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Sometimes I think we are about to touch.
My vision fails; I see colors in blurry, undulating spheres. My eyelashes are wet and heavy, and my eyelids can’t lift them. “I’m here,” I say, but my voice escapes me in foreign syllables, a drunken murmur. “I’m here. Turn and look. ” Or maybe I’m the one who’s supposed to turn. But which way?
Another voice answers me, saying, “Can you hear me?” Then, more urgently, “Can you open your eyes?”
I try, and this time my eyelashes aren’t so heavy. The colors wobble and then align, forming one solid image. A jam jar filling up with water that comes through a crack in the ceiling. Then Gabriel’s eager eyes, his hand coming close and sweeping across my cheek. There are tears dampening my face.
“Hey,” he whispers. “Welcome back. ”
More fitting words he couldn’t have chosen. As I slept, I moved far, far from him. And once again I’ve returned empty-handed.
“Hey,” I say. My voice is my own again. I clear my throat, prop myself up on my elbow, and ignore the bits of bright light that flutter into my vision.
Distantly I hear Claire making noise downstairs in the kitchen, all metal against metal, ceramic against ceramic. The orphans talk in hushed voices as they flit through the house, giggling. Someone’s eyes watch me through the crack of the door opening, round and curious, then disappear. In another room some of the younger ones are learning their alphabet; if they can learn to read recipes, maybe they’ll become cooks, and a wealthy housemaster will buy them. If the girls excel and also grow to be pretty, maybe they’ll be brides or—dare they dream?—actresses like in the soap operas. These options excite them. Anything to avoid dying without purpose. They recite the letters in unison with verve. “A, B, C, D . . . ”
I think of Cecily calling letters through my bedroom door, asking me how to pronounce things like “placenta” and “uterus. ”
“How long was I out?” I ask.
“You slept all morning,” Gabriel says. “You were talking in your sleep. ”
“Was I?” I rub at the tears on my cheeks, but already they’re drying away as the dream begins to escape me.
“It looked like you were having a nightmare. ” He runs a cold wet cloth across my forehead, and I can’t help the groan of relief that escapes my mouth. Cold water trickles down my temples, winds paths along my scalp. Gabriel purses his lips in what I suppose is meant to be a smile, but he looks very worried, and I know my fever must be spiking again.
When I was a child, I caught pneumonia, and I still remember the gurgle of the humidifier mimicking my rattled breaths, the phlegm grinding in my chest when I coughed. I remember feeling absolutely miserable, but in a way that was natural. A real, human ailment that had been around for centuries, and one that my parents knew how to treat.
This, though, is an entirely new sensation. One that does not feel natural, or treatable. One that makes my mind bend into bizarre nightmares, leaves me burning and parched while my arms and legs lose sensation. My body isn’t craving hydration, or medicine, or even the warm puffs of air from devices meant to aid in breathing. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what is happening.
Gabriel’s touch is soft. I close my eyes, and his hands begin to murmur nonsensical lullabies to me. I nod as if I understand; I don’t want them to think I’m not listening.
“Rhine. Stay with us, baby. ”
I open my eyes, and Claire is standing behind Gabriel. There is a little orphan on either side of her, one with a jam jar full of grass, another with a bowl of oatmeal on a tray. They seem excited to see me, but afraid to get much closer. Maybe they think I’m contagious.
“You need to eat now,” Claire says. I’m not allowed to question this. It’s her orphanage, and—She. Is. Queen. I’ve heard her bellow this at the children when they don’t comply. “I. AM. QUEEN. ” They startle, their neck hairs standing on end, and then she winks, and they giggle and do as they are told. She has the majesty of hurricanes and explosions.
I try to sit up, and Gabriel fluffs the pillows behind my back. The oatmeal orphan sets the tray across my lap and then steps back, still staring at me. The jam jar orphan puts the jar beside the bowl on my tray. I can see now that the grass within it is full of ladybugs. “To keep you company,” she says. Her voice is wispy, like Jenna’s, and I feel for a moment like a little shard of my dead sister wife has fallen back to earth and exploded into these little candy-red bugs. They crawl around the blades and along the maze of my brain. I think I’d like to cry, but I can’t; Claire has pressed the spoon into my hand and I have to eat now because—She. Is. Queen.
The oatmeal is full of raisins and slices of almond, and the residue grinds between my teeth like the abundant sugar in Cecily’s tea. Cecily, whose breasts were always leaking, whose eyes were puffy and purpled from tears. Has she pulled herself together by now? Taken my place on Linden’s arm at parties? Is he pouring her champagne and calling her sweetheart?
My mouth is losing its feeling. The flavors stop making sense. Gabriel dabs the oatmeal that’s dripping down my chin, and he looks so frightened. “Do you need to lie back down?” he says, already preparing to help me.
“No,” Claire says. “She needs to eat. And then a hot bath. ” This must be a cue for the orphans, because they hurry from the room. I watch them go, and their bare feet splash against the floorboards where the water from the ceiling has made puddles. The smell of damp wood and the spring air through the open window make me think of the home I shared with my brother.
When the bowl is reasonably empty, Claire pulls back the blankets and helps me to my feet. My legs feel strange, though; my knees bend against my command, and I find it difficult just to step forward. Somehow I know this is not the flu. This is only the beginning of something much worse. This numbness will spread from my legs and travel up through my blood like a toxin. It will reach my heart, my brain, until everything is a continual fog and I’m unable to form a solid thought, just like I’m unable to form a solid step. And then? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll die. I can’t help thinking Vaughn has something to do with this, but how is that possible? He can’t poison me here. I’m finally out of his grasp.
Jenna’s voice whispers hotly in my ear, Are you?
Distantly I’m aware that this is all cause to panic. But I’m just so tired. I think only about the bathwater as I ease into the tub. It’s nice. Hot and steamy and smelling of soap. Actual soap, not a valley of marigolds or a sprig of jasmine. There’s no strange foam crackling against my skin, no fluff, no illusion.
As I’m soaking, Claire lifts up my hair and pours a cup of water down the back of my neck. Then she massages shampoo into my hair and I start to drift off to sleep, but her voice pulls me back, saying, “Stay with me, baby. ”
“Claire?” I say, raising my eyebrows but keeping my eyes closed. “I think I’m dying. ”
“No, you’re not,” she says, tilting my chin up so that she can rinse my scalp with a cup of hot water. “Not on my watch. ”
I don’t know why, but her words make me smile. Even if I don’t believe them.
“Listen, I have a brother. His name is Rowan. You’ll know him if you see him—his eyes are just like mine. If anything happens to me, please find him. ” I don’t know what I’m saying. If I can’t find him, how can I expect someone else to?
“You’ll find him yourself,” Claire says.
“Find him, and tell him—” I begin, but she pours the water over my face. It shoots up my nostrils when I breathe in, and I splutter and open my eyes. She douses me with water again. Her expression is unapologetic.
After my bath I’m left feeling groggy and chilled. I tie a bathrobe on over my pajamas and take my time coming down the steps, ignoring Silas’s worried glances. There is something in his eyes that knows when the worst is true.
My next couple of nights are so fitful—a malaise of coughing, vomiting,
and nightmares that have me muttering frantically in my sleep—that Silas begins sleeping on the couch. Gabriel quits sleeping entirely. When I resurface from nightmares, he is there, with cool cloths, glasses of water, and worry in his blue eyes. He helps me drag myself to the bathroom, and then he holds back my hair when I get sick, and rubs my back, and lets me curl up on the bathroom floor and lay my head on his knees.
I press my shoulder against the cool tiles and I think: This is how Jenna must have felt. This is the pain I saw in her eyes at the end.
But I can’t say this to Gabriel. It will only upset him, start him on a tangent about orphanages and the flu and my feeling better soon. So instead I say, “I don’t think Jenna died of the virus. ”
“Me either,” he whispers.
“I mean, it was the virus—it had all its symptoms—but there was something off about it. ”
Neither of us says the word we’re thinking. Vaughn. We don’t want it brought into this room. I close my eyes.
After I’ve been still for a while, Gabriel whispers, “Are you falling asleep? Do you want to go back to bed?”
“No. I don’t want to move. ”
He sweeps the hair from my temple, and a light, contented sound escapes me. I just want to lie here like this, not sleeping, not talking, barely even thinking. The small window is open over the bathtub. It’s very early, still dark, but outside there’s the warm smell of springtime, like things rotting and blooming in one stagnant mist. I realize now that I’ve always craved the brutality of it. Shoots forcing their way up from the earth, petals popping open.
The start of life is always brutal, isn’t it? We’re born fighting.
I was born on January 30, a minute and a half before my brother. I wish I could remember it. I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn’t seem fair that we only remember dying.
If I am somehow dying, I refuse to accept it. I refuse to slip quietly, easily into death. This can’t be it. The flower on the iron fence and on the cloth napkins, the river that has my name, the exploding labs, the Gathered girls—all of it moves through my mind, a puzzle flung from its box. All the pieces mean something. I know they do.
And then I remember something I haven’t thought of for a long time. It was late, and I was very young. I remember liking how small I was in my bed; it made me feel safe. My brother was turned away from me, the blanket a canyon between our bodies. One of my parents opened the bedroom door, bringing in a rectangle of light. I closed my eyes. I hid in the dark, like I was playing a game of hide-and-seek. I heard the soft smack of a kiss being placed on my brother’s forehead. Then a kiss for me, and a hand smoothing away my hair. Footsteps retreating. The light stayed on my eyelids, though.
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