Neck—”
you continued. Don’t,”
he said, pleading. “You shouldn’t talk about it, about her, like that. Are you
drunk? Is that what’s wrong with you?” You
laughed. “There’s plenty wrong with me.” “Like
what?” he said. “Anything I can catch?” “No,”
you told him. “I’m drunk, that’s what’s wrong with me, Rex. Too much cider.” “I’m
sorry about your mum. Come here.” He was sitting on the edge of your bed in
just his boxer shorts. He had a decent body, a natural body, the body of a man
that didn’t exercise—a bit of belly fell over the elastic. He curled his
finger. “Come here,” he said again. You
moved towards him. “Let’s
not talk.” He put his hands out. “Let me touch those hips of yours. Let’s not
say a word,” he said. Neither
of you mentioned a condom. It was the first time you’d been unsafe in eight
years. It was the first time you didn’t insist. You’re not sure what it was.
You could blame it on the cider, but you’d been drunk and naked plenty of times
and still pulled one from your bag or bra or drawer. You could blame it on his accent
or the fact that they’d recently found a chunk of cancer in her shoulder, but
several of your men had accents, and they’d been finding gray chunk after gray
chunk for the last two years, yet you’d always been cautious. It was important
to you, caution. It was something you talked about with your friends, using
condoms, something you bought them regularly as gifts. Just last week you
tucked a couple glow-in-the-dark numbers in the sleeve of the blouse you bought
Jane for Christmas. You’ve been known to hand them out at Halloween parties.
Your students know how you feel about protection; you’ve spoken to several of
your writing classes about danger and sex. During
particularly active periods you keep a handful of them in a fancy candy dish on
your night stand. And then you’re slick and skillful, positioning yourself on
top of whoever he is, and while he’s busy with your breasts, you reach down and
pluck one up. When he’s really going, mouth and hands at once, you lift the
little package to your mouth and rip it open with your teeth. “Here,” you say
then, “if you want me, dress it up.” And he’s surprised, but hard already and
agreeable, and what’s most amazing to you is that he won’t even have noticed
your preparation. He won’t even have seen you. He’ll be staring at the condom
like it appeared out of nowhere, magic, like you pulled it from behind your ear
or out of a hat—so focused he’ll have been with his whole face, every bit of
him, smashed against your torso. Out
of all of them only one refused. You closed your legs. He was from Argentina or
Colombia, you think, and wore all silk. Black silk pants, a red silk shirt,
even a silk band holding his hair back in a ponytail. It made you
uncomfortable, all that silk on a man. He left the shirt on while you kissed,
and you remember trying to hold onto his back, then shoulder, but the shirt
slipped from between your fingers. There was black hair spilling out, resting
on the red collar. When you went to unbutton the shirt, he pulled his chest
away. “Hair doesn’t bother me,” you said. “Don’t be shy,” you told him. You
handed him the condom then, and he shook his head. “No,”
he said. His accent was thick and he smelled like the whiskey he’d been
drinking all night. “I don’t like covers,” he told you. “Fine,”
you said. “Forget it then.” He
positioned himself on top of you, still in that gory shirt, and pushed your
breasts together like an accordion. He propped his penis between them, and
moved about, grunting, making friction. It seemed it would never end. It seemed
you would spend the rest of your life in just this position. He went on and on,
full of stamina and liquor. You feared you’d get a rash from all that heat. He
talked to you in low tones, in a language you didn’t recognize. The act didn’t
make sense to you, and while he moved and moved, you remember thinking: It’s
dry, all dry, do you know you’re not inside anyone? Immediately
after Rex came inside you without a condom you wanted him to leave. Your
insides were hot and full. You were in your early twenties the last time you
felt like that. “Shit,” you said. “What did we do?” you asked him. “What
did we do?” he said. “You don’t know what we did?” “Forget
it,” you said. Now,
though, it’s morning, and you’re sitting together in bed, drinking coffee from
cups that do not match. Your cup is pale green. The rim is chipped. His is your
least favorite cup in the house, but one of only two that were clean. “I
hate that happy face cup,” you tell him. He
lifts the cup in the air to get a look. He puts the cup down on your night
stand, and reaches for the sheet still wrapped around you. You shake his hand
away and ask about his farm. He tells you about the four pigs, ten goats, and
three cows, how every one of them has a name: Bess and Bob and Ron and Janet,
Billy and Sid and Sally… He tells you about his wife’s red hair. You are
nodding, pretending to listen, but thinking about your mother. “What
are you thinking about?” he says. “Hmmm?” “You’re
not here.” “I’m
here. I’m listening,” you say. But
really, you’re not. You’re thinking about how your mother often heads to Fabric
King after a trip to the drug store, how she’s probably standing there now,
touching assorted fabrics, deciding. As
soon as her arm was working again she started making dresses. Without a
machine, without a pattern—by hand. She goes to the fabric store once a week,
at least, and buys yards and yards of various prints. And black, she brings
back plenty of black for you. All your mother has to do is take a good, long
look at your friends’ asses and she knows exactly what sizes they are. She
says, “Honey, all your friends are small but their asses are big.” And then she
lays the fabric over her bed and cuts a dress out in the shape of one of them.
“It’s healthy,” she tells you, “their big asses. She names them: Jessica,
Holly, Gwen, and Denise. “You’ll never be alone” she says. She
sits either in the leather chair by the window or on the couch, with or without
a wig, with or without her rubber breasts, and opens the sewing box your
brother gave her for her birthday. Then she sews. She watches “Jeopardy,” then
“Seinfeld,” and keeps sewing. She
doesn’t do buttons or zippers, so she’s limited in style and fabric texture.
“It has to be durable, flexible,” she explains, pulling the needle from her
mouth. “The body is in charge,” she tells you. Last
weekend you opened her closet and found not one store bought piece of clothing.
She’d given it all away. And the closet was full, hundreds of her dresses
hanging up—stripes and plaids and dots and flowers, summer pastels and earth
tones, winter greens and bold browns. On
Tuesday your mother stood in the hallway, pulling a bright red number over her
bald head, working the stretchy fabric over her shoulders. And she was
beautiful then, at the edge of everything, standing on that cliff in the
hallway, working the vivid dress over her still sexy thighs. You
want to tell Rex about your mother’s thighs, about where she is now, Fabric
King, but more than that you want to be in bed with a man who knows you well
enough to understand all of it—where you are, your body and hers—how there is
nothing at all you demand from him, nothing he could possibly give you. You
want to tell him that, but you are looking at his face and hands, and his hands
are reaching for a second time between your legs, and the sheet is falling, and
you don’t think he wants to hear anything like that just now. Sometimes
at night you lie in bed and listen for her. You fight sleep, waiting until her
breathing is audible before you let yourself go. Sometimes you move backwards
in time, remembering when she was healthy, busy with men of her own, busy with
travel and plans. Sometimes you skip ahead and you’re living alone in this
apartment—you’re on the couch with a glass of wine, telling some man without a
face all about her. He is bored, reaching for his gin and tonic. He sighs. He
nods. “Sorry,” he says, unconvincingly. “A dozen wigs?” he says. “Handmade
dresses? No pattern? You’re kidding me, right?” he says. Sometimes
you think about all the men who’ve passed through here. You think about the
most recent one first, and then you try and remember the others. You try to see
their faces, but it’s impossible, their features blurring into one indistinct
mess. They become what they do for a living: fireman, musician, painter,
teacher, taxi driver. Just before sleep, that moment when you’re not sure
what’s real and what isn’t, they become their uniforms or cabs or props,
suspended in the air above your head, twirling around like a baby’s toy: a navy
suit, a red truck, a spotted T-shirt, a piece of chalk, a violin, an eraser. Some
people tell you that when a loved one dies, he or she is never forgotten. Other
people say that forgetting what a dead person’s face looks like is part of the
healing process. Some say that your life will never be the same, while others
insist that eventually, after a thousand cups of coffee and days at work,
you’ll wake up one morning and not feel pulled into the carpet. They say you
get on with things. It’s
1:00 a.m. Sunday morning when you get up and go to her room. You look at her,
her nose and lips. You think her face is shaped like a perfect heart. You watch
her body fall and rise. You listen. You lean down and touch her skull, the fuzz
there like a boy’s new chin. “Is
he here again?” she asks you, her eyes still closed. “Who?” “The
man you were with last night.” “No,”
you tell her. “He’s gone.” “He
can stay here,” she mumbles, “if you like him.” “I
like him.” “Good.” “He’s
on a farm now,” you tell her. “With a redhead.” “Farms
are dirty,” she tells you. “You don’t want to be on a farm, honey.” She turns
on her side, away from you so that you no longer see her face. She pulls the
blanket around her body, up and over her head so that you see none of her, not
the smallest piece of flesh. |