GRAVE MISGIVINGS
A his-and-hers final fantasy
Slate was a good choice to deliver the eulogy; close enough to have known him, yet detached enough to bring the calm and dignity the service deserved.
She stared across his grave. Losing him was like becoming a collapsed accordion, all squashed and empty, wheezing, all the music squeezed out. Why doesn't He come stand beside me? I cannot bear this alone. And I can feel His heart cracking from here. Dear God, I need His arms around me!
She keeps looking over to me, as if I can make everything all right again. As if I could raise him from the dead, because we have saved each other so many times before. This time, I've failed them both. How could I be so damned helpless? But He had always been helpless around Her.
He had loved Her forever, but never found the perfect moment to confess. And now it would never be possible: never, never, never would She know.
Oh, God, what if He stopped coming? A few perfunctory calls on His partner's partner, then drift out of Her life. What if seeing Her were too painful a memory of their partnership? But wouldn't it be cheating Him? Didn't He deserve to know He was cherished?
She had left a silk scarf behind once. Somehow, He never managed to return it. He kept it in a drawer and whenever He opened it, Her sweet, light fragrance filled His head.
She always remembered His birthday and His blood type and His hat size. He had memorized the swoops and curls of Her handwriting.
Grief, guilt, hypocrisy, and hopeless loss. Is that my inheritance? How does one compete with a hero, a ghost, a legend?
Yes, He'd had fantasies of displacing His partner; imagined the softness, the scent of Her skin next to His; to bury His face in Her hair; simply to have Her breathing beside Him.
But honor was a trait they both held in esteem, and recognized in each other. Honor and loyalty. The very virtues that could keep them apart forever.
She vaguely wondered what it would be like: to have His hands gently pet Her hair; His lips trace Her throat and shoulders. Thoughts clearly inappropriate.
How could She face Him with this naked need in Her eyes? He read Her so well—He would be appalled at Her hunger. But She only knew what She knew: that She would surely shrivel and perish without Him touching Her life.
If I turned and ran now, She thought, He would have to come after me. Everyone would expect Him to. It would be natural for me to run; natural for Him to follow. If She took one step back, and then another. Two quick steps. And suddenly She broke into a run, a mad dash, a panic that She had not anticipated. Her throat throbbed, Her eyes blurred and
She felt the hands grab her shoulders, His hands, She knew, reaching for Her, holding Her, pulling Her back against Him. "I can't! I can't. I can't-I can't-IcantIcantIcant-"
'Can't' what? Can't breathe? Can't live without him? Can't resist me?
"Please—' She begged, reduced to monosyllables. "Please please please, oh, please—"
Baffled, He rocked Her in His arms, and began to chant some wondrous and tuneless lullaby into Her ear, in some language She didn't recognize, that sounded infinitely comforting. Or maybe it was because it was He who sang, He who held Her, He who protected Her from the wind and the crowd and the dark and the pain…
What if, He considered, what if after the final prayer I just walked over there and led Her away? Led Her wordlessly through the crowd of mourners to my car and drove away with Her…anywhere away? To snow and sunlight and silence. It might not look unusual to the others—indeed, they might expect it of Him, to assume care for His partner's partner. But once they reached 'away,' what to do?
He could not declare Himself. Yet how could He endure another hour alone with Her, and His heart keep silent, and His hands keep still and steady? He would simply hold Her until their mutual grief melted into longing long-denied….
finis