I had not intended on writing this when I sat down at the computer, I didn't even realize it would end up being a Literati. It just happened to turn out this way and it seemed to work. The title I owe to e.e cummings. Please enjoy and let me know what you think in a review!

Kay

Death Is No Parenthesis

"It's not like we're dead." These are not the words she had intended to say. The words from her mouth were supposed to be inspiring, and they were supposed to taste like fresh mint between her teeth. Instead her voice is weak, whispered and pushed against the air; they do not even change the expression on his face. Now the only words that come to mind are, "and deathi think is no parenthsis...".

Sitting across from her at the table worn with their sorrow, he puts his head in his hands. He speaks to the faded marks on the wood instead of her eyes, "No. No, we're not. But it's not much different, is it?"

His suffering drips with the words coming from his mouth. They are slipping into the folds of her skin, settling there as they always do. The weight of his grief has become too much for her to handle, she can no longer hold both of their pain. It is like an iron fist pushing against her chest in a constant ache.

"I want to see you smile again." Now it is her turn to lay her suffering on him. The tear she lets fall on her pale cheek is not for the past, but for right now. For him, and everything he can still be. She wants him to understand that enough is enough. It is time for them to move on, she thinks this she presses a hand over her stomach. "And I want you to look at me when I speak to you."

This time her voice carries throughout the kitchen. Reverberating against the wrinkled table and pushing his hands away from his face. He looks at her but his gaze does not linger. Instead he is shaking his head at the ceiling, or perhaps at a God he no longer believes in.

It's like she is speaking in color and all he sees is black and white. Her hands flutter across the space of her belly. Doesn't he see? It is "wholly to be a fool whole Spring is in this world".

The taste in her mouth has become stale and it rots in the back of her throat. She chokes on her own saliva as she holds back the sickness in her chest. She clutches the space by her heart, and says, "Am I so appalling that you can't even look at me now? Do you hate me that much?"

"Don't do this to me." His voice is scratchy, like he has become an old man in these past five months. He is still not looking at her. "I don't need this."

She wonders why the blood is rushing so quickly through her veins. Her breath is hitched, and her nails dig into the palm of her hands. Her heart pounds in her head. She has been too tired to feel this emotion in a long time. But if she loses him too…. "No!"

He jumps in surprise when both her hands come crashing down on the table, and her chair skids across the floor. Now he cannot take his eyes from her standing in front of him. Her blue eyes are not glazed over as they have been for so long. They are alive and more bright than an African sky at noon. He can almost taste the anger pulsating from her body.

"You will not do this to me." She says, all the weakness gone from her voice. She is no longer yelling, but is calm and deliberate. "I can't lose you. Do you understand this? I am barely hanging on! God, you're everything I have now. You're everything I am." She shakes her head because the anger is lessening, it gives way to the thought of losing him. "If this continues I will not be me anymore, and….and neither will you."

"But you're stronger than I am." His brown locks are shifting over his eyes, his eyes that right now, almost look like his again. "You always have been."

She lets out an ironic laugh as her body relaxes from the tautness of anger. "I have been dying these past months. Sometimes it's like I can't breathe." She falls back into her chair, her hand over her stomach.

He is letting his eyes stare at her for the first time in many days. Her cheeks are flushed, and her blue eyes that have hurt him more than anything else of late, are hers. They are the eyes of his wife, not the eyes of his past. She is glowing. I had forgotten, he thinks.

When she says, "I know. Me too.", he realizes he had spoken out loud.

"It's just that when I looked at you…." He stops for a moment because he hurts. It hurts to say these things out loud. "When I look at you, I see her. Everyday I see her in you."

The smile on her face is weak and forced, but it is a smile. "I see her in you too. She had your hands, and your presence."

"She had your eyes, and your face. She was beautiful." He tells her, and he wants her to know that she is beautiful too.

Her smile is real now, surfacing from the very depths of heart where her memories and love lay. "Do you remember when she crawled out of her crib for the first time?"

He laughs and it is full of pain. "Yes, we found her asleep on top of the dog." It is so hard to remember because his eyes are already filing with tears that have been cried over and over again. "Do you remember her invisible friend?"

"Herald? How could I forget? He kept her up to all hours of the night, making her play with her toys." And she remembers opening the door to her room, and seeing the innocent face looking up at her full of panic at being caught. "lady i swear by all the flowers. Don't cry..."

"I'm afraid I'll forget her," he says.

"You won't." She tells him. She is beginning to forgive him for these past months. For the silent dinners, and his back at night when it's cold, and for all the times he was supposed to hold her when she cried. "I think…" she takes a deep breath, "I think it's time we lived again."

A sick feeling is crawling through his system. The future seems bleak without his child. "I don't know if I can be the same person."

"I know you can't, and neither can I. But you need to just live again for me, and for her." She hopes that he can understand her now, that he can be her husband again. The words she wants to tell him, has to tell him, will not form in her mouth.

He shakes his head, "I need more time. I can't make this go away."

She walks around the table that has separated them and kneels by his side. "I need you to do this. For me."

She pauses to take his hand and press it against her mouth. She lays her forehead on his thigh and lets herself cry for her daughter, and for the rest of her life that will hurt without her. "Jess, I need you…I need you." She says between her tears and thinks, "we are for each other...".

As she stands he watches her take his hand and press it against her belly. He grows light headed when he feels the small mound warm beneath her sweater. "Both of us need you…" Her voice is threaded with so much hope and the love that has already begun for what is growing inside of her. But there is also fear.

He lifts her sweater and cups her stomach with both hands, marveling at its sight. He thinks of all these months he has not noticed, all the times he could have known. She is glowing, she is glowing. He thinks that this child will never know their sister. He thinks he can never love another the same.

But he can already feel again as he cries against her stomach, and as her hands thread through his hair. He can already love again as he kisses the stretched skin of her belly and the small hopeful weight of their future.

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you:

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady I sweat by all flowers. Don't cry

-the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

-e.e cummings

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