“Please, baby, please.”
And then only silence. I sat with your hand in mine until your skin began to cool, and I didn’t cry until a nurse led me out of the room.
§
I wake on a cool morning in early autumn to find the photograph on the mat outside the front door. The lock of hair, the little smile, the pale roses. I stand with my hands in my pockets for a long time, but eventually I carry the photo back into the house.
I’ll leave the windows open every night, weather be damned. I’ll put flowers out every day. Because you were so close the last time, so very close, and that has to mean something.
I slip the ring back on my finger. It was a mistake to take it off in the first place. I won’t make it again.
Please, baby, find your way back home to me. I’ll wait for you no matter how long it takes. I promise I will. If you make it all the way this time, I’ll say the goodbye I should’ve said in the hospital.
Maybe then I’ll be able to let you go.
Immolation:
A Love Story
Derek tells the woman the shoes are too small, but she insists on pushing her foot in and the flesh bubbles over the edge. When she teeters around the aisle, he winces. The stiletto heels are meant for a gazelle, not a cow. Her shiny, fat face splits into a smile.
“I’ll take them,” she says.
Derek wipes his hands on his pants and gives her the slick salesman’s grin he’s perfected countless times in the mirror. “Would you like to wear them out of the store?” Of course, she says yes.
The matchbook in his pocket is heavy, a dangerous weight to carry. He’d like to burn her up. After her skin blackened, the fat would go fast, sizzling away in a scummy pile of stinking yellow excess. He turns away so she can’t see the light creeping up into his eyes.
After she wobbles out of the store, Derek goes into the back to wash the feel of her off his hands. The bell over the door chimes. Slipping on his pleasant, safe face, he heads back just in time to see her walk in, all stiletto heels and red lipstick. 38-26-36, he guesses, bought and paid for with her ex-husband’s money and maintained with hours at the gym, sweating under the guidance of her personal trainer. The kind of woman who drinks dirty martinis with four olives, not three. A mannequin, ice-cold and perfect, but hot enough to burn the skin from his lips.
“I’m looking for a pair of black heels,” she says. “Four inch stiletto heels.”
Derek uncurls his voice from the back of his throat. “Size eight?”
Her full lips curve up at the corners. “Yes, how did you know?”
“It’s my job.”
She sits down and stretches out her long legs. The heat from her core pushes flames from her skin, flames only he can see. In the stockroom, he wipes sweat from his brow as he pulls out several boxes of shoes.
She shakes her head at the first pair, frowns at the second, but when he opens the third box (four inch heels, shiny patent leather, a tiny lace bow at the back), a quick laugh emerges from her throat like a butterfly escaping the chrysalis. “Those are perfect,” she says.
Her toenails are painted the color of fresh blood. His hands shake as he slips the shoes on her feet, careful not to make contact with her skin. She’s burning him up with her presence.
The muscles in her calves flex as she walks with graceful, practiced steps, leaving behind sex-heat, want-heat. Derek digs his fingernails into the soft flesh of his palms, tattooing his skin with half-moon bruises.
“What do you think?” she asks.
Too beautiful to burn, too gorgeous not to.
“You’re right. They’re perfect,” he says. “Would you like to wear them now?”
“Oh, no, these are for a very special occasion. I don’t want to ruin them.”
After she sits back down, he removes the shoes, resisting the urge to touch. To feel. The matchbook falls from his pocket when he leans over to pick up the box, and they reach at the same time. Their fingertips touch, and a tiny spark of electricity jumps in the no-space between their skin. A strand of her hair falls forward, curving in a comma against the pale of her cheek. Her lips part; her fingers tremble.
Could it be?
He flips the matchbook over in his hand and puts it back in his pocket, watching her face the entire time. Her eyes are an ocean of lava filled with needwantmusthavenow. It explains everything.
They walk side by side to the register, not speaking. When he hands back her credit card, their fingers touch again; her heat pushes into his. He slips the matchbook into the bag with her shoes.
Will she understand?
Five minutes after she leaves, he calls the credit card company. His story is convincing, and they give him her address.
That night, unable to resist the heat within, he watches and waits. The second night, he lights one match after another, seeing her face in each tiny flame. On the third night, his perfection emerges from her house with her body encased in black, the new shoes shimmering like the carapace of an exotic beetle.
He follows her car at a safe distance, smiling when she reaches her destination, a new development where huge half-built homes silhouette the sky with their wooden skeletons. She gets out of the car and walks her heat-walk across the grass. A pregnant moon, haloed in red, lights the way. The moth-like flutter of his heart cannot resist the lure of her warmth.
The house (their house) is a shadow-maze of new wall smell. The glow from the moon reaches down through the unfinished roof, and her heels click on the floor with soft, gentle stiletto clicks. Another sound then, a quick little snick, and a smell he knows all too well—the sweet perfume of burning wood. The intoxicating scent of power.
When he finds her, her face holds no trace of surprise.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says, holding up his gift, the matchbook, her voice whisper soft and honey sweet.
A snake-trail of fire winds its way around them, red-orange-yellow flames that flicker and hiss. Music, such sweet music, each note reflecting in the patent leather of her shoes.
“I knew tonight would be special.” She smiles her red, red smile, takes his hand, and together they burn.
Melancholia
in Bloom
Every family has a secret magic tucked away in a dusty attic or hidden between the words of a handed-down story. This box is ours. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s been in our family for a long time. After my mother’s death, I found it in her attic with a notebook inside. Now I’ll leave the box for Rebecca. I hope she won’t just think it an old woman’s fancy.
My mother kept scraps of fabric. I was surprised to see neither a trace of fading nor a moth hole. The tiny bits could have been snipped free from their dresses yesterday. I will confess I didn’t believe her words, not until I touched one of the pieces. I won’t tell Rebecca what I saw. I’ll let her discover that herself.
Perhaps it’s only a vanity. The mother not quite willing to let go of her child. Who knows? It’s almost silly, this keeping hush. I should just tell Rebecca in person instead of writing it down, but would I have believed my mother?
I’d like to think so.
§
I hate this place—the smell, the withered limbs hidden behind each door, the traces of withered lives hanging in the air. No one comes here to get well, only to wait.
My shoes tap on the tile floor; the sound hovers in the air for a quick instant, then the walls tuck it away. I brought yellow roses this time, and I hold them away from my body so the stink won’t linger on my clothes. My mother has never understood why I don’t like them; I’ve never understood why she does.
I take a deep breath before I enter her room and put on a smile that should feel normal by now, but it doesn’t. It feels like a lie.
When she sees me, her eyes narrow, her lips thin. The nurse acknowledges me with a nod and pats my mother’s arm. Adjusts the sheets around her frail body.
“Helen, look, it’s Rebecca, your daughter,” she says a little too brigh
tly.
My mother would hate this false cheer. I know she would.
“It’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it?” I say. To fill up the silence, to pretend.
“Well, I’ll leave the two of you alone,” the nurse says as she makes her exit, pulling the door shut behind her.
Images flicker across the screen of the television in the corner, but the volume is so low, even the commercials seem little more than a soft hum. I busy myself with arranging the flowers in a vase. My father always gave her yellow roses on her birthday. It isn’t her birthday, but at this point, it doesn’t matter.
The yellow petals should bring a touch of brightness to the room; instead, they bring a sharp sting of hurt deep inside my chest. I turn to see my mother watching me, her eyes wary. The expression turns her face into a stranger’s. Another thing that should feel familiar by now, but even after six months, it doesn’t.
“Sarah couldn’t come today, Mom, but she sends her love.”
In truth, I don’t want Sarah to see her grandmother this way. I sit beside the bed and take her hand, her skin like tissue paper crumpled then pressed flat again. She pulls away. Makes a gravelly sound low in her throat.
I look down at my lap and think about the day Sarah was born. I remember the way my mother held her close, tears glittering in her eyes, as if it were yesterday instead of eight years ago. The way her voice caught when she sang a lullaby, the same lullaby she said she once sang to me. I push the memory away and babble about nothing until finally, I let the words fade away. What’s the point? My mother isn’t here anymore.
§
Something is…off. I jump at shadows. I can’t remember if I locked the door. Last week, I went to put the laundry in and found towels sitting in the washing machine. From the smell of mildew, they’d been there for several days.
This morning, I couldn’t find my keys. I spent an hour trying to find them, and when I did, they were hanging from the hook where I always put them. It was strange. I’ve never been the forgetful type. Maybe it will pass.
§
My father gave my mother roses for her birthday, their anniversary, for no reason at all. She would always pluck one petal from the roses. Only one. I asked her why once and she smiled, but she didn’t answer. I’m sure I do silly things that make Sarah shake her head, too.
Every time I buy the roses, I hope they’ll trigger something, some spark that will bring her back, even if only for a moment. Silly, I know.
§
There are gaps, spaces where names for things used to be. I’d convinced myself it was nothing more than old age, but today, after I went to the supermarket, I sat in the parking lot with my car running, trying to remember if I needed to turn right or left. I wasn’t truly scared, but confused. I remembered what the house looked like. I remembered the street name, but I had no idea how to get there.
Luckily, I saw my neighbor, Emma (I remembered her bright yellow Volkswagen without a problem), and I followed her. None of the streets looked familiar, and by the time she turned onto my street, my hands hurt from holding the steering wheel so tight.
I lied. I was frightened. I know I should call the doctor, but that would make it real.
§
Even now, I replay the day before I found her over and over in my head. Was there something, some clue in her behavior? Her speech? Sarah was running around. Was it possible I missed a forgotten word, a dropped name, in the noise?
She made us lunch. She even cut Sarah’s sandwich into triangular shapes—something that Sarah had only started requesting two weeks earlier. If she remembered something like that, how could a day, one single day, strip it all away?
The only thing odd was the way she hugged me before we left. A little tighter, a little longer than normal, and she looked as if she wanted to tell me something. Then Sarah tugged my hand; Mom patted my arm and told me to go. I felt her watching us walk to the car, and I swear she was watching as we drove away from the house. It’s probably my imagination, though, embellishing the memory with a wish.
§
I was cleaning today, and I knocked the box aside. Nothing spilled, thank goodness, but one red petal was sitting on the edge, ready to fall. When I touched it, I felt the tingle on, under, my skin, like I did when I touched my mother’s fabric scraps. And then it was as if something swooped in and filled up all the spaces in my head.
It was extraordinary. I had no idea the box, the magic, could do this. But I need to remember that these petals belong to Rebecca, not me.
§
She didn’t answer the phone, which wasn’t like her, so I went to her house after I dropped Sarah off at school. I found her sitting dull-eyed in her living room, still wearing her nightgown. She cried when I talked to her, shrieked when I took her hands, screamed when the paramedics arrived. But what else was I supposed to do?
I was so sure it was something small. Maybe a seizure or a fall that clouded her thoughts. They gave her a sedative, and as I followed the ambulance to the hospital, I couldn’t remember if I told her I loved her the day before. I still can’t remember, but I have to believe that deep inside, she knows.
§
I told myself it was a fluke. My imagination. My hands were shaking when I opened the box, but I had to try it again. I’m sure Rebecca would understand. I know she would. I took one petal out, cupped it in my hand, and felt the soft whisper of magic beneath my skin. A dance without music. A dream without sleep. Like before, the empty spots inside me, inside my head, vanished; like before, it didn’t last long enough.
Magic never does.
§
She babbled the first two months, but everything that came out was a jumble of chaos. Once or twice, I thought I heard her say my name, but no matter how many times I tried to talk to her, she cringed away. I told her stories—the time we went to the beach and I got stung by a jellyfish. How after my tears dried, I realized that she, too, had been stung. The night of my junior prom and how she drove me crazy asking for one more photograph. Just one more. The day of my wedding when she gave me a lace-edged handkerchief that once belonged to her great-grandmother, and how she waved her hands around my eyes so my tears wouldn’t run down and ruin my makeup.
I kept waiting for her to wake up, to come back. I brought roses; she tore the petals from one of the blooms and held them tight in her fists, muttering incoherencies all the while. When I took the rest away, she screamed and pulled my hair. I didn’t bring them again until her words vanished and the light in her eyes faded.
§
I used another petal. I felt terrible taking away another piece of something Rebecca should have, but she’ll be here soon and I don’t want her to see me that other way. She’ll worry. She’ll insist I call the doctor.
I hope she’ll forgive me. I hope she’ll understand.
§
I drive to the facility like I do every week, but today I sit in the parking lot with the engine running. The building looms like an empty hotel with each window a glittering reminder that once upon a time there was joy and laughter. Little of that here, now.
Once, we went on a camping trip to a cabin in the mountains and in the middle of the night, I climbed into my parents’ bed because the noises terrified me. My mother told me the bugs and the forest animals were having a party, and if I listened very carefully, I would be able to hear them laughing. She didn’t make me go back to my own bed, though. She simply scooted over so I had enough room. I was young, younger than Sarah is now.
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. My knuckles turn white. I can’t do it. I can’t face the stranger today. She doesn’t know who I am anymore; she won’t know I wasn’t there.
I hate this. I hate all of it. Tears well up in my eyes. Spill over my lashes. As I drive away, I promise myself I’ll come next week. I just can’t face her today.
§
My fingertips grow cold when the magic starts to fade. My thoughts twist and turn, and the words spiral out to nowh
ere. A ribbon I can’t catch, no matter how hard I try.
§
One week turns into two. Then three. I go back on a rainy Sunday afternoon and get out of my car quickly, before I can change my mind. The nurse smiles, but I see the accusation in her eyes. I don’t smile back.
§
Rebecca is coming over today. I sat with the box for an hour, afraid to use another petal, but too afraid not to. Is one more day with my daughter too much to want?
In the end, I plucked one from the box and held it tight in my hand. My skin danced and I felt the missing words, the missing spaces, return. I felt like myself again. I felt alive.
What will happen when I forget the magic inside the roses? When I stumble around in my apartment, frightened by the sights and the sounds, like a drowning woman in a dark ocean of forgetting? When I forget that the box is my life preserver? When I touch the roses, they say, “Helen, your name is Helen.”
What will happen when I forget they’re telling the truth?
§
When the doctor said she had Alzheimer’s, all the air rushed from my lungs. I barked a laugh. Maybe I’d misheard. “When I saw her yesterday, she was fine.”
I hid my hands so he couldn’t see my fingers twist. The doctor said nothing, but I saw in his eyes that he thought I was lying.
“We spent all day together,” I said. “All day. She was perfectly fine. And I saw her a week before that and she was fine then, too. I would have seen something if, if…” The words got caught in the tears I couldn’t hold back. For several long minutes that felt like hours, I cried into my hands, feeling the weight of his gaze.
“In this stage, sometimes patients do exhibit moments of clarity. The disease affects everyone differently, and,” he added kindly, “sometimes we see what we want to see.”
Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) Page 14