“I live in an apartment, on Avondale.”
“An apartment?”
“We sold Mom and Dad’s house. We had some money problems.”
“I’m so sorry.” She sounded genuinely concerned.
“Um,” Libby muttered, her face flushing warm. She was glad that neither could experience what the other was feeling through the viewer.
“Is … is he with you?”
Surprised at the sudden turn of topic, Libby said, “No, he doesn’t come here.”
“Oh.” The other woman drew out the word, sighing.
Libby bit her lip, wondering if it would be a good thing for this other self to see what she’d lost. But maybe it would comfort her…. “I can bring Roger next time,” she offered.
“Roger? Is that what you named him?” the other woman asked in a low voice. “After his dad?”
Libby suddenly understood, and she sat back, stunned.
After a minute of silence, the other woman said, “Beth? That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Libby,” she murmured, feeling numb. “Short for Elizabeth.”
“I’m Elizabeth, too.”
“So you have a son, Beth?” Libby asked, her eyes closed.
“I did. My only child.”
The teenage boy she’d already seen? “Did you adopt?”
“No,” the other woman said. “Don’t you have—”
Her heart beating hard, Libby whispered, “The fertility treatments worked?”
“What fertility treatments?” Beth asked, followed by, “Oh, Libby.” She reached out, caressing the casing on her viewer.
Libby saw a plump, pink hand, like hers used to be before she lost forty pounds going through radiation and chemo. The nails were unkempt, though—ragged cuticles, uneven ends with a bit of dirt under them, and no nail polish. Libby’s own nails were getting too brittle to grow long anymore, but they were shaped, painted a pale pink to look as natural as possible. She gave herself a manicure before every chemo session, trying her best to keep up appearances.
“Are you okay, Libby?” Beth asked.
Libby shut off the viewer, breathing hard. She stuffed it into her shoulder bag, got up, and left.
* * * *
Later that day, after Roger left for his second job, Libby returned to her grave. She took out the viewer from her bag and flipped it on.
“I didn’t think you’d come back,” Beth said.
“I have to show you something.” Libby opened her bag and took out a hand mirror. She stared into it, seeing bloodshot eyes and emerging cheekbones. She hadn’t noticed before, but the brightly colored turban she wore accented how pasty her skin had become.
She reached up and took the turban off. A few hanks of strawberry blond hair slid out; her head was ragged with stubble where the brittle hair shafts had broken and peppered with bald spots. Libby hadn’t been able to bring herself to cut the remaining strands. Her hair had once been her vanity, gleaming, falling to the small of her back when loose. She’d never thought of herself as pretty. But her hair, that had been beautiful.
The other woman gasped softly. “Are you … sick?”
Libby looked back at the viewer. “Ovarian cancer. Have you been checked for it?”
“No,” Beth said, drawing out the word. She looked away from the viewer, to a tombstone next to her.
Libby saw the boy’s name etched into the stone, under the carving of a chubby cherub. From the dates, she saw that Michael had been ten when he died. Ten years … it was ten years ago that Libby had first started the fertility treatments.
“How did he die?” Libby asked, a hint of anger in her voice.
“Car wreck.” The other woman looked down at herself for the first time, and Libby saw that she was sitting in a wheelchair. “I was driving too fast when we hit an icy patch. The car slid off the road, down the hillside, and rolled, landing on the passenger side.” She blinked several times. “I killed him,” she said, her voice trembling.
“It sounds like an accident,” Libby protested, the anger gone as suddenly as it had come.
“No,” Beth said firmly, closing her eyes. “It was my fault.”
Libby saw only a reddish darkness on her viewer but she recognized the world-on-my-shoulders tone. “Please,” she said, not sure what she was asking. “You had him for ten years. I didn’t have him at all.”
“Maybe that would have been better,” the other woman whispered.
“I would give anything to be you,” Libby said bitterly. Beth didn’t answer. Libby squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around herself, rocking to and fro. She didn’t think she could bear anything more. When her husband spoke beside her, she jumped.
“Were you even going to tell me that you already had your own grave?”
She looked up. Roger was staring down at her tombstone.
“Of course I was,” she said, pushing the words out, struggling to hold her composure. “Did you follow me here?”
He glared at her, his face turning red. “Why do you always have to be so damn self-sufficient?”
She realized that it had been a while since she’d seen anything but a calm expression on his face. “I did it for you,” Libby soothed, “so you wouldn’t have to worry about picking out a gravestone for me after…”
“You’ve given up,” Roger growled. “After all we’ve been through, you’ve given up. You go through the motions every day, but in your mind you’re dead already. And you didn’t bother to let me know.”
Libby spread her hands. “You’d be better off without a wife who’s such a burden that—”
“I’m your husband,” he interrupted, “but that doesn’t give you the right to make that decision for me.”
Libby looked up at him, feeling helpless. “I’m dying—”
“You’re not dead yet.” His scowl eased, but his tone turned cold. “This is our marriage. We’re both supposed to be in it.” Roger turned away from her.
She watched him walk off, a dreadful weight in her chest.
“Roger needs you,” the voice said from the viewer.
“I have to be strong for us both,” Libby said, but her voice sounded weak even to her own ears. “It’s all my fault.”
“My husband is the only thing that’s gotten me through the last year,” Beth said in a quiet voice.
Libby pulled herself upright, hanging onto her own tombstone, letting the viewer fall heedlessly from her lap. She saw Roger’s back as he walked toward the gate of the cemetery.
She tried to run after him, but took no more than a few steps before she was out of breath. Leaning over, she panted, “Roger.” He didn’t turn.
Libby stood upright, holding her middle, feeling her ribs heaving under her hands. “Roger!” she screamed.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder. Libby saw that he wasn’t as far away as she’d thought. She took one step and stopped, wheezing.
Libby only realized she was crying when she felt the tear slide off the end of her nose. Another followed it, and then another, until she was sobbing, sobbing for everything she’d already lost, sobbing for everything she stood to lose. She blindly reached out for her husband, unable to go any further, unable to see him through the curtain of her tears. She only knew he was by her side when he took her outstretched hand.
“Shhh, honey,” Roger murmured. He pulled her to his chest and held her tight.
And Libby let him.
Copyright © 2001 Kim Fryer
-*-
Kim Fryer is a misplaced Midwesterner living in the Northwest with her wonderful husband Bob and their mischievous house rabbit, Scwooey Wabbit. She is also the editor of Rabbit Web, a resource for rabbit pet owners and breeders. For more about her, see her Web site, Flotsam and Jetsam.
In the Shade of the Tree of Knowledge
By Michael Chant
8/6/01
His picture leaves her hands
Like the last leaf falling in December.
The pain of crumpling it
Still rings
In her long, thin fingers.
There is no questioning the immorality of littering,
No thought of him being reclaimed.
Slowly, painfully, she turns to the window,
Glaring as her train passes through the city.
Despite knowing them as rapists who fancied themselves as gods,
It has become hard to frown at their straight-edged encroachment;
Success was found in failure.
Beside her, the man reads his newspaper.
She knows what they are made of, but cannot look away.
The headlines offer no valid counterpoints,
Not a single reason to remain among them,
Reinforcing why it is good to carry not one of their seeds.
Then the headlines run together,
As they sometimes did these days.
Flesh and bone concepts were escaping,
Words were following.
Her mind was filling with the water trickling beneath the soil,
Pure and cold and never seeing light.
Her twenty seasons have ended.
Her toes have stretched and splintered,
Wrapped in damp bandages and
Stuffed into size fourteen work boots.
Pitiful glances escort the twenty-something girl who needs a cane to walk.
Inside, it seethes, Maya will remember not one of their names.