by Sharon Shinn
“That’s not enough time,” I say.
Dr. Kassebaum nods. “I know. There’s never enough time.”
Brody says, “We haven’t been successful, so far, in convincing her not to change. Do you have any advice on what we can say this time to make her understand the seriousness of her situation?”
Dr. Kassebaum’s face warms to a sad smile. “My guess is that she understands very well.”
“She can’t,” I say. “Or she wouldn’t be so—stupid. So careless.”
Dr. Kassebaum surveys me with those dark eyes. “And if you were her, what would you do?” she asks softly. “Leave your sister behind?”
“Yes, if it would kill me to see her!”
She shakes her head. “She’d only stay away if it was killing you,” she says.
“It is!”
But she shakes her head again. I wonder if she’s right. If I were the changeling child, the one living the strange, shadowy double life, would I be able to stay away from Ann even if I risked death every time I arrived at her doorstep? I don’t know. Maybe not. But I cannot bear to be the siren that calls that bright soul straight down to her destruction.
“Is she awake now?” Brody asks. “Can you talk to her? Maybe she’ll listen to you.”
“She’s sleeping, but it’s a lighter sleep than when I arrived. I think she’ll wake up in a few hours and be more coherent. I can come back tomorrow if you like. But I’m not sure anyone but Ann is going to have any real input into her decision.”
I nod. “You’re right. You’ve done more than enough already. This is between her and me. I can’t thank you enough for rushing down here and—and—just for being there when I needed someone to talk to.”
“Feel free to call anytime,” she says. “I probably won’t be able to help much, but I will understand.”
Brody carries all of Dr. Kassebaum’s paraphernalia out to her car, so when I hear the door open again, I think he’s stepped back inside. But when I glance up, I see it’s William who’s returned. He’s in his human form, possibly even more disreputable-looking than usual. Or maybe it’s the expression of misery on his face that makes him appear more tattered, more unkempt than ever.
He’s standing by the door as if he’s ready to bolt back outside if I say the wrong thing, but he doesn’t ask me a question. He just looks at me, and for a long moment, I just look back.
“I called Dr. Kassebaum,” I say, and he nods, so I guess he saw her either as she arrived or as she departed. “She says this is the last time Ann can be human. Next time she shifts from dog to girl will kill her.”
He flinches—a very small motion that I think conceals a very hard blow. His voice is rough but even. “Maybe she should stay human.”
“Dr. Kassebaum says she’s healthier in her other form. She’ll live longer—but still not very long.”
He thinks that over and nods, once, slowly. “Is she still in her room?”
“Sleeping for now. But Dr. Kassebaum thinks she’ll be more herself when she wakes up.” I can’t tell if he’s waiting for my permission or not, but in case he is, I add, “You can go on in and wait with her.”
He nods again and strides down the hall into her room.
This time when the front door opens, it is Brody. I don’t say anything, I just walk over and step into him, like I would step into a closet where I want to hide. I close my eyes, I burrow into his shirt, I try to shut out the world and all its calamitous knowledge. His arms come around me, and he brings me in tight, but he doesn’t speak. He is the best haven I have, but there is no safe shore. The lightless seas are storm-tossed and treacherous, and even if I open my eyes, there will be no land in sight.
* * *
It takes Ann a full week to recover her physical strength though she is laughing and joking by the end of the next day. I make all her favorite meals, one right after the other, not only to tempt her lackluster appetite but to prove to her, in some unspoken fashion, that I love her enough to invest the effort.
“Wow, chicken tetrazzini and double fudge cake? You’re the best sister ever!”
“I’ve been worried about you. This is my way of showing gratitude to the universe.”
The three of us decided, in one thirty-second conversation, to wait until Ann was almost back to normal before we shared Dr. Kassebaum’s conclusions with her, but she knows something’s up. Brody and I, at least, have been both overly solicitous and insincerely cheerful, and I haven’t delivered the furious scolding she knows she deserves. Maybe William has been more honest about his level of fear and anger, but if so, he’s expressed himself in private.
At the end of that seventh day, as I’m clearing away the cake dishes, she leans her elbows on the table, and says, “Okay, what gives? You’ve all been acting like I’m going to break apart if I so much as bump against the wall. So what did Dr. Kassebaum tell you about me?”
William and Brody are still at the table. I briefly lock eyes with each of them, then pull out my chair and sit down again.
“She said your body can’t tolerate being human. That you need to change back to your husky shape and stay that way. And that the next time you shift back to this shape, you’ll die.”
She opens her eyes wide. “Wow. Didn’t anyone ever tell you how to deliver bad news? ‘I hate to tell you that your parrot’s been sick—’”
I make an impatient gesture. “You don’t seem to hear or understand when we sugarcoat things. I thought if I was blunt, I’d get your attention.”
She tosses back her hair. “It’s not much different from what she told us in the spring. Be careful. Hold my shape. Be good, or you’ll be sorry.”
“And you haven’t been good, and now you better be sorry. If you were a cat, you’d have used up eight of your lives. I don’t know how many lives dogs have, but—”
William speaks up unexpectedly. “One. One life. And you’re at the end of yours.”
Ann is unimpressed. “Or so Dr. Kassebaum says. She doesn’t really know.”
I lean across the table, my expression intense. “Well, judging by how long it took you to recover from this transformation, I’d say she’s making a pretty good guess. Listen to her. Listen to all of us. Stay human a few more days, say good-bye, then change shape and stay changed. Don’t risk yourself—don’t end your life—by coming back to the form that your body can’t sustain.”
She stares at me in disbelief. “How can you say that to me? How can you tell me to never see you again?”
“I’m not saying that! I’m saying I should never see you again in this body. Come back as often as you like—in your husky form.”
She makes a helpless motion with her hands. “I can’t promise that. When I see you—when I see the house, the minute I lay eyes on it—I want to change back. I want to be me again. I’d have to stay away from this place forever.”
“Then do it.”
“I can’t!”
I fall back in my chair and throw my hands in the air. “Then die.”
“Well, that’s a terrible thing to say.”
“I guess the truth is terrible.”
“You have two choices,” Brody says, his voice reasonable. “You live for another few years in your canine shape, and you visit Melanie from time to time, and that makes both of you happy. Or you take your human shape again a month from now, and you’re dead before the week is out. And, frankly, I think that’s a shitty thing to do to your sister.”
She glares at him. “This isn’t even your argument.”
He laughs at her. “Since I’m the one who’s going to be here when you’re gone, I think it is.”
William speaks up again. “Is it my argument?” he asks, and I’m pretty sure that the repressed passion I hear in his voice is anger and pain and love and anguish. “Do you care what I think? Because I don’t want you to die. Is it that easy for you to just leave me? If I could spend five years with you in one shape or three days with you in another shape, which one do you think I’d choos
e? Which one are you going to choose?”
For the first time tonight, I think someone’s gotten through to Ann. Her eyes grow shadowed; she places a thin hand on William’s arm. “I love you,” she says, her voice serious and quiet.
“Then stay with me,” he says, “and live.”
She glances back at me. “But—”
“Stay with him,” I tell her, “and live.”
Now she’s starting to cry. “But I’ll miss you.”
I shake my head. “You won’t. I’ll be right here.”
“It won’t be the same.”
I attempt a smile. “We’ve had this argument before, haven’t we?”
“I don’t think I can do it.”
“Yes, you can,” I say. “Do it for William. Do it for me. We love you, and this is what we both want.”
Now she looks at Brody. “Will you take care of Melanie?”
He puts his arm around my shoulders. “You bet I will.”
“You promise? You won’t break up with her?”
I feel him shrug. “Hey, I’ll marry her this week. As soon as we can get a license. You can come to the ceremony, then head off with a clear conscience.”
That chases away Ann’s tears and makes her face light up. “Yes! Let’s do it! A wedding before I go.”
I’ve slewed around in my chair, and I’m staring at Brody. “What the—is that a proposal? You think I’m going to marry you just to make my sister happy?”
He leans in to kiss me. “Well, it would make me happy, too.”
“I’ll do it,” Ann says. She’s practically bouncing in her chair. “I’ll change shapes, and I’ll stay that way if you guys get married before I go.”
Brody is grinning broadly. “The blackmailed bride,” he says. “Sounds like a good romance title, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t plan a wedding in—what—a week,” I say, practically stammering. “And what if I don’t want to get married?”
“Oh, of course you do,” Ann says. “You told me you loved him.”
“You told me you loved me, too,” Brody says. He assumes a look of dejection. “Didn’t you mean it? I thought—”
“Oh, hush.” I take a deep breath. “Ann. If that’s what it will take to convince you to go off with William and stay in your husky shape—”
“Yes,” she says. “I insist. Anything less, and I swear I’ll be back on your doorstep in a month.”
“And Brody. If this is truly what you want—”
He kisses me again. “Oh, I want it. Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll prove how much.”
“Then—I say yes. And let’s plan a wedding.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It is, as you might imagine, the most scrambling, helter-skelter sort of wedding anyone could hope to put together. Debbie screams when I tell her the news, then hugs me as hard as she can with her big belly getting in the way. All three of Brody’s sisters threaten him with death if he doesn’t schedule the wedding for a day they can suspend the constant activity of their own lives to travel into St. Louis for the event. His parents, from what I can tell, begin packing the instant he hangs up from the phone call because they arrive in Dagmar within twenty-four hours and instantly begin helping Brody take care of the chores that have fallen to him. He gets the license, buys plain gold rings, schedules the ceremony at the local courthouse, makes luncheon reservations for the reception, and plans for what he calls the “kiss-and-a-promise” honeymoon, which we figure will be a weekend now and a real trip sometime in the future.
I buy a dress, arrange for flowers, ask Charles to take pictures, and wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.
Ann alternates between offering her opinion on our food, clothing, and venue choices, and sleeping. I begin to understand what Dr. Kassebaum meant by saying Ann’s body is struggling in this shape; it makes sense to me that she’s so tired because her organs and tissues can’t keep up with the demands of this imperfect body. But I know there is no way I will be able to persuade her to take her husky form before the actual wedding. And I want my human sister there beside me, wearing a blue-velvet dress, carrying white roses, and laughing. I want her in my wedding photos, dammit. I want proof to lay next to the memories I expect to accumulate, hard evidence that she is with me on this rare and special day.
And she is.
We have a noon ceremony in the historic courthouse and a rollicking luncheon at Corinna’s, which closes for the afternoon to cater our private party. After the meal, Bailey’s kids and Debbie’s boys take off their shoes and skate up and down the wooden dance floor in their socks. Charles plays romantic musical selections on a boom box and some of the adults dance. Brody’s dad makes the only toast—“Promise me you won’t let this be the happiest day of your lives”—and everyone has champagne, even Stevie and Simon. Even Debbie, though she only drinks a sip. Bailey and Brandy and Bethany grab me by the arms and hustle me into the women’s bathroom to tell me stories about Brody when he was growing up, giggling and interrupting each other and sometimes tearing up. The only single people at the wedding are William and Ann, so I hand her my bouquet instead of tossing it, and William wears my garter around his wrist like the frilliest sort of watchband.
At four o’clock, as it comes time for us to gather up our belongings and let Corinna prepare to open for the evening rush, we all start making our good-byes. Everyone hugs me, hugs Brody, hugs each other, hugs me again.
“Love you bunches and bunches and bunches,” Ann says into my neck as she holds me so tightly I doubt either one of us can breathe. “I’ll never forget this day.”
I can’t say good-bye. I can’t do it. “Me either,” is all I manage by way of reply.
“You’ll be happy, right? Forever?”
“Right,” I say. “And you? Happy?”
“Yeah,” she says. “We both got pretty cool guys, I think.”
“Let him take care of you,” I tell her. It’s the closest I can come to saying what neither of us wants to put into words. “From now on.”
“Okay,” she says. When she finally lets go, she’s smiling. “See you around.”
Bethany catches my arm and gives me a final embrace. “We’re getting ready to drive on home,” she says. “Please come down to Cape Girardeau soon and spend some time! I can’t wait to get to know you better.”
I have similar conversations with Brody’s parents and his other sisters, Bailey lingering a moment to look around. “Where’s your sister? I wanted to say good-bye. I sat with her at lunch, and she was just delightful.”
I don’t suppose anyone would wonder at it if my voice catches; it’s been an emotional day. “She had to leave,” I say. “Maybe some other time.”
But part of me can’t help hoping that she hasn’t left yet, that she’s lingering at the edge of the parking lot, having remembered one more thing she wanted to say. I step outside with the last of the stragglers, wave at people packing up their cars and backing out of their spaces, but all the time, I’m glancing around, praying for that final glimpse.
“Come on,” Brody says, taking my arm and urging me over to where the Cherokee is parked in the very last spot before asphalt gives way to gravel, then dirt, then highway. He’s got my keys, so I head around to the passenger side, and there, on the pavement, I spot her final farewell.
The blue-velvet dress lying on the ground, a bouquet of white roses nesting carefully in the folds.
* * *
Brody has booked a weekend at the Chase Park Plaza, a beautifully restored old hotel in the heart of the Central West End, the only certifiably funky district of St. Louis. Bars, bistros, bookstores, and boutiques cluster along the crowded two-lane Euclid Avenue, while gorgeous and shockingly expensive houses ray off along cross streets. The clientele is a lively mix of students, out-of-towners, the urban elite, medical personnel from the nearby hospitals, and a good portion of the city’s gay population. I’ve never been here for the annual Halloween party or Gay Pride parade, but bot
h events sound like fabulous extravaganzas.
The hotel itself has every imaginable luxury, including a two-screen movie theatre just off the lobby. Our room is more truly a one-bedroom apartment, with a spectacular view of the broad expanse of Forest Park.
“Freelance writing must pay a lot better than I ever thought it did,” I remark as I stroll around admiring the room.
“Nah, I gave them your credit card when I made the reservations.”
On a side table is a huge spray of roses, two dozen white ones with a single red one in the center. I bend over to inhale their subtle, foggy scent.
“Did you tell them we were on our honeymoon?” I ask. “Are they from the hotel?”
He’s come up behind me and as soon as I straighten up, he pulls me into his arms. “They’re from me, silly. Just a reminder that I love you.”
I kiss him. “Did you put these on my credit card, too?”
He laughs. “Damn. I forgot. Maybe it’s not too late to get the charges transferred.”
“And to think I never realized someone might marry me for my money.”
“Oh,” he says, kissing me, “the money was only part of it.”
* * *
We spend the next two days inside the hotel room at least as much as we’re outside it, though we both enjoy walking along Euclid, people-watching, and pausing for meals, coffee, ice cream, or shopping. I’m simultaneously happy, at a level so deep that I can only describe it as my soul, and profoundly, quietly sad. For so many reasons, I do not want the brief honeymoon to end.
I am loving the chance to spend every minute with Brody. He has what I can only think must be a journalist’s interest in every possible topic, from the timing of traffic lights to the pricing structure at an antique store, and he frequently offers up odd bits of knowledge he’s acquired in his eclectic career. These things make him an endlessly fascinating conversationalist, but it’s his affection and his lightheartedness that make him so easy to be around, so necessary to my well-being. He buoys me and lights me up. During those two days, I find myself clinging to him, always finding some excuse to pat his arm or take his hand. Well, we’re newlyweds, and we’re in love; of course we’re always touching. But it’s more than that. He anchors me to an existence of normalcy and hope, where the days unfold as they ought to, and life’s small disasters are easy to take in stride.