The Intruder
Darling..
She looks so frail tucked into all these sheets. Her head, arms, legs, fingers intermingled with linen and cotton and smelling of fabric detergent. Her head heavy, the pillow struggling to keep up against the weight, struggling more to distinguish itself from the white of her skin. The line. Where is the line. Freckles bleed into sheets. She’s changed. It’s hard to remember her as the same.
But for him, sitting beside her, on a crooked iron and wood nailed chair ailing with rust, with sunken eyes and skin too dark for a healthy person to have, for him, he still pretends there’s hope. And perhaps there is. Perhaps if he repeats to himself convincingly enough, she may return, to him, before the intruder.
Her eyes flicker. Or did he imagine that?
Darling, can I ask you something?
The side of his face twitch a little in apprehension. When she asks questions like this, he almost wishes that she wouldn’t speak for fear of what she might say just because she can. Somethings are better said in silence. Through looks, through smiles of half-made-effort, through the slight of skin too brief and too insecure to be called a touch. These are how such things should be said. Not through words. Pray not through words. Words get written down on paper, words get passed around, photocopied, signed, translated, misinterpreted and re-interpreted and recorded into numbers on a digital machine flashing green and waiting. Words stick. No. He doesn’t like words and he tells her this through smiles of half-made-effort and the hope he pretends (oractuallyholds) in his eyes.
Words stick. His smile of half-made-effort says.
She opens her mouth, hesitates, closes them, opens and starts again. Words clinging to the sides of her lips, rolling off into weak vibratos that hover in the air.
I think it’s time to consider..
He looks at her legs, unused for months. Veins that shrivel and curl into patterns of purple and blue, the tribal etchings of the intruder. Not enough red, that’s the problem, not for failure of medication or for failure to notice, not for all the months dismissing her headaches as across-the-counter pains. The problem was not enough red. The intruder won’t let her have enough red.
Suddenly he felt the fury well up. A ball of red at the purple and blue, at the failure of aspirins and tarceva and the intruder and himself and science. Science had let him down and policy threatened to take her away.
In incremental steps of courage, he lifts his eyes to level with hers. He was already negotiating deals to unknown persons in his head. His hands shaking even as he curls them into balls to steady. He feels like stage fright in sixth grade graduation when the teacher calls out his name and he wishes that he had his paperclip with him or, less of a conscience. He braces himself for the words that stick.
She opens her mouth, hesitates, closes them, opens and starts again.
To consider.. some water. Time for some water, darling?
He sighs relief. Handshakes the deal in his head away and files it along with the multiple copies of similar deals he’s had to make in these past few months.
He knows he’s going to loose, but he’s all in, and he turns to get her some water.
