BEYOND THIS
By Angela Carlton
 

There’s something different about my smile. The days are giggle-fun and bright, and I move with ease as I wait for you.

In the evening, you have a taste for hearty meats, flaky warm breads, marmalade and sweet corn butter. I will pour you that glass of sparkling water with one lemon wedge, pull back the drapes and let the stillness of night welcome us. Later we will have chilled pudding or fudge cake with a scoop of whipped cream, not one cherry but two. You like two. And I will play those old jazz records while we dine by the glow of our stained glass lamp. 

After dinner, you like to take walks down the beach, so we do. The warm salty air tickles my face as I breathe in the life that surrounds me. I will sing to you, Ella Fitzgerald-style, as we walk along the cool sand, hearts pounding, water foaming between my toes, the warmth of my body burning my cheeks like lava.

At night, I read to you, read you Browning’s poems as we lie between the paisley green sheets with our tri-colored terrier nuzzled at my feet. I read until we float away and you come to me faceless in a dream. Rose-colored skin, thick around the middle and smiling, you mouth the words I cannot see or hear, leaving me breathless when I open my eyes.

Every other week I go to your doctor’s appointments, listen as he tells us about your progress, clutch my purse while his lips move with the medical jargon I can never fully understand. Outside the palms sway furiously in the South Florida breeze. People are walking-laughing-breathing as we sit in the cold office-minds racing to the rhythm of our own fears.

“The chances are slim,” the doctor tells us, on this powder blue day. “Slim” he repeats, and the rest of me shuts down. 

But I will cook the hearty meats, prepare those golden breads, walk with you, read and draw your bath water in the evening. It’s just the way you like it, lukewarm, not hot. See. And you can soak here while I close my eyes and try to dream.

It’s early September now. Another appointment and you are fading. There’s less time, but I wait, wait with a strength I found from within and force a smile as we leave the medical center.

On the way home everything seems to unravel around us.  The ocean roars as the high winds whistle against our rooftop. In the silence, we watch a coconut fall from the sky as the sands blow with a fury that tosses and turns inside me, rumbling and roaring until I let go.

Just moments before the storm breaks, I do.
 

When the rain comes, we lie on the sofa and watch as the drops roll down the bay window. It’s soothes us for awhile as I place my hand upon you and tell you the silly things I did as a child. Like the time I went to my neighbor’s house in need of a bath towel, showing up at their door wearing nothing but a purple headband or that outrageous moment, when I dressed my poor frail poodle up like the devil and dragged him to a child’s tea party.

I tell you about my mother, how she used to play the piano for me when I had trouble sleeping or how she gave me the zoo, not a book, when I needed to know what a Llama was.

I am with you, when you sleep, telling you the things I never have had the courage to really do. But in the darkness, when things seem peaceful, I imagine myself actually writing that long awaited letter to the old friend, or going back to university for a higher degree in the arts. Sighing before I turn to the pillow, you have given me more than one reason to try.
 
There is no need to go to the doctor now. Food has become tasteless. Salt and butter do not help, but I force it down and pretend I have an appetite for you. I am thirsty, always thirsty, but nothing seems to satisfy me so I pour you another glass of water and watch the lemon float around the rim of our tropical fish glass.  

The house is spacious and quiet as I slip from room to room shuffling this and tossing that, desperately searching for some kind of order. Outside there are colors, chalky blues and pinks. Still I stay behind the glass where things are familiar, safe. The sky is not enough for me now. 

But I will sit on the back patio and watch the Florida sunset for you. Beyond this-the world lives as I drift. I drift between classic moments, good thoughts of you and me.

And then you go. 

I find I am not as strong as I had wanted to be. The body trembles. My mind goes blank. I sleep for days.

In time, you will be, I tell myself.  

Be and grow, like the faceless wonder that floated inside, the one that slipped away, the child I never knew.
 
 
 

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This flash piece by ANGELA CARLTON was previously published in Coastlines. Aside from publishing a story in Mid-South Review, her work has been published in The Dead Mule and Inverse News.