Slices (14 page)

The
boys had been too excited to sleep. Tomorrow was their birthday —
not as good as Christmas, maybe, but still, so close and so far —

“Tomorrow’s
a big day,” she told them, and her voice was bright and
cheerful and automatic, and felt like it was coming from somewhere
else, someone else. “You need your sleep. So I want you to
drink this.”

The
hotel room’s microwave chimed, and she pulled out the two
steaming mugs.

“Moommmm,”
Kyle said, “warm milk’s for babies.”

“Maybe,”
she agreed, pulling the bottle out of her bag. “But this
isn’t.”

Josh
stared. “Peppermint Schnapps? What’s Schnapps?”

“It’s
alcohol, stupid,” Kyle said.

“Hey,
now. Be — ” Sarah’s voice nearly caught. “Be
nice to your brother.”

Josh
had to be talked into it. Kyle didn’t. But soon they were both
fast asleep — Josh giving up and lying down, Kyle trying to
stay awake and the cup finally slipping right out of his hand.

Sarah’s
heart was pounding. She ran to their sides and checked their
breathing, their heartbeats, worried about the sleeping pill she’d
split between their two drinks. She wasn’t trying to kill them.
She just wanted both of them to sleep through this.

God,
she loved them both so much.

She
stared down at their sleeping bodies for the longest time.

Then
she went to the closet, and started to pack a single small suitcase.

It
was well after midnight when the knock finally came. She shot a
worried glance at the beds, but they didn’t wake.

She
walked over to the door, took the chain off, opened it. He looked
exactly the way he did twelve years before.

“Evening,”
he said. “I hope the hour don’t inconvenience you much.”

She
shook her head. She had a thousand impulses to scream, to run, to
fight, all of it buried under layers of numbness like thick cotton.

“No.
Not at all.” She waved him in. “Do you — want
anything? There’s a little coffee maker — I can — ”

He
shook his head. “I do believe I’ve already made it as
clear as I can what I want from you.” He glanced over at the
bed. “Are we still clear on that?”

She
nodded, and he moved over to the beds. “Here they are, then.
Aww. Don’t they look like little angels, sleeping like that?”
He smiled up at her, and she didn’t smile back. He shrugged,
reached out, and brushed a strand of hair out of Kyle’s eyes.
“Well. I’ll just be taking my boy, then, and I won’t
be troubling you no more.”

“You’re
not taking him.”

He
snatched his hand back like it had been burnt. Slowly he turned to
look at her. “Oh, I surely am. Or they both die. And that’ll
just be the start. You wanted your life and I gave it to you, and if
you don’t honor our agreement — ”

“Listen
to me,” she said.

“—
If you don’t honor our
agreement, you’re gonna know kinds of hurting you don’t
even have names for.”

“Listen
to me. You’re not taking him. You’re not taking Kyle.
You’re taking Josh.”

His
eyes narrowed. “This one is mine. You know it. Just look at
him. And this other one — hasn’t he been your perfect
little golden boy? Hasn’t he been everything I promised you?”

“He
has. He has and I’m going to miss him every day for the rest of
my life but Kyle
needs
me
and
you’re not taking him. You’re not.”

She
sat down on the bed, lifted Kyle up and cradled him like a doll.
“You don’t know him. You don’t know anything. I
know he’s scared and hurt and confused and angry, so angry at
the world all the time, and he’s scared that anger’s
going to eat him up. I’m not going to let it. But you would.”

“This
is not up for debate,” he said.

“No,”
she agreed, “it’s not. Josh is — Josh is strong and
smart and he’s a better person than I’ll ever be, and
whatever you do to him, you’re not going to break him. I know
it. He’d be safe even with you. He’ll be safe wherever he
goes.”

She
laid Kyle back down on the bed, kissed his sleeping forehead. “I’ve
carried that piece of paper all this time. I’ve read it a
thousand times, and all it says is that I have to give up one of my
boys. It doesn’t say which one.”

He
stared. “You’re serious.”

“That’s
his bag, right over there. And that’s the door.”

She
stood, not watching, holding herself steel-straight. She managed,
somehow, not to break down completely, not to scream and cry and rage
until they both were gone.

And
by morning, when, half-sane, she tried to explain to Kyle where his
brother had gone, the piece of paper she’d carried all these
years, folded and secret and kept, no longer held her name, or even a
single word.

The
world didn’t end that night. The sun came up in the morning,
the way it always does, no matter what we’ve done while it was
gone.

The
sun came up, and kept coming up, into days and weeks and years, until
finally a day came that didn’t have Sarah in it, any longer.

The
sun still rose that day as well, beautiful and bright, and was even
brighter the day they put her in the ground, the day all her friends
had gathered to say what a shame it all was, how young she’d
been, how much they’d miss her.

And
everyone wanted to shake Kyle’s hand, to lavish their attention
and sympathy on him, and all he wanted was just to disappear.

He
did, gradually, falling further and further back in the crowd as the
line filed past her grave, as people gave her their handfuls of dirt
and their last goodbyes.

Finally,
only one person stood next to him.

They
didn’t look at each other. They didn’t need to.

They
just fell quiet into lockstep, walking away as the casket was
lowered.

“You
look different,” one of them said.

“You
look the same,” the other replied.

Anyone
looking would have thought they were as different as night and day.

They
would have to look much closer, understand everything, to see the
similarities. The dark sharp eyes set in a face that smiled easily
and often; the light clear gentle eyes that had seen far too much.

Both
of them arriving at the same place, here, and leaving finally
together. Driving into the distance, down a dark and nameless road.

I’ve
brought you flowers, he told her, roses as red as the sunset the
night we met, and I’ve brought you chocolates and wine and
everything you asked for, and she smiled, just like he’d wanted
her to she smiled, but it was just for a second and it was gone, like
embers glowing in a stirred fire, and it wasn’t enough. Nothing
he’d brought was enough.

And
he held her close, and stroked her hair, and talked to her and read
to her, late into the night, and kept the candles lit. And none of
that was enough. Her eyes were still rimmed red from crying, red like
the roses left forgotten on the kitchen counter. She didn’t
look up at him, not once, not the whole time. Every sigh from her
lips was like a knife at his throat. Her eyes burned tired and angry,
and his were just dull and tired. And he tried and kept trying and
none of it was enough. Just like the night before and the night
before that, and onward back a thousand thousand nights.

I’m
cold, she said, accusing, and he apologized and got up to close the
window.

Outside
the window the sky was on fire, and stretched out to an infinite
horizon were a million million other damned souls, huddled against
the burning cold and filling all of Hell with the sound of their
cries and screams.

And
all of it escaped his notice as he shut the window and went back
across the room, slipped back into bed, and cradled his arms around
his wife as she faced the wall and wept.

I
need some more time, he told the phone, I’m sorry, I’ll
be back in the office soon. My wife is still sick. She needs to be
looked after. He put the phone back down, and he’d long since
stopped noticing that there was never a voice on the other end to
question or protest. He just knew that he needed to make that call
every day; it’s what was done.

He
walked back into the bedroom with the simple breakfast he’d
made her on a tray, the single strongest survivor of last night’s
roses, the only one that hadn’t wilted completely, in a bud
vase on the tray to give it some color, and he asked her, how are you
feeling?

And
she didn’t answer him. That was all right, he was used to that;
she never answered him, not the first time.

She
took the tray, barely a nod for a thank you, and started slowly to
eat.

How
you feeling? You doing any better?

Sometimes
she answered the second time. Sometimes he at least got a shrug.
Today he got a word; No, she told him.

He
nodded, brushed a dirty strand of hair out of her eyes. I’m
sorry, he told her.

Is
this all there is for breakfast?

His
heart sank. It’s all I could find, he told her.

Oh,
she said, and kept eating. Are you going to go shopping today? We
need groceries.

Yeah,
I can, if you need me to, he said, and he steeled himself for his
next question, knowing her answer would be no; Will you come with me
to the store? You feel up to it?

No,
she said. I still feel awful.

Okay,
he said, thinking (but not daring to say), it seems like you get sick
all the time, now. He patted her hand.

And
he asked if there was anything he could bring her from the store, and
she named things, simple little things that she wanted, and he wrote
them down and would carry those words like scripture, hoping that he
would finally bring her something that would make her happy, that
would make her laugh.

He
got dressed and left, umbrella whipping in the wind, trying to
remember the last time she had ever left this place, dimly suspecting
but never quite realizing that she never had.

“Excuse
me — ”

The
voice caught his attention like a bullet in the leg. He turned and
looked at her, actually open-mouthed amazed. When was the last time —
?

“Excuse
me — I’m sorry, can I talk to you a minute … ?”

— the
last time anyone besides Kathy had actually spoken to him? “Wh
— ”

“It’s
actually kind of important.” And she smiled. Smiled
apologetically. It was a small and simple smile, but it was one that
didn’t die.

Didn’t
he used to know someone who smiled like that?

He
stared at her. He couldn’t help it. Stood and stared in the
middle of the aisle, his cart blocking the way for the impatient and
plodding people around him. He had a box in his hand, cake mix —
his hand had frozen in mid-motion over the cart when he first saw
her, and now his arm just hung limp, the box forgotten in his hand.

“I’m
sorry — ” Even without Kathy it was so easy for those
words to be the first to rush to his lips — “Have we —
do I know you?”

“Do
you?” Her eyes scoured his face, searching for something. He
wasn’t sure if she ever found it.

“I’m
sorry.” Those words again. “If we’ve met, I can’t
remember where I know you from.”

“It’s
okay,” she told him, “but please, I really do need to
talk to you.”

“I
— can’t, I have to — ” He gestured
helplessly, noticing what he was holding. “I have a cake to
make, I have too much to — I’m sorry.” He was only
just starting to notice how often he said it and he was only just
starting to hate himself for saying it. Especially for saying it to
this
(no,
don’t think it, don’t look)
beautiful woman. She seemed — nice, he thought lamely, unable
to think of a better way to put it; noticing, but not being able to
put words to the fact, that she
shined,
here. That she stood out from her dull and distant surroundings, like
everything else here had been left out in the damning sun to fade and
she was still wet and clean and new-made. She smelled of somewhere
where there were flowers and fresh fields, and she was close enough
now, just close enough, for him to have caught the scent of her ….

He
searched for the right words and couldn’t find them, could only
give her “I’m sorry” again as he dropped the cake
mix into the cart and shoved the cart past her and through the crowds
and out the door, forgetting entirely to pay for it all and it didn’t
matter, because everything here already belonged to him. Everything
belonged to him to give to her, and none of it would ever be enough.

She
caught up to him in the parking lot. “Listen, please, just for
a minute? I’ve come a really long way to — ”

“Look,
whoever you are, I can’t just — ”

“Hope.”

“What?”

“My
name. Hope.” She smiled again, shrugged, like it was her own
private joke, a little indulgence.

“Hope.
I’m sorry, I don’t have any time to talk, I’ve got
to get — ”

“—
to get home to your wife,”
she said with him, echoing his words. “I know. But do you
really have to?”

“Well,
yes, actually,” he said, loading groceries into the car. “She’s
very sick. She needs me to take care of her.”

Hope
nodded slowly. “Does she.”

“What
are you trying to say?”

“I
dunno.” She looked at him, and she was still smiling. Like her
smile was a candle that never went out. “What are you trying to
hear?”

A
heartbeat passed as they just looked at each other, as something more
than recognition passed between them. But he pulled away. “I’m
sorry. You seem very nice, but I can’t.”

She
caught his arm. It was the first time her composure broke, and her
smile nearly slipped. “Please,” she said, and all her
desperation shone bright through, like exposed bone, in that one
word. “Can’t I take you — somewhere? Where we can
just talk? Away from all this?”