Probably just a cold, he tells her while buckling his belt. Give it a few days. I'll pick you up some cough syrup on the way home.
She sprawls over his box spring mattress, curled among strewn covers and wrinkled pillows perfectly molded to support her contours, a porcelain mannequin observing his every move. Sallow crescents hang beneath her narrowed ice blue eyes; her unpainted lips pinch together.
He slides on his shirt, his jacket, his boots. Grabs the keys. Forgets. Bends down to kiss her knotted cheek.
The skin that touches his lips is unyielding and damp.
One might assume, given the ruined state of their bed, they don't do much talking, when reality proves quite the opposite. They talk; probably too much, in his opinion. Too many exchanges where too little goes said. He's certain she'd agree.
Innocuous conversations emerge in the here and now, divided by the sixty seconds comprising each minute of each hour of each day. Seldom about the future, even less about the fog-ridden past. In the bathrooms, brushing teeth. As he ducks out the door. Wading onto the eroded shores between waking and dreaming. Over sitcoms and Chinese takeout.
So when do you think you'll go back to work?
Tired of me already, James? His old polo shirt drapes loosely over her frame, swallowing her thinning body. She tucks a knee on the couch cushion and prods her plastic fork into waxy, soy-drenched noodles.
No, I was just wondering—
As soon as this 'cold' passes.
When do you think that'll be?
Did you ask your wife this many questions?
Canned applause trickles from the television.
Take off those clothes.
A powerful ache seizes him when he catches her standing in the living room with her arms outstretched. Caught in the hazy sunlight pooling through the half-drawn blinds, she spins nauseating circles, blurring her edges, flaring the skirt around her like a blossomed flower. His heart catches; his lungs clench; a rusted door deep down in his psyche slams shut and reverberates through the derelict tunnels with an iron clatter.
Maria's wink snaps the life back into him. He reacts on mindless reflex and tugs her arm in an effort to pull her out of the sleeve, only to wince at the slight bruise blossoming on her pale wrist. He retracts his grip immediately, submitting to the righteous punishment of her glare while she rubs the sensation back into her flesh.
Jeez, don't have a cow. I was just trying to see how they fit. I can't exactly keep wearing your hand-me-downs, you know.
They aren't yours.
Maria fondles the slightly grayed cardigan, the faded silk roses embroidered on the collar. For once, she says, I wish I had something of my own.
I'm going to work, James proclaims for perhaps the third time that morning. He no longer prefaces greetings he knows will go unanswered. The brass knob lingers a warm lump of metal in his tightening fist, matching the hunk swelling in his throat.
She doesn't say goodbye, doesn't acknowledge him. These days she's taken to lying in bed, fuming at the ceiling.
He commits the grave error of asking her what's wrong. For no rhyme or reason, she snatches a picture frame off the nightstand and hurls it at the door.
Inches short of clipping him, the glass sprinkles glimmering chips over the carpet. Inside, the man and the woman standing on the pier. So serene together, bathing in the sun overlooking glimmering gray water. A spiderweb fracture claims the woman's face, the biggest outward tendril splitting the man in jagged halves.
Looking at it, at the damage she carelessly inflicts on a life not hers to inherit, an inexplicable anger bubbles within his chest. Like tar roiling just beneath the surface, seeping a slow ascent through the cracks in his veneer—
Do it. Maria exposes her teeth in an embittered smile. Put your hands on me. I know you're just dying to.
James slams the door and slumps against it, head clutched in his tremulous hands. Beyond the thick barrier separating them, she crumbles to soft, anguished moans.
She startles him awake in the dead of the night, thrashing the sheets by striking frantic blows at invisible apparitions. Although one stinging swipe nicks him on the ear, James is quick to catch her, whispering consolations as she buries herself into the shoulder of his cotton T-shirt.
Her head sags an unbearable anchor on his shoulder. Her tremors vibrate through his skin.
I remember everything, she says.
Shh. He doesn't know what to say, what to do, except stroke matted hair whose pink tips have faded and whose roots have begun to sprout. Go back to sleep.
I can't. Her fingers claim total possession of him, digging shallow, bloodless gouges into his elbows. Once pleasurable, now painful. I'll wake up in that place again. And then I'll be lost and alone.
He squeezes her. You won't. I promise I'll be right here.
Don't lie just to make yourself feel better. Nails sink hot knives into his chest, drawing his pulse toward the surface. Times like these, he fears she wants nothing more than to peel open the skin, reach inside and squeeze his shuddering heart to a stop. I remember you, too. You left me behind.
I'm sorry, he says, wincing at the memory. Words, useless chatter. All the talk in the world can't slow his fleeing shadow, can't force it to turn and fling itself on the spear whose point nestled inside her stomach, erupting a spray of warm flecks over his cheeks.
Maybe even then, caught in the throes of amnesia, he knew. Some unconscious pulse of intuition hastened his steps. It was only when he secured his own safety that he thought to turn around.
You aren't there for me when I need you. You say you are, but… She raises shimmering eyes. Are we born just to suffer? What kind of God allows this?
He dwells in a silence that offers her no spiritual salve, no existential reprieve. Cars roar and dwindle and cough gaseous fumes; neon lights sputter lonely oases in seas of asphalt; the clock ticks a relentless march toward the inevitable.
Following the thin, sputtering trail of smoke wafting through his empty landscape, he's surprised to find within himself a small but distinct spark of resistance. What kind of God allows this? The kind that's perfectly content to let innocent people to wither and die, that's who.
How else does she expect him to answer? He's not a philosopher.
Trapped in their mutually isolated cells, Maria relays an important message to her fellow prisoner. She releases a sardonic huff through her nostrils, her voice smoldered to a cooling obsidian.
Let's not kid ourselves, she whispers in the stagnant air. There's no God. Heaven isn't waiting for us and neither is hell. This life, it's barely a life. The only home we have is inside our minds, James. I just had the awful luck to be born in yours.