The Vigil of Bernadette Marsden by JS Apsley
Bernie faces a life changing question in a hospital waiting room.
I wait, interminably, for Billy to return with the inevitable news that we both dread. Even the receptionist has abandoned his post, and my only companion is the hum of the lights, droning insistently at me. The lights in the hospital lobby are so bright, leaving no corner to hide, no crook of respite. At home Billy and I never have the big light on. Here, there is nothing but big lights. I realise I am hyper; my senses amplified. Perhaps my brain is filling itself with stimuli to divert its attention from the truth of my husband's mortality.
Time passes. I have eyed every wall, read every poster. Some clever soul has left a copy the morning Metro. That, at least, kills five minutes. I play with the contents of my bag, knowing there is nothing there of interest - my keys, my lipstick. But Good Lord, the wait is horrendous.
I feel so alone with Billy behind the scenes. Soon enough, the curtain will rise and I will have to accept this is no dress rehearsal. I think of his goofy smile. My Billy. He is being prodded and scanned to discover just much of his body is tainted with that which is killing him. I daydream into life without him, hearing songs which will remind me of him. Smelling the foods he loved. He loves, I correct myself. There is a flittering noise, and I see some strands of paper attached to a fan standing behind the reception desk, swaying tipsily back and forward.
A doctor appears. At first, I catch my breath. She looks like my mother did when I was a little girl. Officious, and harried. She is holding a file, but there is no receptionist. That young man has evaporated. The doctor smiles at me and looks around over her black rimmed glasses. It is a thin smile; a smile thinner than those rims. There is no sympathy in that smile, only performance. She turns about, and I am alone again.
My mind wanders back to the place I will yet inhabit, and fear so much. That place, with its dark palette, is the imagined life without my wonderful husband. I see myself walking the grounds of Pollok House, crossing the bridge and counting the ducks, but I am bereft. There is no one holding my arm. No one cajoling me with awful puns.
I have never shirked a fight in my life, my mother saw to that. But the world beyond, beyond these pale, antiseptic walls, the world were the truth of Billy's cancer awaits us like a gust of bitter wind, has already sapped me of my will to be anything without him. How can I be without my Billy? I feel drained, spent. And so, the tears start to come. I hear my mother. Alicia, you pull yourself the-gither right now, hen. I'll be havin' none o' that greetin'. You're a Glesga lass, and you'll bloody well show it.
I pull my hands from my face and find I am staring at the ceiling, searching for something. As I bring my eyes down again, I realise my vigil has been shared again, with another stranger.
A man.
He is strange-looking fellow. He glides in and, despite the buffed and polished floor, I do not hear the clack of his patent leather shoes. He is dressed as if attending a reception at the theatre. His presence jars me somehow, yet I do not dare to pry, as I wonder from the gentle olive colour of his skin he may be very poorly. Yet, there is a strange lustre to his eyes, child-like.
His presence is jarring, off somehow. He is hovering at the reception, making a play of looking for the absent attendant. He allows me to catch those shining eyes several times. He offers me a gentle bow and waves.
I nod politely, and have the strangest sensation. I feel like my body is tightening in on itself somehow, as if my skin is crawling away from me, as if I might step out of it anew. Where is Billy? Where is my husband?
The odd man pivots like a court jester, making a play at looking for someone other than me. Yet I somehow know he is here for me. Why?
The room drops into sudden silence and I feel like I have been submerged. He bows gently and places his hands together as if to seek succour. He glides towards me. I realise why the room feels so suddenly quiet; quiet as a quell. The buzz of the lights has stopped. The desk fan has halted. The air I have exhaled feels somehow trapped before my mouth. Something is very wrong.
Then, I see it.
The ticker-tape affixed to the fan has frozen mid swirl. Something is terribly wrong here. The room is in stasis; the room, the world, somehow I know the entire world has suddenly and most terribly paused. Now there are only two moving things in all of God's creation; one, my fluttering heart, and the other my uneasy companion. This stranger with his tragic smile, stepping towards me as lightly as a Russian ballerina.
Sitting this close to me now, he seems absent of threat, child-like. He has a fool's smile, an oracle's eyes. His skin has an aquamarine sheen and his eyes gleam at me like mother-of-pearl. He wisps beside me like a feather, taking a seat, and spends some moments fixing his suit lapels and cuffs, as he side-eyes me nervously.
"Good day to you, my dear lady," he offers, and there is that theatrical bow again.
"Morning. I'm just waiting on my husband."
I am not sure why I said this, but then, I am completely sure why. I want this fellow to know I am not alone. I want to know I have my husband. I want him to know my husband is strong. I want him to know I am protected. I want him to picture my husband as vital, not-to-be-messed-with. And you want all of these things for yersel', Bernie, my mother's voice tells me. But yiv no got that noo, and the sooner ye wrap yer heid aroon that, the better.
Her voice is a challenge, not a diatribe. I realised some years ago she gave up so much to push me on and strengthen me for the world. After my father died, she threw herself into me. She made me focus on the facts, on grasping my way through the world by giving me the tools to decode and unlock it. I had resisted her for so long, before realising through sacrificing her own aims she had shown me a path and pushed me down it. After I qualified as a chemist, she finally relented. But the knowledge my education and skills had given me had then become the ultimate burden: to understand Billy's plight so clearly. To know, to know through the truth of the science I had loved so, that there was no hope for him.
"Oh, don't I know it Mrs Marsden, heh-heh. Apologies, I should say Doctor Marsden. Don't be alarmed, but I've been waiting on you. I knew you would be here for me at this place, at this time."
The man chuckled at something, his own private joke. I eye him with growing unease. My hands are shaking. Whilst impeccably dressed, there is something unfinished about him, as if he is waiting on an artist to add the finishing touches. He senses my discomfort, and I realise I have betrayed my fear instead of making him think twice about messing with me.
"Please, Bernadette. I do realise this is all somewhat off-the-wall, but we are here together now because I am empowered to... offer you something, heh-heh. Would you listen please, just a moment?"
As he fidgets with his tie and cuffs again I look around. There is no other living soul; and the bright strips of coloured paper attached to the fan are still fixed in the air, fixed as if frozen by Medusa's stare. I try to stand and find my legs are not with me on this endeavour. They too, seem fixed. The odd fellow couples his hands together, a gesture of appease.
"Look pal, I have no idea what game you are playing, but you better play it fast."
He smiles at me then, and it seems sincere. With the smile, his eyes are lit. But it is a dark, crepuscular light with hues of the forest at dusk, the eyes of something waiting on the night. It is a light which comes not from the buzzing lamps in the ceiling but from somewhere else entirely. It is a light which is there, but not there. I wonder if I have lost my mind. Is he a figment? He clears his throat, and as he does so it dawns on me that he used my first name. A hot streak flashes down my spine, a deep yet vibrant splash of red. Danger.
"How do you know my name?"
I am gasping, the stillness of the air around me catching in my throat. I stand and take two steps back from him. Everything is frozen, a snapshot in time. My mind reels. I feel like I am walking through an Edward Hopper, as if I am one of his painted people, come alive on a canvas. I crane over the counter and see the young man lurking in the back. But he is frozen too, frozen in mid-yawn.
I burl back around, clutching the counter as if on a precipice. The odd fellow is standing, gesturing for me to rejoin him.
"Billy! Billy! Where are you!"
I flee.
I push through the double doors into the corridor, panic in my heart. The doors stay as I leave them, instead of rolling back as they should. Standing there, at the end of corridor, the doctor with the clipboard is frozen in mid-pace. I run to her and shake her by the shoulder. She is affixed, statuesque.
"Billy!"
I reach the end of another corridor, and this time, the doors do not give. I peer through the glass panel. The hospital is there, but somehow not there. It seems drained of life. The walls and the doors are drab, out of focus, a pencil drawing smudged by the hands of a careless child.
"Bernie."
The voice flicks through the corridors like ricocheting bullet. His voice. I turn back to escape. The doors are all closed now, the corridors shorter. The world is closing in, stopping my escape. The only way left is back to the waiting room, and back to him. "How do you know my name?" I shout.
I brush past the doctor in the hall outside, and as I do she drops the clipboard. I pick it up. None of the words on her papers make any sense. It is all gobbledegook.
He is waiting for me, sheepish and expectant.
"Please, Bernie, sit with me a while and I will explain all of this."
I find my fear dissipating, being replaced with confusion, yet I resist his pleasantries. He waves his hand, that hand with the skin with that odd sheen, beckoning me to sit. I walk towards him, though I wish not to. My legs take me, though I beg them to stop.
"Who are you? What have you done to me?"
"You do have my earnest apologies, Bernie, I appreciate this is disconcerting. I've been sent here. Sent here to meet you, heh-heh, and present a gift."
"A gift? What on earth d'you mean?"
The man fidgets again, fixing his shirt cuffs and playing with his collars.
"Oh, you know Bernie, it's the First Law of Thermodynamics," he says, with a nervous titter.
I am completely thrown. Who is this man that he knows my name, and knows me so well? That he knows my doctoral thesis was on this very subject? I stare at him till he stops fidgeting. I use the same trick with Billy when he's annoyed me. I wish he had the energy to annoy me these days, I think. Energy.
"Energy... energy is constant. It can't die. Only be transformed, or transferred," I say. I am playing his game now.
"Precisely, Bernie. That is the gift I have for you today. Transference."
"What do you mean?"
"If I click my fingers, Billy's cancer is gone. It is... transferred."
I feel my face flush with anger when he uses my husbands' name, hues of ochre and crimson. This is some awful fever dream. My instinct is to fight, to wake up perhaps. Then my mother's voice rattles around my mind. Don't you dare let that stubborn streak rule yer heid noo, lassie. You don't question something like this. You just take it, take it and be on yer way.
"So, what is this, you're offering me a deal?"
"I'm no dealmaker, Bernie. I am a humble courier. Think of it this way. All the energy around this world is in flux. It waves. It eddies. It comes and goes. I speak for one who would offer a, heh-heh... let us call it a course-correction."
He pauses, then takes my hand to offer a final entreat. "The sea yearns for the shore, yet is pulled back, ever back, by the moon."
He smiles his strange smile, his eyes twinkle, and I do fancy there is something of the sea about him, like clear green waters rippling with an unknowable vastness below.
"And you're here to save my husband. To take his cancer away? With what? Parlour tricks?"
"No Bernie, no tricks. Just transference. And that is... well, that is the catch, if you choose to see it that way. If you wish it, I can take all of his cancer. But it cannot be extinguished. It must be transferred."
"Transferred where?"
I am confused. How can any of this be real? I glance over at the reception desk and sure enough, the fan remains frozen. The world has stopped turning - just enough to let this man speak with me. He stares with a look of sympathy.
And then the understanding dawns on me. Yet, it is not a dawn. A dawn gleams, it illuminates, it gives the world iridescence. There is no warming light upon me now. Knowledge presents itself like a well, a dark well with black bricks and no sign of any reflective waters.
"You mean to give me his cancer."
The odd man finally stops fidgeting, and though he is still as the grave, he feels more liminal than before, as if on the verge of disappearance. "I can make his cancer go away. But it has to go to someone willing. This is why I have been sent here. To give you that choice. So, Bernie, what will it be?"
I hear laughter. It is a memory of us, Billy and Bernie, Bernie and Billy. We are giggling together because he's said something silly and made a fool of himself. Then, my mother's voice runs through my mind, my veins, and settles in my heart. You don't question this, Bernie. Take it and be on yer way.
I accept his offer.
The man shimmers before me, like refracted light below the waves, and my name is being called over and over. I rub at my eyes and when I open them, the odd fellow is gone. The person calling my name is Billy's consultant.
"Mrs Marsden? Could you pop through with me a moment?"
The waiting room had been antiseptically clean, the colours of the walls and the chairs staying in their lanes. Now, everything was blurred, reality losing focus. I told myself it was the tears, and not another sign of me losing my mind like my figment of a friend with his aquamarine hues. I tremble. The consultant takes my arm. "If you could just come with me to see Billy now, we need to have a chat together," she says.
The fan whirrs as I pass by, the paper strips dancing around joyously. The introverted receptionist at last reappears from his hidey-hole and speaks politely with a young couple who have arrived for an appointment of their own.
"It defies belief. The cancer's gone," the consultant confirms. Billy's arms are suddenly so strong around my shoulders. He has the will to survive without me. I cannot say the same. I sink into him, exhausted, knowing when I pass, he will go on.
Just as we leave the reception, I spy a small note at the seat where the odd man had made his offer. "Hang on Billy, think I left something."
"No worries love," he says. No worries. For the first time in months, he has no worries. My Billy.
I lift the note. It is oddly moist, and - of course - the writing has a sparkling green tint. As I read, the words fade, and the paper dissipates in my trembling hands, wisping gossamer.
I read his words and my heart jumps. The last line lingers, but only in my mind. You're a good woman, Bernie. I have taken Billy's illness with me. You are free, he is free. Go, be free together.
I look around, expecting to see the odd fellow grinning at me from a hiding place, perhaps winking at me to share in the joy of his message, and muffling one of his heh-hehs. But he is gone. All that is here is the drone of the lights, the yawn of the lad at reception, the whirr of the fan, and the chatter of the young couple, holding hands and cajoling each other.
Standing at the door waiting on me, his back straight and shoulders sturdy like a magnificent oak, is my Billy.
I go to him.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/8Vkl5tZ
via IFTTT
 |
| Image generated with OpenAI |
Time passes. I have eyed every wall, read every poster. Some clever soul has left a copy the morning Metro. That, at least, kills five minutes. I play with the contents of my bag, knowing there is nothing there of interest - my keys, my lipstick. But Good Lord, the wait is horrendous.
I feel so alone with Billy behind the scenes. Soon enough, the curtain will rise and I will have to accept this is no dress rehearsal. I think of his goofy smile. My Billy. He is being prodded and scanned to discover just much of his body is tainted with that which is killing him. I daydream into life without him, hearing songs which will remind me of him. Smelling the foods he loved. He loves, I correct myself. There is a flittering noise, and I see some strands of paper attached to a fan standing behind the reception desk, swaying tipsily back and forward.
A doctor appears. At first, I catch my breath. She looks like my mother did when I was a little girl. Officious, and harried. She is holding a file, but there is no receptionist. That young man has evaporated. The doctor smiles at me and looks around over her black rimmed glasses. It is a thin smile; a smile thinner than those rims. There is no sympathy in that smile, only performance. She turns about, and I am alone again.
My mind wanders back to the place I will yet inhabit, and fear so much. That place, with its dark palette, is the imagined life without my wonderful husband. I see myself walking the grounds of Pollok House, crossing the bridge and counting the ducks, but I am bereft. There is no one holding my arm. No one cajoling me with awful puns.
I have never shirked a fight in my life, my mother saw to that. But the world beyond, beyond these pale, antiseptic walls, the world were the truth of Billy's cancer awaits us like a gust of bitter wind, has already sapped me of my will to be anything without him. How can I be without my Billy? I feel drained, spent. And so, the tears start to come. I hear my mother. Alicia, you pull yourself the-gither right now, hen. I'll be havin' none o' that greetin'. You're a Glesga lass, and you'll bloody well show it.
I pull my hands from my face and find I am staring at the ceiling, searching for something. As I bring my eyes down again, I realise my vigil has been shared again, with another stranger.
A man.
He is strange-looking fellow. He glides in and, despite the buffed and polished floor, I do not hear the clack of his patent leather shoes. He is dressed as if attending a reception at the theatre. His presence jars me somehow, yet I do not dare to pry, as I wonder from the gentle olive colour of his skin he may be very poorly. Yet, there is a strange lustre to his eyes, child-like.
His presence is jarring, off somehow. He is hovering at the reception, making a play of looking for the absent attendant. He allows me to catch those shining eyes several times. He offers me a gentle bow and waves.
I nod politely, and have the strangest sensation. I feel like my body is tightening in on itself somehow, as if my skin is crawling away from me, as if I might step out of it anew. Where is Billy? Where is my husband?
The odd man pivots like a court jester, making a play at looking for someone other than me. Yet I somehow know he is here for me. Why?
The room drops into sudden silence and I feel like I have been submerged. He bows gently and places his hands together as if to seek succour. He glides towards me. I realise why the room feels so suddenly quiet; quiet as a quell. The buzz of the lights has stopped. The desk fan has halted. The air I have exhaled feels somehow trapped before my mouth. Something is very wrong.
Then, I see it.
The ticker-tape affixed to the fan has frozen mid swirl. Something is terribly wrong here. The room is in stasis; the room, the world, somehow I know the entire world has suddenly and most terribly paused. Now there are only two moving things in all of God's creation; one, my fluttering heart, and the other my uneasy companion. This stranger with his tragic smile, stepping towards me as lightly as a Russian ballerina.
Sitting this close to me now, he seems absent of threat, child-like. He has a fool's smile, an oracle's eyes. His skin has an aquamarine sheen and his eyes gleam at me like mother-of-pearl. He wisps beside me like a feather, taking a seat, and spends some moments fixing his suit lapels and cuffs, as he side-eyes me nervously.
"Good day to you, my dear lady," he offers, and there is that theatrical bow again.
"Morning. I'm just waiting on my husband."
I am not sure why I said this, but then, I am completely sure why. I want this fellow to know I am not alone. I want to know I have my husband. I want him to know my husband is strong. I want him to know I am protected. I want him to picture my husband as vital, not-to-be-messed-with. And you want all of these things for yersel', Bernie, my mother's voice tells me. But yiv no got that noo, and the sooner ye wrap yer heid aroon that, the better.
Her voice is a challenge, not a diatribe. I realised some years ago she gave up so much to push me on and strengthen me for the world. After my father died, she threw herself into me. She made me focus on the facts, on grasping my way through the world by giving me the tools to decode and unlock it. I had resisted her for so long, before realising through sacrificing her own aims she had shown me a path and pushed me down it. After I qualified as a chemist, she finally relented. But the knowledge my education and skills had given me had then become the ultimate burden: to understand Billy's plight so clearly. To know, to know through the truth of the science I had loved so, that there was no hope for him.
"Oh, don't I know it Mrs Marsden, heh-heh. Apologies, I should say Doctor Marsden. Don't be alarmed, but I've been waiting on you. I knew you would be here for me at this place, at this time."
The man chuckled at something, his own private joke. I eye him with growing unease. My hands are shaking. Whilst impeccably dressed, there is something unfinished about him, as if he is waiting on an artist to add the finishing touches. He senses my discomfort, and I realise I have betrayed my fear instead of making him think twice about messing with me.
"Please, Bernadette. I do realise this is all somewhat off-the-wall, but we are here together now because I am empowered to... offer you something, heh-heh. Would you listen please, just a moment?"
As he fidgets with his tie and cuffs again I look around. There is no other living soul; and the bright strips of coloured paper attached to the fan are still fixed in the air, fixed as if frozen by Medusa's stare. I try to stand and find my legs are not with me on this endeavour. They too, seem fixed. The odd fellow couples his hands together, a gesture of appease.
"Look pal, I have no idea what game you are playing, but you better play it fast."
He smiles at me then, and it seems sincere. With the smile, his eyes are lit. But it is a dark, crepuscular light with hues of the forest at dusk, the eyes of something waiting on the night. It is a light which comes not from the buzzing lamps in the ceiling but from somewhere else entirely. It is a light which is there, but not there. I wonder if I have lost my mind. Is he a figment? He clears his throat, and as he does so it dawns on me that he used my first name. A hot streak flashes down my spine, a deep yet vibrant splash of red. Danger.
"How do you know my name?"
I am gasping, the stillness of the air around me catching in my throat. I stand and take two steps back from him. Everything is frozen, a snapshot in time. My mind reels. I feel like I am walking through an Edward Hopper, as if I am one of his painted people, come alive on a canvas. I crane over the counter and see the young man lurking in the back. But he is frozen too, frozen in mid-yawn.
I burl back around, clutching the counter as if on a precipice. The odd fellow is standing, gesturing for me to rejoin him.
"Billy! Billy! Where are you!"
I flee.
I push through the double doors into the corridor, panic in my heart. The doors stay as I leave them, instead of rolling back as they should. Standing there, at the end of corridor, the doctor with the clipboard is frozen in mid-pace. I run to her and shake her by the shoulder. She is affixed, statuesque.
"Billy!"
I reach the end of another corridor, and this time, the doors do not give. I peer through the glass panel. The hospital is there, but somehow not there. It seems drained of life. The walls and the doors are drab, out of focus, a pencil drawing smudged by the hands of a careless child.
"Bernie."
The voice flicks through the corridors like ricocheting bullet. His voice. I turn back to escape. The doors are all closed now, the corridors shorter. The world is closing in, stopping my escape. The only way left is back to the waiting room, and back to him. "How do you know my name?" I shout.
I brush past the doctor in the hall outside, and as I do she drops the clipboard. I pick it up. None of the words on her papers make any sense. It is all gobbledegook.
He is waiting for me, sheepish and expectant.
"Please, Bernie, sit with me a while and I will explain all of this."
I find my fear dissipating, being replaced with confusion, yet I resist his pleasantries. He waves his hand, that hand with the skin with that odd sheen, beckoning me to sit. I walk towards him, though I wish not to. My legs take me, though I beg them to stop.
"Who are you? What have you done to me?"
"You do have my earnest apologies, Bernie, I appreciate this is disconcerting. I've been sent here. Sent here to meet you, heh-heh, and present a gift."
"A gift? What on earth d'you mean?"
The man fidgets again, fixing his shirt cuffs and playing with his collars.
"Oh, you know Bernie, it's the First Law of Thermodynamics," he says, with a nervous titter.
I am completely thrown. Who is this man that he knows my name, and knows me so well? That he knows my doctoral thesis was on this very subject? I stare at him till he stops fidgeting. I use the same trick with Billy when he's annoyed me. I wish he had the energy to annoy me these days, I think. Energy.
"Energy... energy is constant. It can't die. Only be transformed, or transferred," I say. I am playing his game now.
"Precisely, Bernie. That is the gift I have for you today. Transference."
"What do you mean?"
"If I click my fingers, Billy's cancer is gone. It is... transferred."
I feel my face flush with anger when he uses my husbands' name, hues of ochre and crimson. This is some awful fever dream. My instinct is to fight, to wake up perhaps. Then my mother's voice rattles around my mind. Don't you dare let that stubborn streak rule yer heid noo, lassie. You don't question something like this. You just take it, take it and be on yer way.
"So, what is this, you're offering me a deal?"
"I'm no dealmaker, Bernie. I am a humble courier. Think of it this way. All the energy around this world is in flux. It waves. It eddies. It comes and goes. I speak for one who would offer a, heh-heh... let us call it a course-correction."
He pauses, then takes my hand to offer a final entreat. "The sea yearns for the shore, yet is pulled back, ever back, by the moon."
He smiles his strange smile, his eyes twinkle, and I do fancy there is something of the sea about him, like clear green waters rippling with an unknowable vastness below.
"And you're here to save my husband. To take his cancer away? With what? Parlour tricks?"
"No Bernie, no tricks. Just transference. And that is... well, that is the catch, if you choose to see it that way. If you wish it, I can take all of his cancer. But it cannot be extinguished. It must be transferred."
"Transferred where?"
I am confused. How can any of this be real? I glance over at the reception desk and sure enough, the fan remains frozen. The world has stopped turning - just enough to let this man speak with me. He stares with a look of sympathy.
And then the understanding dawns on me. Yet, it is not a dawn. A dawn gleams, it illuminates, it gives the world iridescence. There is no warming light upon me now. Knowledge presents itself like a well, a dark well with black bricks and no sign of any reflective waters.
"You mean to give me his cancer."
The odd man finally stops fidgeting, and though he is still as the grave, he feels more liminal than before, as if on the verge of disappearance. "I can make his cancer go away. But it has to go to someone willing. This is why I have been sent here. To give you that choice. So, Bernie, what will it be?"
I hear laughter. It is a memory of us, Billy and Bernie, Bernie and Billy. We are giggling together because he's said something silly and made a fool of himself. Then, my mother's voice runs through my mind, my veins, and settles in my heart. You don't question this, Bernie. Take it and be on yer way.
I accept his offer.
The man shimmers before me, like refracted light below the waves, and my name is being called over and over. I rub at my eyes and when I open them, the odd fellow is gone. The person calling my name is Billy's consultant.
"Mrs Marsden? Could you pop through with me a moment?"
The waiting room had been antiseptically clean, the colours of the walls and the chairs staying in their lanes. Now, everything was blurred, reality losing focus. I told myself it was the tears, and not another sign of me losing my mind like my figment of a friend with his aquamarine hues. I tremble. The consultant takes my arm. "If you could just come with me to see Billy now, we need to have a chat together," she says.
The fan whirrs as I pass by, the paper strips dancing around joyously. The introverted receptionist at last reappears from his hidey-hole and speaks politely with a young couple who have arrived for an appointment of their own.
"It defies belief. The cancer's gone," the consultant confirms. Billy's arms are suddenly so strong around my shoulders. He has the will to survive without me. I cannot say the same. I sink into him, exhausted, knowing when I pass, he will go on.
Just as we leave the reception, I spy a small note at the seat where the odd man had made his offer. "Hang on Billy, think I left something."
"No worries love," he says. No worries. For the first time in months, he has no worries. My Billy.
I lift the note. It is oddly moist, and - of course - the writing has a sparkling green tint. As I read, the words fade, and the paper dissipates in my trembling hands, wisping gossamer.
I read his words and my heart jumps. The last line lingers, but only in my mind. You're a good woman, Bernie. I have taken Billy's illness with me. You are free, he is free. Go, be free together.
I look around, expecting to see the odd fellow grinning at me from a hiding place, perhaps winking at me to share in the joy of his message, and muffling one of his heh-hehs. But he is gone. All that is here is the drone of the lights, the yawn of the lad at reception, the whirr of the fan, and the chatter of the young couple, holding hands and cajoling each other.
Standing at the door waiting on me, his back straight and shoulders sturdy like a magnificent oak, is my Billy.
I go to him.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/8Vkl5tZ
via IFTTT
Comments
Post a Comment