TITLE: Hours of Lead
AUTHOR: Susanne Barringer
EMAIL: sbarringer@usa.net
ARCHIVE: Anywhere okay with these headers attached.
CATEGORY: VA
DISCLAIMER: Borrowed from CC, 1013, and Fox. No
infringement intended.
Post-Requiem. All other information withheld.
THANKS to Sue, who reminds me everyday that the best
friendships come from the least expected places. And she betas
good, too. :)
_________
Hours of Lead
by Susanne Barringer
~~~~~~~~~~
This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--
- Emily Dickinson
~~~~~~~~~~
In a weird sort of way, waiting becomes easier. At first, you're
afraid to leave the house, afraid to take a shower, afraid to be away
from the phone for even five seconds. You answer the phone
before the first ring has even completed. You constantly check
your cell phone to make sure it's charged. Your heart pounds in
fear whenever you hear a familiar voice on the other end of the line,
and even more when it's unfamiliar. You take the phone with you
into the bathroom, just in case.
In the second month, you're willing to venture away a little bit, even
if just for a minute. You don't obsess so much about being within
arm's distance of a phone anymore. You sometimes let the phone
ring twice before answering. Still, when you're gone, you call to
check your voice mail every fifteen minutes, just in case.
By the third month, you sometimes don't take your cell phone with
you when you go to the store to pick up milk. You no longer jump
out of your skin every time the phone rings. You don't run to
answer it anymore because you know it's probably another person
trying to sell you aluminum siding. Occasionally, you don't think
you can handle your mother or your boss or your friend calling to
ask for the thousandth time how you are doing, so you don't answer
the phone at all, even though you're sitting right next to it. You
never turn off your answering machine, though, just in case.
You are nearly four months into waiting and learning to live with it
when the call comes, from the place you least expect.
"We need someone to identify the body."
And with that, the silent waiting comes to a screaming halt.
*****
She takes her mother with her to Oregon because she isn't yet sure
if she needs to do it alone, or if she can't do it alone. She knows
her mother will understand whatever last minute decision she
makes.
In the end, she needs to do it alone.
There isn't a mark on him, not one. She pulls back the sheet and
examines him closely, looking for punctures or scars from tests she
chooses not to imagine. His body is clear, just like it was before he
left.
Only after she examines his body does she look at his face. She
knew it was him when she walked into the room. The shape of
him, along with the dead spot in her heart, confirmed what she
already suspected.
She looks up to his face and sees him now as his partner, as his
lover, rather than as the doctor she had been just a few moments
prior. He looks peaceful, she thinks--thinner along the cheekbones
and jaw, but still himself.
Her own calmness surprises her, the shock numbing her to any kind
of reaction. She strokes his forehead, his cold lips, then kisses him.
She is astonished when he doesn't kiss her back. She could not
have prepared herself for that because it is unimaginable. The jolt
finally allows her grief to push away the shock.
*****
At first, you don't notice that you're not waiting anymore. There
are too many things to do. There are people you need to notify,
although, perhaps, not as many as it seems there should be. There
is a service to plan, probably simple and unpretentious, as he would
have wanted. Perhaps you have to go through his belongings
because there is no one else to do it.
There are things to deal with at work, and maybe you even have a
doctor's appointment or two which you had previously put off
because of the waiting. There are also people who want to visit
you and listen to you and bring you casseroles. They know you
loved him, and that makes it difficult for you to talk to them the
way they want. You notice how much they whisper to each other
when they think you aren’t looking. They are worried about you.
You have family who want to take care of you, but all you want is
to be left alone. You want to know what it is like not to wait
anymore. You think maybe waiting was better. It will take some
time until the emptiness of knowing hits you full force.
*****
At the grocery store, she tosses a bag of sunflower seeds into her
cart. This is habit. At home, she has fourteen packages in the
cupboard above her stove, one for each week he's been missing.
She is already in the next aisle before she remembers she is not
waiting anymore. By the time she reaches frozen food, she is in
tears. It feels good to cry against the cool air.
She doesn't need to be reminded there is something to live for. She
feels it every day, shifting inside her womb. She has heard its
heartbeat and seen it, a pattern of darkness and light on a monitor.
Some days it doesn't seem enough, like the fourteen bags of
sunflower seeds. Other days it is all that she needs.
*****
When everything is done, all the loose ends tied up, you finally
understand that there is no more waiting. You realize you don't
know how to live that way anymore. What do you do with yourself
when a ringing phone no longer holds any hope? What do you do
when you no longer wake before the nightmare ends?
Knowing seems better than not knowing, but learning to give up
waiting is the hardest of all. Life proceeds with definition now,
with yes or no answers to all questions. You are not used to that.
You need to wait for something. You feel like you just might be
able to survive if you can count the days toward something instead
of the days since.
*****
For the first time, she flips the calendar forward three months to
look at the promised date. Until now, there has been no forward--
only each single day, full of leaden hours, then a silent passing to
the next.
April 17th. She studies it carefully, how square and even it is on
the page. The date falls near the middle but not quite, padded on
all four sides with other days. It is a Tuesday. Monday's child is
fair of face; Tuesday's child is full of grace.
She circles the date with a thick blue marker and waits for grace.
~~~~~
END
It's not my usual style, so I’d love to know if it worked.
sbarringer@usa.net
All my fanfic housed at http://www.oocities.com/s_barringer
~~~~
Here’s the complete Emily Dickinson poem, just because I love it:
After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious--like Tombs--
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round--
Of ground, or Air, or Ought--
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone--
This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--
(
geocities.com/area51/dreamworld) (
geocities.com/area51)