| He drives down Church Street, past the house that is covered in Christmas lights, plastic Santas and reindeer on the front lawn. The house was decorated so last year and the year before; he has driven past it two Christmases in a row, he realizes. Two Christmases he has spent with her and now a third, but she isn't expecting him. He arrived from London three hours ago and sat in the food court of the aiport deciding whether he should find her or get the next flight to Tulsa. He turns down the big hill and sees her apartment. He knows right where it is and where her window is (he remembers lying in her bed and staring between the two houses across the street where he could see the big Citgo sign on the edge of the city). There is a light on; the only window lit up on the building and he parks across the street. *** As if the pain hadn't writhed like a demon through her stomach long enough. As if her fever hadn't climbed so high as to send chills down her back and on the insides of her elbows, brought tiny beeds of sweat to decorate the pale olive of her skin. As if her tears weren't enough. If things had gone her way, she would have forgotten him already. If she had any control over the way things worked, she could have dismissed him like a child from a kindergarten class at the end of the school year--set him free from her care and into the arms of another without a second thought. But because she found herself frail and wet-eyed in the corner of her apartment at the bottom of the hill on School Street, she could only pretend her stomachache was simply hunger. She listened carefully for cars speeding past her building as she usually heard but it was Christmas Eve and everyone was tucked away with their families in front of the fire. If she could only have him there with her, her Christmas bush would be decorated and there would be food in her refrigerator (she always forgot to eat; he had to remind her). Still listening, she heard a car slow and stop in front of the building. A door slammed and feet crunched over the snow blanketing the front walk. She heard a quiet voice in her head pleading with God to let the light on her intercom turn bright green and give her the opportunity to bring her ear to the speaker and hear his voice. Still, she didn't think she had the strength to walk across the room and listen. A shrill buzz bounced off her walls and inside her body. She crawled over the floor, the cold wood of the boards bringing an ache to her knees. When she reached her door, she rose with a strength she had never felt to the intercom. Her finger pressed the green button firmly. "Yes?" she said softly. "Anna, it's me. Can I come up?" "Yes," she said again. Her stomach still hurt terribly and her shirt stuck to her back while her skin felt as if it had been frozen. She wanted to see his face and feel his skin against hers so she could be sure that she was alive and there was still life around her instead of the death she felt nawing at her feet and hands. *** Anna leaned closer to his body and felt the hairs on her skin rise in response to his presence before her. He stood still with his arms at his sides and his hair in his eyes. She sensed that his muscles had contracted and his body was hard, his blood turned solid. She backed away without touching him as she longed to do. She asked him what was wrong and he replied in silence but she didn't understand. He walked past her, his breath dancing over her head and blowing a strand of her hair awry. He stopped when he saw the balls of tissues on the floor and the small bottle of ibuprofen on the table. He realized she was only wearing a pale blue pair of panties with her tee shirt when he saw her jeans on the floor near the bathroom with a large blood stain on the seat of them. "Is it still inside of you, Anna?" he asked softly, brushing his fingers over the dried stain. She turned around just as he did and hung her arms at her sides waiting for them to fall off. Her hair fell down around her face as she began to cry. She kept her eyes open, staring at the buttons on his coat, and let her tears wash over her cheeks once again; they slid over her skin as easily has rain glides over tree leaves and to the earth. She hoped her tears would wash her away just as rain washes grains of sand down the street in spring. "Anna, is it still inside of you?" he asked again, dropping her jeans to the floor. He felt his voice rise and felt the dearth of control he possessed to keep his body steady. He wanted to be angry with her and he wanted to be able to walk past her and out of the apartment, into his car and back to the airport. But most of all he wanted to be able to look at his Anna, place his hand on her stomach and feel the blossom of life growing inside of her. He wanted to dream of the day when he could hold his flower, his child, and dwell in euphoric disbelief of the fact that he had created such a beauteous human being. As he looked at Anna crying and the paleness of her bare skin, the definition of her collarbone rising and falling as she wept, he saw the emptiness inside of her, the vacant cavity that was her stomach. He saw the emptiness in her eyes and watched their color disappear with each tear that fell; he watched pieces of his baby slide over Anna's skin and land in a clear puddle at her feet. He knew then that his child was gone and he became sad. He also wished he had been home with Anna as she felt her baby being taken from her body and that he had held her hand and talked with her; kissed her mouth and promised he would always love her, because he always would and he wasn't sure if she knew it. "Why didn't you tell me what you were going to do?" "I didn't tell anyone," she sobbed. "I just went to the clinic. This morning." "I would have helped you, Anna," "I know. Oh my God Taylor, I killed it. My baby." "No you didn't, Anna." "I'm so sorry. Please don't leave." He took her in his arms then, wrapping her inside of him where she could keep warm; her skin was cold. "I love you, Anna." Together they knelt to the floor and he wrapped her inside his coat. Together they slept. |
| School Street |
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