amaranta of the sky
page two
page two
In the morning, I turn over in bed, pick up the phone and call my sister. I leave a message on her machine, then crawl into a ball
and wait.
I wake up to a frenzy of knocking on the front door. Who knows how many hours I slept? But this time I did sleep. This time I
didn’t chase the girl, but gave in to my exhaustion completely.
I get up and stagger into consciousness. At the front door, I see Karen’s nose pressed against the center green-stained glass. I
open the door and stand there, limp, blanched before her troubled eyes.
“I’m done,” I say. My voice trembles. “Done.”
“It can’t be that bad,” she says. “Whatever it is–”
“No.” The word, the heft of my eyes slice her sentence. I shake my head. “No.”
She reaches out to my shoulders and pulls me toward her, then drops one arm and wraps it around my back. She holds me, hard
against her body.
“What is it?” she whispers. Tears warm the edges of my eyes. “What?”
I pull back, reach for her hand and hold it loosely. We walk over the hardwood floor, the length of the hallway to my office. As we
enter the room, I release Karen’s hand, then sit down on the couch. She stands in the doorway and looks around. Nothing
unusual to her. The computer hums on the desk, its screen saver throwing a hundred stars through darkness. Framed
photographs, black and whites, rest on the walls. There’s Lawrence, my late husband, and our daughters who’ve spread across
the southern states. Drooping plants. Stacks of hardcovers.
She looks at me and I point toward the window.
“Open the curtains,” I say. “Pull them back.”
“The curtains?”
I know what she thinks. She can’t imagine that anything beyond the window could bring me to this state, anything short of hell’s
mouth opening in the backyard. She looks at me, raises her eyebrows, but I stare down the line of my arm toward the window.
So she walks there, holds one curtain in each hand and looks back to me. I bite my lower lip and nod. She pulls back the curtains.
In the middle of the window, attached by four long stretches of tape and glowing before the late winter light, sits an MRI scan of
my brain. It’s unmistakable, even to Karen, that white shape like a jagged heart in its center.
“Inoperable,” I say. “Smack in the middle.” And for a moment, I lose my voice, just hold a hand over each ear, shake-almost-
thrash my head while on the verge of screaming. “In my brain.”
She runs to me and falls down on the couch with a rash of tears, then grips my hands and pulls them from my head. She holds
my tense hands hard and looks into my eyes, hers powdery blue and faded with strain.
“There must be options,” she says. “Something?”
But I can’t reply. My head falls to her shoulder and I sob, dry and doleful gulps for air, sob in her arms long beyond the time
when the sun concedes to night.
The next morning, I wake up early, some hours before Karen. I know she’s tired. I am. Last night, the dream came and again I
scared the girl to jump, again I lay on the edge of that cliff, tear-streaked and worn and watched the white dress fade into
darkness.
Out of bed, I wrap a robe around me and walk to my office. I sit down and stare at the computer screen, those hundreds of stars
shooting through darkness. I shake the mouse to stop them, then go online. As I have so many times before, I search for
medical information, read about treatments, side-effects. I’ve seen it all.
So I search for something different – repetitive dreams of the terminally ill. And then I find her.
Karen finds me at the kitchen table with a newspaper spread over its surface.
“You look rested,” she says. “Slept well?”
“Yes,” I lie.
She purses her lips and pours some coffee.
Across the table from me, she turns the warm mug in her hands and remains silent. She doesn’t know what to say, what’s too
trivial or too much of an acknowledgement of my condition. I understand this because I understand Karen.
I slide my hand over the table into hers. “Would you take a few weeks off if I asked you?”
“Of course,” she says, squeezes my hand. “Anything.”
“Then we’re taking a vacation.”
“To see the girls?”
“No, not yet. I will call them, but not now. I just can’t tell them to drop their lives and run up here. Besides, they never liked the
cold weather.”
“You know they’d come.”
“And that’s why I can’t call them. Mary has the baby and Pam’s finally in a relationship that’s not with a co-worker.”
“But you called me.”
“You live closer,” I say. “And you will help me find her.”
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and wait.
I wake up to a frenzy of knocking on the front door. Who knows how many hours I slept? But this time I did sleep. This time I
didn’t chase the girl, but gave in to my exhaustion completely.
I get up and stagger into consciousness. At the front door, I see Karen’s nose pressed against the center green-stained glass. I
open the door and stand there, limp, blanched before her troubled eyes.
“I’m done,” I say. My voice trembles. “Done.”
“It can’t be that bad,” she says. “Whatever it is–”
“No.” The word, the heft of my eyes slice her sentence. I shake my head. “No.”
She reaches out to my shoulders and pulls me toward her, then drops one arm and wraps it around my back. She holds me, hard
against her body.
“What is it?” she whispers. Tears warm the edges of my eyes. “What?”
I pull back, reach for her hand and hold it loosely. We walk over the hardwood floor, the length of the hallway to my office. As we
enter the room, I release Karen’s hand, then sit down on the couch. She stands in the doorway and looks around. Nothing
unusual to her. The computer hums on the desk, its screen saver throwing a hundred stars through darkness. Framed
photographs, black and whites, rest on the walls. There’s Lawrence, my late husband, and our daughters who’ve spread across
the southern states. Drooping plants. Stacks of hardcovers.
She looks at me and I point toward the window.
“Open the curtains,” I say. “Pull them back.”
“The curtains?”
I know what she thinks. She can’t imagine that anything beyond the window could bring me to this state, anything short of hell’s
mouth opening in the backyard. She looks at me, raises her eyebrows, but I stare down the line of my arm toward the window.
So she walks there, holds one curtain in each hand and looks back to me. I bite my lower lip and nod. She pulls back the curtains.
In the middle of the window, attached by four long stretches of tape and glowing before the late winter light, sits an MRI scan of
my brain. It’s unmistakable, even to Karen, that white shape like a jagged heart in its center.
“Inoperable,” I say. “Smack in the middle.” And for a moment, I lose my voice, just hold a hand over each ear, shake-almost-
thrash my head while on the verge of screaming. “In my brain.”
She runs to me and falls down on the couch with a rash of tears, then grips my hands and pulls them from my head. She holds
my tense hands hard and looks into my eyes, hers powdery blue and faded with strain.
“There must be options,” she says. “Something?”
But I can’t reply. My head falls to her shoulder and I sob, dry and doleful gulps for air, sob in her arms long beyond the time
when the sun concedes to night.
The next morning, I wake up early, some hours before Karen. I know she’s tired. I am. Last night, the dream came and again I
scared the girl to jump, again I lay on the edge of that cliff, tear-streaked and worn and watched the white dress fade into
darkness.
Out of bed, I wrap a robe around me and walk to my office. I sit down and stare at the computer screen, those hundreds of stars
shooting through darkness. I shake the mouse to stop them, then go online. As I have so many times before, I search for
medical information, read about treatments, side-effects. I’ve seen it all.
So I search for something different – repetitive dreams of the terminally ill. And then I find her.
Karen finds me at the kitchen table with a newspaper spread over its surface.
“You look rested,” she says. “Slept well?”
“Yes,” I lie.
She purses her lips and pours some coffee.
Across the table from me, she turns the warm mug in her hands and remains silent. She doesn’t know what to say, what’s too
trivial or too much of an acknowledgement of my condition. I understand this because I understand Karen.
I slide my hand over the table into hers. “Would you take a few weeks off if I asked you?”
“Of course,” she says, squeezes my hand. “Anything.”
“Then we’re taking a vacation.”
“To see the girls?”
“No, not yet. I will call them, but not now. I just can’t tell them to drop their lives and run up here. Besides, they never liked the
cold weather.”
“You know they’d come.”
“And that’s why I can’t call them. Mary has the baby and Pam’s finally in a relationship that’s not with a co-worker.”
“But you called me.”
“You live closer,” I say. “And you will help me find her.”
next page
