Beloved Lives

by Evans, Marilyn

  “Well, I got a call from Trish, and she wondered if maybe we'd like to come by for drinks this evening, before we did whatever we wanted to do. That is, if you don't already have plans. I know it's short notice.”

  “No, I don’t have plans.And I should tell you, Trish's drinks are legendary.”

  “I'm really sorry for not calling sooner.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. My only excuse for not calling you is things have been a little crazy. I'll tell you all about it when we get together tonight. If you come by a little early, we can walk to Trish's so you don't have to worry about drinking and driving. Shall we say five-thirty or so?”

  April raised an eyebrow at Trish and got a nod.

  “That sounds perfect. I look forward to hearing about your week. Bye.” Mitch hung up.

  Trish’s phone rang within seconds.

  “Hello? Oh, fantastic. I’ll see you this evening, then. About six, I’d say? Good. Bye.” Trish put her phone in her purse and looked at April. “And that, my dear,” she said, “is what friends are for.”

  Chapter 33. Weston Takes a Nap

  When Trish dropped April with her farmer’s market bounty back at her house, Winston met her at the door, dragging his harness, ready for a run. The day was heating up, but it wasn’t quite unbearable yet, so April got into her running clothes. She started them out slowly at more of a jog than a run, touring the neighborhood, as usual.

  Days of heat had withered the lawns to a parched yellow, except where sprinklers came to the rescue. The trees looked stressed and droopy. The rising heat and humidity convinced April and Winston to cut their run short. They completed the last few blocks at a languid stroll.

  After making sure Winston had a big bowl of water and drinking a large glass herself, April showered off. Wrapped in a towel, she was debating what to do for lunch when someone knocked at her door. Someone who hadn't figured out her doorbell was working now.

  She grabbed her ratty housecoat and opened the door to Dr. Weston. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a while. A day’s growth of beard covered his jaw, and his usually perfect clothes were rumpled.

  “What are you doing here?” April asked, not pleased and letting it show in her voice.

  “I wanted to talk. We need to talk.”

  April sighed. “Stay there. I have to get dressed.”

  She closed the door on him, leaving him on the front porch in the heat.

  She grabbed her Run for the Frogs T-shirt with the holes in it and a pair of cutoff-jeans shorts. Barefoot, with no makeup and without combing out her hair, she opened the front door again.

  Weston was a mess, but so was April. She figured that made them even.

  “Look, come on in out of the heat,” she said and waved him to the sofa. “When was the last time you ate?”

  He looked at her, dazed. He had no idea, she could tell.

  “Stay here a minute.” April went into the kitchen and pulled out some leftovers from her Wednesday-night picnic with Mitch. She prepared a plate and carried it back into the living room, but Weston was asleep, slumped back onto the arm of the sofa, his head at an awkward angle. She let him sleep while she dusted, changed the sheets on her bed, and otherwise went about her Saturday chores. After about an hour, when she got to the point that she needed to vacuum, she decided he’d had enough of her generosity, so she shook him awake.

  He was embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know—”

  “Never mind,” April said. “Here, eat something.”

  She put the plate in front of him on the coffee table and let him eat while she ran the vacuum cleaner over her carpet. He obligingly lifted his feet at the appropriate moment. When she was finished and the vacuum cleaner was put away, April sat in her grandmother's rocker and kept an eye on him.

  When Weston finished eating, he said, “Thank you. That was very good.”

  “My mother’s recipes. Okay. I have some questions.”

  She fixed him with a stern look and watched him squirm uncomfortably.

  “The Egyptian queen died at the hands of her husband. She came back as a slave girl who had terrible nightmares. What happened in between?”

  Weston looked at her. Her ability to figure out her past without his help no longer seemed to surprise him. He wiped his hands and mouth with the paper towel April had given him for a napkin. Tears began to form in his eyes.

  “That’s the part I’ve been trying to tell you. But I wanted you to understand in context. I wanted you to know why it happened.”

  “Okay. What happened, and why?”

  Weston took in a deep, ragged breath.

  “Pharaoh was in a rage, a kind of madness. He loved you so much, but he had killed you. When he realized what he had done, his mind snapped.

  “His mental condition had to be covered up. The kingdom had strong enemies, inside and out, who would use that information to their advantage. An impersonator rode in the procession out of the city to the royal hunting grounds. The king’s absence was explained by his being on a long hunt away from the city. We started a rumor that he had a new lover and was sequestered with her in his hunting camp, so no one worried when they didn’t see him for weeks.”

  He smiled. “He had done that with you, so it wasn’t hard to convince people he was capable of it again.”

  Weston rubbed his hands over his face. “I was supposed to oversee his sons who were responsible for day to day activities while he was gone, but I…my mind had suffered, as well.”

  Weston jumped up and began to pace across the living room, too restless to sit still.

  “I stole your body from the tent of purification, spent days and days with you, hidden. I used every art, every medicine, all the magic I had learned. I prayed and invoked the powers of the Gods to try to bring you back to life.”

  April laughed. “And how did that work out for you?”

  The look on Weston’s face, utter desolation, immediately made her sorry she had asked.

  “It worked very well, Gods help me. Very well.”

  Chapter 34. Missing Link

  “What are you saying? You brought the dead queen back to life?”

  Weston groaned. “Yes. But it took too long. I was too late. I’d lost track of time. I hadn’t realized that as I worked and prayed, her body was decomposing. Horus gave her back her life, but it came into a rotted vessel.”

  The tears were now rolling down his cheeks.

  “She, you, woke screaming in pain. Terrible pain I can’t even imagine, every fiber of your body alive in rotted flesh—”

  “You don’t need to describe it. I live it every night,” April said, her voice icy.

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t realize.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Finally, her curiosity got the better of her.

  “What did you do?” April asked.

  “I—” Weston choked. “I killed you again.”

  “How?”

  “Please,” he begged.

  “Oh, come on. Surely, you’ve told me this before. Maybe a thousand times. What did you do?”

  “I cut off your head.”

  April looked at him. When she realized her mouth was hanging open, she closed it.

  “Then I poured oil over your body and burned it. I didn’t have any experience, any way to know if—” He sat back down on the sofa, his head in his hands.

  “And every time you tell me this story, I fall into your arms and forgive all?”

  Weston coughed a harsh, bitter laugh and raised his head to look at her. “Usually, by the time I tell you this, we are in love, and the dreams have stopped because we have slept together.”

  He realized as soon as he said it he had made a mistake. She could see it on his face.

  “So that’s how you make the dreams go away? We have sex, and it stops?” April could tell by the way he refused to meet her eye that this was so.

  “It stops because we are together again, as we should be. Meri, we are destined to be tog
ether, for all time. We are two halves of a whole. We are fated—” He reached out to her, his eyes begging her understanding.

  “Bull.” April stood up and walked away from Weston. She turned back to face him, her back to the front door. “When I was married to Sam, the dreams went away. It’s not you, and it’s not love. It’s sex. Somehow, it has something to do with sex.”

  “You’re wrong. It has to be love.”

  “You never met Sam. I’m guessing you’re wrong.”

  She paused a moment, thinking. “And when I was an old woman and you came back for me as a young man, my husband had been dead for years, but I still wasn’t having the dream. My husband died when I was an old woman, after menopause.”

  April was quiet, taking it all in. Her husband died after she had gone through menopause. Sex and hormones—that's what it was about. She realized she had the key at last to making the dreams stop.

  “Look, Dr. Weston. Winston,” April said, moving closer to him, “you’re handsome, and you’re a really nice person in a weird, stalker sort of way, but honestly, I’m not interested in you. I might have been once, or even a whole bunch of times, but I love someone else now, in this life. You’ve got to let it go, and move on.”

  Weston wasn’t looking at her. She went on, trying to be cheerful and encouraging.

  “Trish thinks you’re great, and she’s pretty forgiving. Give her a call. Get to know her. You have to admit she’s amazing. Or one of the surgery nurses. They’re all crazy about you. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding someone suited to you. Someone prettier”—she looked down at her holey T-shirt and ragged cutoffs—“and who dresses better than I do.”

  Weston appeared to be pulling himself together. He raised his head and looked her up and down.

  “Yes,” he said, standing up from the sofa to his full and considerable height. “You are not her. She was magnificent. Beautiful, bold, strong. You are none of those things. There is no glory in you, no fire. You are small and insignificant. How could I have not seen?”

  He went to the front door and turned back to say, “Goodbye, Miss Robins.”

  When the door closed, Winston came out of hiding, purring and rubbing against April’s leg. She sat down on her living room carpet and took him into her lap. While she should have been relieved, the sudden change from suitor to scorner left April feeling oddly abandoned.

  In a small, hurt voice, she said to Winston, “I’m not insignificant.”

  Chapter 35. Blues in the Night

  By the time Mitch showed up for their date, April was feeling less sorry for herself. She was beginning to feel relieved that Weston probably wouldn’t be coming back around. Still, his words had stung. She was glad they had decided to walk to Trish’s condo, so Mitch could have a few drinks. Also, it would give them more time to talk.

  “I never drink when I’m on the scooter,” he’d told her.

  She didn’t want him to miss an opportunity to try Trish’s killer cocktails.

  * * *

  After Trish gave Mitch the grand tour of her condo, pointing out the most important features like the home entertainment system, the fantastic spa bathroom, and the view of the swimming pool, she got them settled at the kitchen counter that was serving as her bar.

  “I got this recipe from a place down in Fayetteville, Arkansas,” Trish said as she poured a concoction of infused liquor and assorted additives that she assured them would not cause hangovers.

  April had her doubts.

  Once their cocktails were served and Trish had produced several little trays of appetizers, April was ready to continue with her campaign of full disclosure.

  “Weston came by today,” she mentioned casually.

  Trish huffed in indignation, while Mitch's brow wrinkled in concern.

  “He finally told me why I have the dreams.”

  They looked at her expectantly.

  “Apparently, he brought me back to life in a rotted body.”

  “Why would he do that? Is that even possible?” Trish asked.

  April explained the best she could.

  Mitch was thoughtful. “The dream in the beginning is like a birth dream, but then it changes course, so a rebirth or reanimation?” he said to himself, then he smiled at April.

  “Reanimation like in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is pure fiction, not really possible, but then reanimated dead bodies, zombies, are everywhere in popular culture. Those are fun but also pure fantasy. Real zombies like from the Caribbean are living people who have been drugged and brainwashed into a psychological state imitating the living dead.”

  Trish poured new drinks all around, something rather sanguine for herself and Mitch, and one that looked a little like cherry soda for April.

  “This is great. What is it?” Mitch said after tasting his.

  “It’s a hot pepper-infused vodka with vegetable juice, sort of Bloody Mary with a bite. None for you, April, ‘cause you’re a wimp.”

  “Thank you for sparing me. I like this, though. What is it?”

  “Candy infusion, fruit juice, and champagne, for your sweet tooth.”

  “Do you think all of this is just a mind trick Weston is playing on April?” Trish asked Mitch.

  “I can’t really say. It’s outside of my experience, but, assuming the dreams are founded on a real experience, it’s not entirely unheard of that a person could be dead for a long time and be resuscitated,” Mitch said. “There is a huge body of evidence of near-death and even complete-death experiences. Weston certainly knows a lot about this. I’ve read his papers. These days, the time elapsed between clinical death and resuscitation is growing longer and longer, so it can be accomplished up to a point.”

  He sipped his drink and reached for a snack. “I just find it hard to believe from a scientific standpoint such a resuscitation would have been successful several thousand years ago. And that the death would be so long in duration that decomposition would set in just doesn’t seem likely. Still, so much ancient knowledge is lost. Who can tell?”

  “So, did he have a suggestion of how to make the dreams go away?” Trish asked April.

  “Uh, yes, but it’s a little embarrassing.”

  April held out her glass for a refill. She had made quick work of the first ones. Trish raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, come on. You’re among friends,” Trish urged as she freshened April’s drink. “Spill. Not the drink, mind you, just the information.”

  “Very funny,” April said, sipping her cocktail. She took a deep breath and charged ahead. “He tried to tell me that in the past, they stopped because he and I were together, loved each other, and, uh, made love. That cured me.” Not looking at Trish or Mitch, she took another sip of her drink, suddenly very interested in how pretty the impaled fruit looked floating in the glass.

  “I suppose that might make some kind of sense. If it started because he caused it, he might be able to stop it,” Trish said, topping up her own glass.

  “Yes, but think about it. It started when I started having periods.” April had been thinking about this all afternoon. “It stopped when Sam and I got together. It started again when Sam and I split up. I don’t think it has anything to do with Weston. I think it has to do with sex or maybe even just hormones.”

  April could feel her face starting to get hot. Oh, great. She was blushing talking about sex in front of Mitch. Or maybe it was the drink.

  “But maybe not sex as much as passion,” he said. “The onset is marked by strong emotions. Lust, sexual desire, those are just some of the passionate emotions we experience. Even the rage that led to the queen’s murder may feed into it.”

  April nodded. That made some kind of sense. “Anyway,” she continued, “Weston either didn’t know or was lying, but at any rate, he was wrong. He’s not the only answer. I told him thanks, but no thanks.”

  “What did he say?” Trish looked fascinated.

  “That I wasn’t her, and I was insignificant and small.”

 
“What a jerk!” Trish said, then looked April up and down. “But you are kind of short.”

  “You’re a real pal.” April threw a crudité at her.

  Trish ducked. “Does that mean he’s out of your life?” she asked, retrieving the snack projectile from the floor and tossing it in the trash can.

  “Let’s hope so. He’s all yours if you want him.”

  “No thanks. A little too exotic for me, reincarnated Egyptians. I’m more in the market for, oh, I don't know. Maybe a Viking.”

  * * *

  Later, slightly tipsy, Mitch and April walked home, stopping to pick up some Chinese carry-out on the way.

  “You know, I was a little worried you might decide Weston was the guy for you,” Mitch confessed as they walked toward April's home. “He has a lot going for him, including history.”

  “Well, yes, he is quite a package. Really, there’s only one thing wrong with him.”

  Mitch looked at her sideways. “What would that be?”

  April smiled. “He’s not you.”

  Mitch was holding her hand. He brought it up to his lips and kissed it.

  “Honestly, though,” April continued, “there was never any danger of me picking him over you. You make me laugh, and you understand me even better than Trish does. And Winston likes you.”

  “I'm glad,” Mitch said, “because you're the only person in the world who laughs at all my jokes.”

  “Why wouldn't I? They're funny.”

  “But you laugh at all my jokes,” he said. “Even the elephant jokes.”

  “Well, okay. Some of the elephant jokes are pretty dumb. But they're still funny.”

  When they got to the house and unpacked their food, they talked more about the causes and effects of her dreams, then moved on to discussing movies about dreams. Her personal favorite was a Robin Williams film.

  By the time they had finished their fortune cookies—Mitch was going to live a long, happy life while April was going to be invited to an exciting event—they were feeling relaxed and comfortable, snuggled together on the sofa. Winston was curled up at the opposite end keeping them company.