by Lara Hayes
No blood? I was covered in blood by the time the EMTs arrived. Am I still dreaming? Helen makes a show of examining my mother’s sleeping face, straightening her blankets, and everything about this line of inquiry and her reluctance to leave suggests that she fears leaving Mother alone with me. There’s only one plausible explanation. Someone cleaned up the blood. But she’d never believe me if I told her my theory.
“Helen, the only clear memory I have of the accident is that when the EMTs turned to take the gurney through the front door, I was standing in my living room in my underwear. I don’t remember rushing to her, or calling 911, or showering, or getting dressed, or driving to the hospital, or—”
“Of course.” Helen rounds the foot of the bed and squeezes my shoulders. “Oh baby, of course you don’t.” I lean forward and rest my head on her shoulder. Helen embraces me and pats my back. “Please, don’t upset yourself. I was surprised, that’s all. Everything was spic-and-span when I arrived, and part of the reason I volunteered to make that trip was to clean up, so you wouldn’t have to. I couldn’t find anything you asked me to bring. I didn’t know if you’d made a trip home and forgotten about it, or what happened.”
There’s no safe response. Helen gives me one more fierce embrace and makes to leave. “You’ll call if you need anything?”
I nod and gently steer her toward the hall. “I promise. Thank you for the clothes. And just being here.” We stroll to the elevators, arm in arm. “I don’t know where my mind is right now,” I confess, waiting for the elevator to arrive. “Everything happened so fast.”
Helen nudges me sympathetically. “I lost whole months to my husband’s heart attack.”
“That’s exactly how I feel. Like the world is moving without me.” Not even remotely true. It’s as though I’m caught in a swift undercurrent that means to swallow me whole, and every breath is borrowed.
“It gets easier,” she promises.
I place my hand on her back, ushering her onto the elevator. “Thank you again. For everything.” Helen presses the button for the ground floor and winks at me as the doors close.
One full body exhalation is all I manage before a tidal wave of sensation threatens to knock me off my feet. I double my pace back down the hall.
I slip inside my mother’s room. Only her long legs—heels crossed lazily at the ankle—are visible in the shadows.
She’s resting on the window ledge, her back rod straight, pressed against the darkened glass. “Have you any idea how frightened I was?” she asks.
“How frightened you were?” I know that I’m angry with her, but just haven’t had time to work out why. She gives me her undivided attention. That’s all it ever takes. Her onyx eyes, accustomed to the dark, find mine and all that anger—the fear for my mother, the lonely hours waiting in this room before Helen arrived, the gruesome nightmare—evaporates. The magnetic hum of her proximity radiates in my marrow, and any thought I had about storming out of the room is as distant as it is ridiculous. She crosses the room.
A protest, somewhere. Stela’s fingers skirt along my jaw, she cups my face in her hands carefully. Her lips brush against mine and any confrontation regarding her prolonged absence is swallowed by a fevered kiss. The very hand I thought would push her away, curls around the back of her head to keep her in place.
She opens her mouth to me and the tang of a recent feed sits heavily on her tongue. It hits the back of my throat with sobering force, and I’m trapped in my nightmare all over again. My body grows rigid in her arms and I place my palms on her chest, twisting away from her mouth. It would be wonderful if the taste of her mouth was the cause, but what horrifies me more than any nightmare ever will, is that I no longer seem to mind.
Stela’s initial response is to press forward, her arms tightening around my waist and bowing me backward. This isn’t the first time I’ve rebuffed her affection, and the simple fact that I can seems to both shock and irritate her. She releases me so suddenly that I stumble back against the door. When I regain my composure, Stela is standing at the foot of my mother’s bed, absently flipping through her chart. “I see that you received my flowers.” She replaces the clipboard, a tight smile stretched across her lips.
“Yes. They’re beautiful. Stela, I—”
She clasps her hands firmly behind her back and steps away from my mother. “I have something for you,” she whispers, pulling my overnight bag from behind the chair and setting it on the window ledge. She stands beside me as I unzip the leather satchel and pore over the contents. I find my ISYM T-shirt neatly folded, my favorite sweatpants, my toiletry bag bursting with sundries. Every item I asked Helen to bring is meticulously stacked in the very same bag she could not find.
Stela reaches around me to unzip the side compartment and the skin of her wrist brushes my forearm. My hair stands on end and without so much as a glance, I know that she’s smiling. She lifts a gilded frame from the satchel’s pocket and lays it in my hands. A portrait of Mother and me taken just after I won Nationals. Mother’s hand on my shoulder, her sharp green eyes staring unflinching into the camera. Holding my violin up for the photographer I look as proud as I felt. Stela slips the frame from my grasp and places it on the nightstand, beside the flowers.
“I was right to bring it along,” she surmises. “The flowers have done nothing to warm this dreadful space.”
“They’re funeral flowers.”
“Pardon?”
“Calla lilies. You send them when someone has died.”
“Hmm. Well, I have always been fond of them.”
An awkward silence falls between us.
“Thank you for bringing my clothes. And the photo. That was very considerate.”
“You are most welcome.” Stela tosses a smile over her shoulder with a flick of her pale hair. “There were no signs that you had taken anything with you, and I venture to say that you have not strayed far from her side.”
“How did you find us?”
“This would have been the first place I checked, regardless. But your neighbors have been talking about the accident for days.” She brushes the back of her hand against my jaw and my body leans into her of its own accord.
“Helen went to the house to gather my things.”
Stela flicks the plastic bag beside my satchel. “Yes, I see that.” She curls her hand around my neck. I close my eyes and forfeit a shiver I can’t conceal.
“She suspects something. She said the stairs were clean when she arrived.”
Stela huffs, pulling me close. “Elizabeth, if this is your idea of gratitude—”
“Gratitude?” Once again, I place my palms against her chest. “Do you have any idea how that looks? What if the police want to inspect the fall? What if Helen tells them it was cleaned when I was supposed to be at my mother’s side?”
Stela doesn’t release me this time, she locks her arms around my waist. I’ve seen her angry before, but it hasn’t been directed at me in weeks.
“What if she does? You did nothing wrong. There are troves of nurses to confirm your whereabouts. You have nothing to hide. And even if you did, I can handle the police.”
“All we do is hide, Stela.”
Her grip slackens and she grows solemn, silent. Stela rubs calming circles against the small of my back and gazes distractedly out the window at the vast city below, only inches away from me and yet, she might as well be on the other side of the glass. “I was sleeping when it happened,” she says. “But a part of me is always aware of you. Such intense horror, like nothing I have ever felt before. I woke when it was still light, mad with fear that you had been injured, or worse. Then, everything stopped. You were quiet, beyond fear. I could glean no emotional cues. You must have been in shock.
“I let myself in through the kitchen door, unlocked, which was unusual and terribly disconcerting. I could smell the blood from the backyard, and confined in that house it was inescapable. Old, and drying quickly. I did not know whether it belonged to you or your mothe
r until I was upon it.”
I can sense the panic Stela felt as clearly as I remember my own. I press my forehead to hers. When my arms wrap around her shoulders, Stela skims her nose along the side of my neck. I don’t push her away this time. Her mouth opens against my skin and she takes a deep lingering breath just below my ear.
“I did not want you to return home to such an unfortunate mess.” Her low voice moves through every inch of me.
“I know. You meant no harm.” I straddle two worlds: one with Stela, and one without. The latter is becoming as undesirable as it is infrequent. Stela slides her palm beneath my shirt, up my back to press between my shoulder blades. My body arches into her embrace.
“Why must you always rail against me?” she asks. “Analyze every utterance? Every compliment, every gesture?” There is a word of warning, just beyond my reach. A caveat hanging in the air, just on the periphery. But Stela’s hands wrap around my thighs and she hoists me onto the window ledge. The glass is cold against my back as she traces my collarbone with her teeth. “Tell me it does not please you to see me,” she taunts.
My head swims as her lips climb the column of my neck, dance along the edges of my jaw and come to rest teasingly light upon my own. Her lips parted, but not pressing. Her eyes are all that I can see, drowsy lids filled with bright shining dark. I open my mouth and my own lips quiver with every brush of skin. My legs lock around her waist and Stela falls into me willingly. The taste of blood is still there, tingling on her tongue, heating her skin. My nightmare is there too, conjured by the blood, the faceless man with his wide-reaching grin, but the fear is miles away. Life’s turmoil is extinguished.
Without a word, Stela rips my T-shirt over my head, casting it over her shoulder and covering my front with hers. She pulls my hips forward so swiftly that my bare shoulders streak down the glass, and I gasp for the air I’ve forgotten to breathe. Her tinkling laugh fills my ears and wills my eyes open, but they don’t land on Stela. My mother’s face is deeply lined, slack-mouthed, but otherwise peaceful. Stela’s fingers slip into the top of my jeans, and I catch her by the wrist.
“Wait.” Stela tenses around me, every inch of her inflamed with the threat of rejection. “Stela, we can’t. Not here.”
Her hands release their hold and I slide off the ledge. Stela paces furiously, anger is radiating off her in waves. “Wait? We can’t? Do you have any idea the risk I take every visit I grant you? Have you the slightest notion what would become of me if we were discovered?”
“Grant me?”
Stela twists on her heel and strangles the guardrail beside Mother’s head. The metal groans in her grip as she leans over the bed. “Yes. Grant you. Everything I do is for you, Elizabeth. And for what?”
I steal a glance at the monitors. Mother’s heartbeat remains steady. “I’ve been asking you that question from the beginning. For what, Stela?”
“It is not your place to question my motives.”
My hand moves protectively over my mother’s chest, as Stela bends further over the mattress. “What would happen to me if we were discovered? Did you ever stop to consider that?”
Stela releases the bed with a shove that forces the mattress against my legs, leaving the rail knotted and buckled in finger shaped ridges. She stalks to the end of the bed. She always seems so much taller when she’s furious. “I killed Collins for you, did I not?”
Stela’s anger is infectious and I face her head-on. “Killed him for me, maybe. But you tore his face off for yourself.” It wasn’t real until I said it out loud. The man in my nightmare, a fourth presence in the room, just barely recognizable. He was wearing the same oil-stained workman’s jacket that Mr. Collins had on when he accosted me on the elevator. The same slicked black hair. Stela has no witty rebuttal. I seize the momentary lull to check my mother’s heart monitor again. Stela grabs me firmly by the chin.
“She cannot hear us, Elizabeth.” My hand flies up at her face before I realize my intention, and Stela catches me easily by the wrist. I swing my free hand at her head. Stela holds both my hands tight to her chest. “You only harm yourself,” she warns. Tears run unbidden down my cheeks, obscuring my vision, and my desperate attempts to break free only increase Stela’s hold on me.
“She can. She can hear me.”
Stela softens, but she doesn’t release me. She holds me in an inescapable embrace, pinning my hands in place against her chest. I struggle furiously against her body, which remains soft in its confinement. All I can manage is to turn myself away from her to face my mother’s slumbering form. The monitors beep in time with my quiet sobs.
“Your mother no longer resides in that body.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
My muscles lock, my body trembling with rage. “Fix her.” Stela runs a placating hand through my hair, but I tilt my head away from her touch.
“The damage is too great. This is beyond the ability of my blood.”
When I twist in her embrace, the softness has returned to Stela’s eyes. “You’re lying.”
Stela’s gaze bores into me. It’s oddly warm, like sinking into a hot bath. But my limbs remain chilled with dread.
“You know not what you ask. This is beyond a wound of the flesh. I could heal the body, but I cannot restore her mind. Where your mother is now, I cannot venture.”
I thrum with unspent venom. Stela becomes the focus of every horrid thought I’ve ever had, the cause of every misfortune that’s befallen me. “Isn’t that convenient?” Stela doesn’t bat an eye. “It’s everything you wanted, right? To leave me just as alone and forgotten as you?”
“Elizabeth,” she begins, drawing back. “I cannot undo the injustices you have suffered. And I cannot take this pain from you. But I would share it with you, if you let me. I would comfort you.” She reaches out to take hold of my hands, but it’s too soon. My anger is still so near. I push her hand away and lean over the bed to pull the sheet back up around my mother’s shoulders. Fresh tears itch the tops of my cheeks.
“You can’t comfort me. Please leave.”
She places a hand on my hip while I fret over Mother, straightening wires and electrodes, pulling them off to the side so she won’t get tangled when she wakes.
“Elizabeth—”
“I don’t want to see you, Stela.”
Stela has vanished before the pressure of her hand leaves my hip. Gone as silently as she arrived. A sinking sensation drops through my stomach, forcing me to sit before my legs buckle. A swoon, not unlike the first time I laid eyes on Stela, but reversed and made sickening. And then the sensation is gone.
I can’t feel anything from her anymore.
IX
Consent
There are those who say that God never closes a door without opening a window. Of course, I know nothing of God or any benevolent, guiding force—excluding Fane. I imagine that such immaculate involvement would be a comfort to many, but I have no deity to blame for my troubles. No sympathetic All Mighty to right my wrongs.
Elizabeth is aware of my absence, which is not to say that she dwells on our separation the way that I do. The closed door between us is still a door with life on either side. When she thinks of this blockade—of me—she falters with nothing more than a missed step. I am a distraction she shakes off, resuming her duties as diligently as before. Would that I had her resilience, but I lack her conviction that there can be no other way. And to think, she considers me the cold, unfeeling one.
Still, this is all the peace that I can offer her, a stalemate. The petty errands of my day offer little distraction. I keep my meetings with Andrew. I accompany Bård on his dealings with local law enforcement and rival gangs though my brother hardly requires my protection. I have even taken to stalking the tunnels with Erebus as it is the only way the hound will leave my chamber for any length of time.
I can check in on my darling, bitter girl whenever I so choose. And how could I keep away from her with so much left uns
aid? With so many misunderstandings, so little between us resolved?
Suppose we could make amends, what then? Elizabeth and I would be right back where we started, hiding in the dark. How is that fair to her? She belongs to this world, she is product of her century. Too lovely for darkness and too strong to reach for it.
In the early hours, just before dawn, I sit at my desk with a stack of pristine parchment, tapping my pen. If I could only explain. If I had the words to make her understand. Can she sense my desire to fix this? Though she makes no outward acknowledgment, she is aware of my presence below her window, or as a shadowed figure on the street corner. Are the hours I spend recounting her in my mind likewise detectable?
She is right to hate me. I stole her silence, her oneness. I can shut her out, I can shut myself away, but I cannot take what happened back. I cannot make either of us whole again.
James visits her now in Claire’s nursing home. First, he came with magazines and books. He hoped that she could read them to Claire, but it was no use. Poor fellow. What must he have thought of the visions I gave him? The nightmares, the panic I instilled if he so much as gazed in Elizabeth’s direction. Would she be happy to know that it was my doing?
I think of them often, much more than I should. Elizabeth smiles openly at him over take out, which they consume together in her mother’s kitchen, or in the depressing cafeteria. She smiles in his company much more frequently than she ever smiled in mine, though her eyes remain weary and red-rimmed.
James could build a life with her. He could make her a mother, a wife. Elizabeth would be a good parent. She could continue her academic pursuits. But would that please her? It pleases me to think of her poring over the American Journal of Medical Genetics with a toddler on her hip. The sun in her eyes, her chest shaking with an easy laugh. Yes, that is how I imagine her life, years from now, when she has finally buried her mother’s ghost which I suspect will take much longer than handling her remains. When Elizabeth has buried me, perhaps in the attic, beside her violin.